The Emperor's new clothes

For some stupid ridiculous reason yesterday I decided to go Boxing Day shopping with Will. The weather was beautiful and we walked up the hill to the mall with snowflakes settling gently all around us and our breath making steam in the cold. There was such an atmosphere of festivity and happiness that it was contagious. In the mall there were more people than I've ever seen there before. We took a deep breath and dove in. Christmas decorations were on sale! 60% off! I got sucked into buying some beautiful christmas balls and then in another store everything was 2 for 1! I bought underwear (which I didn't need) and a summer shirt (which I probably also did not need).
Will and I got separated and I waited outside the store we were supposed to meet at and didn't see him. I wandered through the crushing crowds calling his name and hoping he would hear me. It was stifling hot and there was so much noise and the lights were so bright and I began to feel suffocated and disgusted with myself. Why had I bought those christmas balls? And the underwear? Why had I given in to this rampant commercialism, this greedy striving to get more STUFF, this abdication of social responsibility and the wanton throwing away of money on cheap stuff?
There was a girl standing against a pillar holding a sign that said 'Instead of spending money, why not spend some time talking together?' and she had a group of people that had gathered around her talking to her. I don't know what they were talking about. Maybe they were just stopping to see why someone wanted to talk, not buy.
My last stop was a store with 2 for 1 swimsuits and I struggled out of my 3 layers of snow gear to try one on. The mirror in the change room was dark and I noticed suddenly how fat and ugly the swimsuit made me look. I did not look like the mannequin in the window; I looked ridiculous. I tried to get it off but the tie was stuck and for some reason I was embarrassed like I didn't want anyone to know I was standing in a little swimsuit in the middle of winter in this crazy mall full of rushing people.
I emerged from the mall to find Will waiting for me where we'd originally parted; looking as exhausted as me. We went outside and suddenly all around us was white snow; calm, tranquility, the beauty of nature, smiling neighbors shoveling their walkways.... I felt like I could breathe again.
After dinner yesterday evening I was playing scrabble with my mom and siblings and I was losing but telling them how I was going to beat them all and my mom suddenly asked me, why are you showing off?
I thought about it for a second and then said to her, “it's because I feel bad about myself, so I'm trying to compensate by making myself seem better.”
“Snap out of it”, she told me. “Just grow up.”
I gave her a look that said, “That's not a very supportive and comforting thing for a mother to say”
She laughed. “I only get paid $5/hour for this advice, so that's what you get! If you want something better, you'll have to pay me more.”
I thought about it later, and thought about shopping in the mall, and trying on that swimsuit in front of the mirror. Maybe it's the change in weather, but our bathroom mirror at home has become warped and no matter how you stand in front of it, it looks funny, kind of like a circus mirror. I look in that mirror and see myself looking strange and I know in my mind that that is not what I actually look like, but it still bothers me.
The problem is that in life I am often looking in the wrong mirror. The mirror in the mall tells me that if I spend my money and buy those beautiful clothes and if I get as much as I can I will have value and I will be satisfied. All those people are rushing around and I joined in like one more rat in the rat race.
But the problem is, when I listen to the lie, the lie that money and clothes and buying and stuff and fame and all that, will make me happy; I become disenchanted. I was disenchanted when I saw that girl holding the sign and I realized that I should be there holding that sign and actually talking to people. I was disenchanted when I looked at myself in a swimsuit and felt like the emperor who was walking through the city naked and suddenly realized he had been made a fool of and hadn't actually put on a beautiful invisible outfit: he was naked. I felt disenchanted when I suddenly realized over a scrabble game that it didn't matter if I won, but it mattered greatly how I lost.
Sometimes when we look in the wrong mirror we become deceived about the way things actually are, and we allow ourselves to be caught up in something that is false. And sometimes all it takes to make us see the truth is someone telling us to grow up and snap out of it.
At any rate, you won't catch me boxing day shopping for a while. Maybe you won't even catch me shopping for a while. But I am going to try my hand at scrabble again tonight....

Winter wonderland

So right now I'm totally snowed in, in every way possible. I went up to Kelowna for a week and had a most wonderful week- staying up late every night, going for 2 am walks in the snow and watching the flakes drift down in the orange light of street lamps....tobboganning, sitting by a crackling fire, playing scrabble and cards and dominoes (I lost horribly), hanging out with friends, watching movies (I finally saw the Dark Knight), eating oranges and chocolate and eggnog and having a wonderful time. Yesterday Will and I started the treacherous drive home and to make a long story short, we ended up stranded in Aggasiz with a broken down car, no cellphone, no tools, no warm blankets, and yes, I had left my wool socks behind in Kelowna.
To make the even longer miraculous story shorter, I spent christmas eve eve sleeping on Will's shoulder in the cab of a tow truck with tendrils of cigarette smoke curling around the cab and outside the snow was falling.
This morning I woke up in my own bed and realized I have a broken down car and the airport is shut down and I'm supposed to leave for Chicago in just over a week and apparently the snow is just going to keep falling. I think I would be excited about the adventure but the fact is, I'm not just snowed in physically, I feel a bit snowed in emotionally.
I feel like I left part of myself behind in Kelowna and I wish I was there but at the same time of course I want to be home in Vancouver for christmas.... of course I do. I love my family and I wanted to see the look on my nieces' faces when they open their presents and I want to sit by the christmas tree and play scrabble with my mom and have eggnog drinking competitions with my brothers and all the wonderful christmas things we do.....
Several years ago a man I hardly knew prophesied over me and told me that I had laid plans, but that God was going to turn them upside down. That he knew the desires of my heart and was going to give them to me, but in a way that was different than expected.
I feel like right now I'm in a surreal world. It doesn't help that everything is buried in snow outside, which makes it seem a bit weird. But things are not going according to plan. Perhaps that's a good thing. Perhaps I just need to go with what is happening and not worry about what might happen.
So while I'm stuck in this winter wonderland I'm going to enjoy it. We have a hot tub on the porch that we can wade through two feet of snow to get to.... and sit in it with eggnog... and of course there is gingerbread and candy canes and christmas carols and family and friends and lots of love and the joy that God brings every day, just one day at a time.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Last exam tomorrow! I'm freaking out!!!!!! I'm totally out of motivation and brains and energy, and I'm sort of considering not studying and just guessing on the exam, but it's pharmacology, and that's probably a bad idea.
I can't wait to be done and then I'm going to go to bed, in the middle of the day, yes, and catch up on sleep. Then I'm going to watch a movie. Any movie, I don't care which one, just something on a tv. It's been way too long.

Responding to the face of God

Another day with crazy patients today.... yelling at me, getting fresh with me, at least I didn't have anyone throw anything at me or pee on my shoes. (Yes, that has actually happened).
I've been studying like crazy recently, and in the next week I expect to be studying even more, because I have my last 2 exams coming up. After these exams I'm done writing exams for UHSA. The only ones I'll have to write are my board licensing exams (big 8-10 hour monsters), one of which will be coming up in a few short months. In January I'm going to a little town in Illinois called Champaign to take another course, and then in the Spring I'm likely heading off the Atlanta, Georgia. These aren't definite firm plans, but since people are always asking me what I'm doing, it's helpful to at least have something to say. (“What do you mean, you have no idea where you're going?”)
I've been discouraged the last few months about my school, and not comfortable settling into my role as a doctor-to-be. This week I went out to TWU, where I studied chemistry for 4 years, and visited some of my old professors. My favorite teacher of all time, Dr. Van Dyke, who taught me organic and polymer chemistry, was delighted to see me and we chatted for a while before he had to rush off to an interview. I was heading back towards my car and he was still in his interview, and suddenly there was this little voice inside me that said, Heather, wait for him, because there is something he needs to say to you.
I dawdled around in the bookstore for awhile until he finished and then I went back to his office with him. We sat surrounded by bookshelves full of chemistry textbooks and talked about life, about school, about old memories and new ones that were being made.
“Heather,” he told me, “There's a piece of advice I want to give you. I don't think you will have a problem with this, but I want to tell you anyway.”
He told me how many doctors he had met had lost the human touch, they became so wrapped up in being professional and doing a good job that they forgot who they were, and who the patient sitting in front of them was. He looked at me with his kind eyes and said,
“This is what you tell them: I am not Dr. Davies. I am a person, like yourself, who responds to the face of God. I will share with you what I know and what I've learned, in the hopes that it can help you. Never be too professional to touch your patients, and to really get personal with them.”
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. At that moment I knew how true it was, what he was saying. It is so easy in this world to put a label on ourselves, or on other people. That man is a doctor. That woman is a librarian. She's a swimming instructor. She's a stay-at-home mom. He's a farmer.
And we put false labels on ourselves. I'm a nurse. I'm a student. I'm a chemist. I'm a doctor.
But what are we, really? Deep down inside, what are you?
You are a person- a living human being- created in God's image, specially created to respond to the face of God. Your meaning and purpose, my meaning and purpose, is found only in how I relate to God. Deep down inside I'm not a doctor, although that's fine if people call me that, but really I'm Heather Davies, I'm a child of God, and I've studied all this stuff about medicine with the hopes that I may be able to share it with other people and help them find healing. Knowledge is intended to serve other people... as an expression of their worth in God's sight.
It's hard to see myself the way God sees me. Some days I feel intelligent and beautiful, other days I feel pretty darn low. (Nursing seems to be a continual blow to my self-esteem!) But it helps to remember, who am I in Christ? And why am I doing this?
I challenge you to ask yourself those questions, in relation to your job. Have you lost touch with your 'patients'? (With your co-workers, your customers, your family?)Why has God given you the skills or the knowledge or the opportunities he has? How does it change the way you work to know that you are responding to the face of God, and out of that, sharing love with those people around you?

Sometimes nursing sucks

I walked towards my med cart and there was one of my patients sitting there in his wheelchair, looking like he was ready to spit fire at me.
“It’s 8:20” He said. “I have been waiting for you to bring me my pills so I could eat my breakfast. There is simply no excuse for this.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m getting them right now.” I assured him hastily.
It had been a fairly busy morning, and I was still well within the ordered time for his drugs- not that they were anything critical, anyway, like pain medications, or something that had to be given on the minute.
“I can’t believe this.” He said, and wheeled away from me.
I popped his pills out of their blister packs and checked them against his chart and hurried after him.
“Here you are, sir.” I gave them to him with a glass of juice.
“I don’t want that juice!” He barked at me. “I want my pills on time!”
“You’ll have to excuse me this once.” I apologized graciously. “I’ll make sure they’re on time next time.”
He was still glaring at me and I asked helpfully, “What can I do for you?”
“You can disappear!” He shouted.
That is exactly what I would like to do, I thought. I went back to my med cart and continued preparing for other patients.
By the time I was finished with the morning meds I had mounds of paperwork piling up and one of my patients was pushing his call bell incessantly. I went down the hall to assess one of the patients, an old Scottish man. As I usually do, I knocked on the door as I entered and called out “Hello, Mr. Jones!” in a cheery voice.
“Get the f*** out of my f****** room !” He shouted at me from his bed.
“Uh oh!” I said laughingly, putting on my best Scottish accent, “I was just coming to see how you were”.
“How the f*** do you think I am? I’m stuck in this place, for crying out loud!”
“Well, I guess I didn’t need to ask that.” I returned good-humoredly, approaching the bed warily. I have expected him to throw something at me.
He squinted at me.
“Well, you’re beautiful, you are!” He said in his thick accent. “What do you want from me?”
“I came to ask if you’re having any pain, and if you need any medication for it.”
“You’re medication for my eyes, sweetheart! You ARE a fine looking thing.”
“Thanks.” I laughed, moving some things on his tray.
“You know, if you put on five pounds, you’d be beautiful!” He continued, looking at me critically. “More beautiful, I mean.”
“Well, I’m glad you added that ‘more’” I joked, turning to go in a hurry.
“Now I’d definitely be feeling better if I was married to a young girl like you.” He said. “You just ask Scotty here, and I’ll give you what you want, for whatever you like.”
(And a few more inappropriate comments that I won’t repeat here.)
He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and thrust them towards me.
“$80.00 is what I go for, that’s not too expensive.”
“Uh….” I took a step back.
“I’d really like it if you’d do a black lace show.” He suggested.
“I don’t think so.” I said good-naturedly, and headed out of his room.
“I’ll see you later!” He called after me.
No, you won’t, I thought as I went out, cause I’m sending the male nurse in to help you get dressed.
On my way back to the nursing station I was stopped by another patient.
“Hello, there! You know, you look exactly like my daughter!”
I smiled. “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment!”
“Oh, it is! She’s beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! And you are the exact spitting image of her. Why, your eyes, your hair, your nose, everything about you! Exactly like her!”
But I certainly hope he didn’t look at his daughter the way he was looking at me.
As I walked past him later in the day he whistled and called out, “Hello, beautiful girl! I can’t get over how much you look like my daughter!”
There were other lines today, too.
Me: “Are you having any pain?”…..Mr. R: “Yes, my eyes hurt every time I look at you, you’re so beautiful.”
Mr. G: “I just woke up from a terrible nightmare!”…..Me: “Oh dear, that’s too bad. Are you feeling any better now?”…. Mr. G: “Well, as soon as I saw you, it ended!”
Mr. B: “Can’t you @#$%#$% nurses leave me alone?”
During my break I locked myself in the bathroom and stood in the front of the mirror, feeling discouraged. Shapeless nursing uniform. Tired eyes. Perhaps they were all blind and crazy. Perhaps I needed to let everything everyone said just roll off my back.
Some days having someone, even a crazy patient, tell you that you are beautiful, is flattering. But then there are other days, like today, when it really does make me want to disappear.

Real life

Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking. I was at my Spanish class tonight, and we were in Starbucks, and we had finished the class and I was just sitting and chatting with the teacher for a few minutes. We had just started into this deep conversation about life plans when suddenly the door burst open and a man ran in and started shouting and ran behind the counter and was knocking things over.
He was shouting that he'd been shot, and the girl behind the counter was trying to stop him from coming in and he ran towards the back of the store and was leaping around agitatedly. I jumped up (as did one or two other people) and my teacher grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911 and the man was shouting that someone was coming after him. The door burst open again and another guy started to come in but then seeing all the people he just swore at the first guy and threw something down on the floor and dashed out.
I was on my feet heading towards the first guy, my purse poised like a weapon. (I don't know what I was going to do, hit him with it? Use it as a shield?) He didn't have any weapons that I could see and he wasn't visibly hurt or bleeding, which was a relief because there's nothing worse than contemplating first aid on a crazy person that's twice your size.
The girl working there was telling him to leave and he was saying that he was being chased, and then he turned to me and asked, didn't you see that other guy?
Yes, I said. But he's gone now. I looked out the window to see if the other guys were waiting outside. Take a seat, she told him, we'll call the police.
No, don't call the police!
He weaved between the chairs, knocking them over.
To make a long story short, he eventually went out and the police arrived and things settled down, and I ended up sitting and chatting with my teacher and another man who heard us speaking Spanish and came over and wanted to talk to us. I understood about 50% because his accent was so strong, but I nodded along anyway.
I thought about the unfortunate incident as I watched the reflection of circling blue and red lights in the window. Life is not all safe and controlled, is it? When I'm in the hospital there is always a certain risk involved, but there are security guards, and I have tranquilizers to give if I have to, and I am prepared for people to flip out. I'm not prepared for a gun-wielding crazy man while I'm having a quiet coffee in Starbucks. It is a little unsettling.
But that's what life is like- only 100 times worse- for so many of the world, even many in our city. What if I had to fight for survival everyday? Sitting at home studying I feel so disconnected from reality. Real life is not neatly packaged like my textbook. Real life is not quiet and controlled and manageable. Real life requires much more courage and resilience and creativity. Real life is not safe, even if we think it is. But it is an adventure!

Tidings of great comfort and joy

Why haven't I written on my blog for so long? The first reason, I guess, is that nothing much interesting is happening right now. Contrary to popular belief, I don't always have an exciting adventurous life. For example, the last few weeks have been variations on a theme of work with crazy patients, study by myself and feel like I'm a crazy patient, hang out with my family and realize they're crazy to be patient with me. Actually they're wonderful the way they're patient with me.... I am going a little psychotic these days.
Which is the other reason I have been avoiding blogging is that I don't want Happy Heather's Hullaballoo to be an emotional whinefest, because the purpose of my writing is to encourage all my readers, and honestly, what is so encouraging about reading how I'm falling apart? But the truth is, I sort of am.
This morning I sat in bed and was reading in the bible- The apostle Paul tells the church in Corinth that he has been having a tough time in Asia- actually, “(We) were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.”
Wow, that doesn't sound like Happy Heather's Hullaballoo at all. But it's true, isn't it? And I know deep inside that I'm not the only one feeling that way. I don't think the normal experience of life is always to be slogging through a never-ending pit of hardship- but certainly there are mountains and valleys in life and everyone has to go through some valleys. My struggles as a medical student are real and grueling, but so are the struggles of other people I know who are going through equally difficult things. Plummeting economy and the prospect of losing your job. The day to day pressure of looking after a disabled kid. Getting your heart broken just one more time. Stuck in a difficult marriage. Everyone has struggles, right?
The first chapter of 2 Corinthians strikes a chord deep inside. (Especially cause Paul repeats the same word a million times. See if you can pick up on it.)
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”
Did you see the word comfort again and again? Does it remind you of a soft feather quilt wrapped around you and a cup of tea and your mom patting your hair as you drift off to sleep? What does all this comfort have to do with suffering?
We're sharing our sufferings. Not one of us is alone in them. If you think you're alone, I challenge you to phone up a friend, any friend, and ask if they've gone through any hard things that week. (Hint: try calling my sister-in-law Yvonne...she had a baby yesterday)
Are we also sharing in our comfort? What is that comfort? Read 2 Corinthians 1... here are a couple that stood out to me.
“Jesus Christ... was not 'yes' and 'no', but in him it has always been 'YES'. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'YES' in Christ.”
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.”
Can you understand that? God's promises WILL come true. It is him who is responsible for keeping us together. I don't have to worry that I'm going crazy and that I won't make it and that someone is going to have to scrape me off the sidewalk and check me into a mental hospital. Although for the record, if I do end up there, please send me a good looking doctor.

91 and kicking

You know what I want to be like when I am 91 years old? Just like the patient I had last night.
I came into his room to bring him some pills and he grinned from ear to hear.
“Come right on in, don't be shy!”
I looked at the pictures of his family he had and talked to him for a minute about the weather outside.
“Do you know how old I am?” He asked me with a twinkle in his little blue eyes.
I decided to guess on the low side.
“80?”
“Higher.” He said.
“85?”
“Higher”
“89?”
“Almost! I'll be 91 in January!”
“Well, you sure look good,” I told him. “And best of all”, I pointed to his forehead, “You still have all your faculties.”
“Oh yes, I do!” He crowed. “How many 91-year-olds do you know that can say the ABC's backwards?”
And then without a pause he began to rattle off the ABC's in reverse.
“And how many 91-year-olds do you know that can say this sentence fast, three times?” He asked, and then proceeded with something like “I slept on three slit sheets that sure slipped sleet like shirt sheets”... or something like that.
He rattled it off three times in a row and that beamed at me. “See if you can say that one.”
Growing up with brothers has made me wise to that type of trick. I shook my head and laughed.
“I don't think so.”
I finished giving him his medications and he offered me some grape-flavored candies as I walked out of the room I could hear “slit sheets slipped sheepishly...”
Ah, the joie de vivre! On days when I feel discouraged I will think of him: bed-ridden, in pain, alone; but full of zest and still trying to trick some gullible nurse into saying something rude.

All in the head

Sometimes work just makes me stop and laugh. I have the craziest patients ever. I often thought that if I worked in a field of nursing with young, vibrant patients who were relatively normal, I would’ve stuck with it and not gone on to medicine. But actually I think the crazier patients really reassure me. They make me feel normal and like I’m not actually psychotic, it’s just in my head.
Yesterday, for example. I approached one patient and as I came up, he said in a very loud voice so everyone in the vicinity could hear,
“Now THAT is one GOOD-LOOKING girl!”
I was sort of embarrassed as I handed him his medication and he leaned over and squinted, trying to read my nametag.
“Heather, LPN. What does LPN stand for?”
The guy next to him groaned.
“Come on, Ray, give her a break.”
“hmmm…. Liquid…. Propane….”
I interrupted him. “It stands for little pretty nurse,” I said.
“Haha!” He rocked back on his chair. “That’s a good one! Little pretty nurse! Well, I’m not asking your age, that wouldn’t be polite, but I don’t know if I should call you a lady or a girl, you look much too young to be a nurse!”
“I’m 24.” I told him, “Which is much too young for you, by the way, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Are you kidding? 24? Why, I thought you were about 16!”
He started laughing and elbowed the guy next to him.
“I know! Sweet 16 and never been kissed!”
I had finished with his medication so I just gave him a withering look and walked away.
Later on I had to come back and see him again and I swear, it was like he saw me for the first time.
“Well, hello! I’ve never seen YOU here before! Where did you fall from? Are you an angel fallen from heaven?”
He looked down at my nametag…. “Heather, LPN. Hello, Heather! Well, what a nice-looking girl you are!”
A bit later in the day one of the other nurses came rushing towards me.
“Heather, can you go to the front door? Mr. Roland is out of control and I’m trying to get the doctor but Mrs. Taylor isn’t breathing…”
“Sure, no problem.”
I rushed to the front door and Mr. Roland, sitting in his wheelchair with a couple of nurses fluttering around him, was like a seething giant about to explode.
I put my hand on his knee and crouched down to meet his eye.
“What’s the problem, sweetheart?” (I couldn’t remember his first name.)
“Get the hell out of here!” He shouted and lifted his leg to kick me.
I leapt out of the way just in time. Well, maybe that approach wouldn’t work. He had a gash on his head that someone had put steri-strips over, and there was a massive purple bruise under his eye. He was talking nonsense, saying he wanted to get out, but he was so unsteady on his feet that he couldn’t stand up. I came up behind him and put my hand on his forehead to feel the temperature, then leapt out of the way of his flailing arms. No, he wasn’t hot, or sweating. I tried to think of the things that make people suddenly aggressive and psychotic. An infection could do it, but he didn’t have a fever. The fall on his head? A stroke, acute pain, drug interactions, alcohol, dementia, there are several possibilities. But with him in this state we couldn’t even examine him. There were already people staring. Another nurse came down the hall.
“The doctor finally gave me an order for an IM tranquilizer.” She said, pulling me aside. “See if you can get him out of the lobby and towards the nursing station.” (IM means intramuscular)
To make a long story short, it took a lot of negotiation, including bribes (“Coffee? We’ve got your son on the phone to speak with you…”) to get him out of the lobby.
At the nursing station there were people everywhere and he stood up shakily and held the receiver to his ear to talk to his son, shouting and flailing around. Suzanne, one of the other nurses, had drawn up the medication in a syringe and was standing off to the side.
“I don’t know if we can do this.” She said. “He’s wearing about 3 layers. We’ll have to get all those sleeves off so I can get it in his arm.”
“No way.” I said, pointing at his butt. “Go ventro-gluteal. We’ll hold him down and just get his pants down a bit and stick it in.”
Mr. Roland was shouting and throwing punches. One of the other nurses had nail marks on her arms and decided it was time to back off permanently. We waved over a couple of male nurses and Suzanne and I came in and I grabbed his arms and hung on for dear life and Suzanne got that needle in and he roared like a cornered bear and threw us off, but it was in. I felt like a superhero. We all retreated a few feet back and watched as it slowly began to take effect. One of the guys came up behind with his wheelchair and I approached cautiously.
“Here, Mr. Roland, have a seat.”
He slowly slumped down, mumbling, “Get the hell away from me. I don’t want anyone to touch me. What are you doing to me?”
And that was that. An hour later the doctor had seen him and he was sitting calmly, eating fruit salad.
And I was down the hall with my patient Phil who between gasps told me he couldn’t breathe and he was sick of suffering and wanted to die right now. I turned his oxygen on and went to get a bronchodilator and by the time I got back he was breathing normally and when the other nurse asked how his breathing was, he said it was no problem. But we checked his O2 sats (a measurement of the amount of oxygen in the blood) and they were at 86% (normal is 98%) and suddenly his chest was heaving again with the effort.
Crazy guy. I think if I couldn’t breathe I’d let everyone know.
So anyway. This week is week of the heart for me, and I’m wondering what’s going to go wrong. Week of the stomach I was nauseous and throwing up, week of the lungs I had bronchitis and was coughing away…. Hmmm….. maybe it is all in my head after all.

Death

Today I watched the huge maple across the lane
It’s leaves falling to the ground, the colour of flames
A few days ago it was a ball of fire, now death has crept over it
Beginning at the top, the branches are undressed of their glory
And stand like skinny naked sticks defying the gray sky
It is so complete, this death.

A few days ago my patient died in the hospital
I was with him before he went, sitting on the edge of his bed
In front of my very eyes I watched him diminish
I asked a question and he looked up at me once
And I was shocked to be confronted with the yawning pools
of blackness that were his eyes

Some deaths, I have heard, are noble and fine
The pain is no less, but there is some measure of hope
To sustain the one who is confronted with his own end
But this one was like watching him being sucked into a dark abyss
He had no family, not even one, and he knew it
I couldn’t hide in my eyes that he was dying

I wrapped my arms around his emaciated frame
As if I was trying to shield him from his death, his shame
But I cannot keep the leaves from falling from the skies
I cannot quench the scent of death, that pours from his eyes
I cannot soothe the cold finality that tears away his soul
And look inside, and speak of life, when death is knocking at the door

Forced to be real

Life is ironic and strange and humbling. Yesterday morning I had a deep discussion with my Dad and it wasn’t all that great, in fact I was extremely upset, and I went down into my room and closed the door and lay on my bed and was pretty unhappy. I heard him leave for work and I heard my mom leave and I was thinking how I didn’t want to talk to either of them, I was pretty upset and I didn’t want to be vulnerable and let them know how upset I was. I was thinking how I could possibly avoid them for the next week or so. Sometimes having someone close by who will bring up issues you don’t want to talk about is a pain. Not to mention painful.
I decided to go for a walk with my ipod, for several hours. I have a set of lectures on mp3 files and I love walking anyway so I put them in and was listening to them while I walked.
What is the nerve that is affected in winged scapula? The woman’s voice asks. There is a pause, not quite long enough for me to come up with an answer, and then the man answers, the long thoracic nerve. And on and on.
I walked for an hour. Listened to the lecture, talked to God, looked at the orange leaves falling off of trees and tried to settle my soul. Maybe I would walk all day and come home just before dinner but then leave with my sister without talking to them. Maybe I would stay out late and stay out the next day and then the next day I was working and maybe by then I would be calmer.
I was an hours walk away from home and I heard this loud noise and coming down the road towards me was a massive front-end loader with a huge scoop in the front. I had my headphones in and was in the zone but it was pretty noisy.
My parents were driving the front-end loader. I couldn’t believe it. There was no avoiding them.
“Hi, Heather!” They pulled over. “Where are you going? Do you want a ride?”
No, I don’t want a ride. In fact, I was wondering what kind of parents show up in the middle of nowhere driving a front-end loader just when their daughter really doesn’t want to talk?
“Hop in the shovel!” My Dad said.
I felt like laughing or crying, I’m not sure which. Maybe just punching something. I got in the shovel and my mom got in too and my Dad lifted us way up and started driving.
“So…. How are you doing?” My mom asked.
I am fine, I thought. Just fine. I was trying to avoid talking to you because I didn’t want to face my emotions and here I am stuck in a giant shovel with you driving down the road.
Later that night I went with my sister to a young people’s group but I was feeling sick, maybe I had a migraine, and when I got to our destination, went into the bathroom to throw up and then sat on the couch trying to massage my headache away. We had a good bible study and then afterwards everyone wanted to go make a fire on the beach but all I wanted to do was crawl into bed.
I lay in the car and tried to sleep and not think about throwing up and not think about how crazy my life is and not think about how upset I am about things and all the things that aren’t working out.
Our friend Leonard dropped me off at his house, which was near the beach, and showed me a ratty looking futon in the basement I could sleep on. He gave me some ibuprofen and water and turned out the lights and I lay on the dirty futon in the dark, so cold that I was curled up in a ball with my hands inside my toque to keep them from hurting. I was right next to the water boiler and all the pipes, and every time someone in the building flushed a toilet or something, it sounded like a waterfall next to me. I lay there drifting in and out of sleep and thinking about things.
What is the name of the liver fluke that has it’s intermediate host in a water snail?..... Clonorchis sinensis.
Why is it so hard to be vulnerable?.... Why is everything in my life not working out?.... there is a long pause, and there is no answer. Go to sleep, Heather.
I woke up this morning and the sun was shining in the window and I read in the bible, Cast all your anxiety on him, for he cares for you.
I bounced out of bed (grrr I hate that I’m such a morning person!) and went upstairs and there was my family and I didn’t really care anymore about not talking to them, my Dad had a sore knee and I took a look at it, and made waffles and did Hannah’s hair and drank coffee. Everything is going to be okay.

Helplessness

One of the things I find the most difficult about nursing and medicine is the feeling of helplessness. Today I was working (as a nurse!) and had some pretty sick patients. I went into Ben’s room sometime in the morning to find him half-way between his bed and wheelchair, about to fall on the floor. I ran over to help him and was shocked to find he weighed as much as a little child. I helped him back into bed.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
He stared up at me with dull eyes sunken into his emaciated face and didn’t answer.
“What’s the matter? How are you feeling?”
“What do you think?” He gasped between labored breaths.
Later I found him slumped over in his chair and I squatted down next to him, trying to see if I could rouse him. Had he had a stroke? I put a hand across his shoulder and felt every single bone across his back and shoulders protruding out. He was literally nothing but skin and bones. He was dying. I adjusted his oxygen mask and turned it up a little, smoothed down his shirt. I counted his irregular pulse and ragged breathing, and I wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his skinny arm. I couldn’t get a reading; it was so thready and weak and his arm was nothing but paper-thin skin stretched over his fragile bones.
“What should I do?” I asked the charge nurse.
“Do you think he had a TIA?” She asked me. (A mini-stroke.)
“Maybe….. I think he’s just wasting away.” I said.
“The doctor will be back soon.” She said. “You can get him to take a look at him.”
The only thing was, I knew what the doctor was going to do. Nothing. What could he do? Maybe some protein shakes, but Ben wasn’t eating. Maybe some pills to keep him from being agitated, but that wasn’t really his problem. He was dying, that was the problem.
Another patient that morning, Richard, had a dose of morphine due and I went to bring it to him. He was completely stuporous and I couldn’t rouse him no matter how hard I tried.
“Is he usually like this?” I asked another nurse.
She sighed. “Sometimes….. He’s up and down.”
Morphine has the effect of depressing respiratory function- in the case of giving it to a completely stuporous patient- you have to make sure the benefits (pain control and decreasing agitation) outweigh the possible risks (respiratory depression leading to death).
“I’m not giving him his morphine.” I said. “You let me know if he gets agitated and I’ll decide then.”
I wasn’t feeling well all shift and when I came off and reported to the incoming staff I felt pretty low about the whole thing. I drove home in my car thinking about Ben dying and not being able to do a single thing for him. No matter what I did, I was just prolonging his inevitable suffering. The same with Richard; nearly comatose, hardly breathing- what could I do for him?
By far the biggest thing, though, that makes me feel helpless, is my sister Hannah. Since I came back from Antigua she has been having trouble swallowing periodically, leading to choking episodes. It kills me to see her getting worse. I would do anything for her, there’s not even a question in my mind. But what can I do?
The only thing I can do is love her. Be her sister, pray with her when I tuck her in bed at night, listen to how her day at school went, be patient with her. Love her.
And that’s the only thing I can do for patients like Richard and Ben and so many others. I can give them their medications and try to treat them, but in the long run, it is the love I give them that matters.
Richard can’t respond but I like to think he can hear me when I talk to him gently as I dress him. Ben stares at me with hollow eyes but I rub his gaunt shoulders as I give him oxygen and I point out that the sun is shining outside the window and it is a beautiful day.

Talking to myself, again

This week I found myself surprisingly blindsided by the goodness of God. I don't know why I should be surprised, but I was.
I feel like in the last few months I've had quite a few knocks and I guess I was sort of expecting more, not that I think God is mean and likes to hurt me, but I've learned that his training is painful and even though I have been fighting to pray and seek him every day, to be honest, I didn't expect much in the way of answers. Oh, theoretically, I expect them. But realistically? In those dark quiet moments by myself when it's just me talking to myself? Do I honestly believe that these situations are going to work out? The answer was probably no.....
Well, this week I was praying about my financial situation (which is dismal, by the way). I asked God to provide for me and specifically, I prayed about a person who owed me a large sum of money and I asked God to cause them to pay me back. I'd already contacted this person and not heard back from them and was wondering if I should just let it go. So I prayed, and I wrote down my prayer.
The next morning I had an email from her. I bet you thought I forgot, she said, and then explained what the hold-up had been and assured me that the money was in the mail. I was shocked.
I also prayed about my practicum this week. I had called to see about my license for this semester and was told that 3 days before, the provincial regulations had been changed to prevent me from getting a license. No license= no practicum= can't pass the semester. Oh great, I thought, another roadblock. Do I always have to fight them? Again, I wrote down my prayer. God, will you work a miracle?
On Friday I met with the doctor I was supposed to work with, and I explained that I was unable to get the license I needed. Oh, that's no problem, he assured me. I'm the director for all the medical students in that area and I will just phone them up and let them know to give you a license. Again, I was shocked.
And then I was praying about another situation with a friend, that I just didn't know how to approach. I prayed and asked God for direction. Sure enough, the friend phoned, and told me exactly what I needed to hear. I was so filled with relief when I got off the phone.
Last night at about 4:30 or 5, my little niece Kiara climbed into bed with me and fell asleep in my arms, her breathing settling into that familiar rhythm while I lay awake thinking. I got up this morning after not sleeping much and was studying hard all day (Today I reviewed how to perform an abdominal and rectal exam, and I badly need some patients to practice on, so if anyone wants to volunteer.....) and I found myself getting pretty discouraged.
I was thinking about school, relationships, life in general, and feeling desperately like nothing was going to work out. Am I just fighting away at this, trying to seek God, working hard, and nothing is going to come of it? Sometimes I feel tenuously close to the edge of giving up.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. “I trust the Lord.” I said to myself in a loud voice. “I trust the Lord! I trust he will give me everything that is good for me! I trust he is good! I trust that he loves me!”
I'm pretty sure that if anyone had come in the house just then and seen me yelling at myself in the mirror, they would've thought I really had gone over the edge this time.
All kidding aside, though, can we trust in God's goodness? I find it hard enough to trust in the goodness of another human, let alone a God I can't see. Does he really love me? Is his heart towards me really full of compassion and goodness?
Yes, I'm telling myself in the mirror. Yes, he is good.
Sometimes we need to speak truth to ourselves, because we forget it, or we get discouraged. Why should I be shocked by God's goodness? Why should I be so afraid that it is all a joke that he loves me and has my best interests at heart?
Get a grip, Heather! And while you're at it, get off the computer and go to bed, you silly girl!

Swallowed up in intestines

I enjoy what I'm studying and I enjoy learning in general, so a few days ago I did one of my favorite things to do and made an amazingly organized schedule for the next 12 weeks. Since I'll be in Vancouver for about another 12 weeks, and since I have a lot of studying to do, I planned out every single day and made this big spreadsheet dividing up all the topics I needed to cover for all my courses. Each reading selection for each class is in a different color, and I wrote out all the page numbers and exactly what days and weeks I would be doing them.
It didn't take long for my world to fall apart. I realized that I had forgotten to calculate Thanksgiving, Christmas or any other holidays or days off. I also forgot to calculate in my job and my practicum. Oh well, I thought, I can just work a little faster.
This week is my week to study the gastrointestinal tract and by last night I was supposed to have made it to the rectum, but I was still at the esophagus and not progressing very quickly. Did you know that it's possible to get a stone of the salivary glands that is just like a kidney stone? Did you know that 12% of European Americans and ~100% of Native Americans are lactose intolerant and can't drink milk? Did you know that the first sign of stomach cancer spreading is an enlarged lymph node in your neck?
There are so many little peripheral things to learn that it is overwhelming and I am beginning to realize just how much my schedule might need revamping.
It's a parallel of life, really. My philosophy is sort of divide-and-conquer: I like to break things up into manageable pieces and then I feel like I have a semblance of control over them and can accomplish something. It's just an illusion, though. My color-coded schedule might help me be organized in my studies, but is it really going to help me be a better doctor? Is it going to help me be a better person?
Sometimes one can get too focused on the task at hand, that it is possible to miss all the peripheral things that are actually more important than the primary object. For example, keeping to my schedule this weekend was actually not as important as spending a bit of time with my siblings from out of town. And if I'd stuck rigidly to my readings I would have missed learning a lot of things.
I am not advocating flaking out and just doing what you want, learning what you want. But schedules need to be prepared to be shaken up a bit. I've spent a lot of my life being very disciplined about studying. But I have the feeling that 20 years from now I'll wish that I'd taken an evening off and gone to see a movie in the theater or hung out more with my sisters or slept in once in a while.
Haha. To be perfectly honest I'm actually procrastinating right now. I'm sort of discouraged that I don't know everything there is to know about the intestines. But give me time. I still have 3 more days this week!

Bulbous bouffant

You seriously have to watch this crazy video. The more you watch it, the better it gets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuCNAwXGaQ

From a tropical paradise to the North pole

Wow, I haven’t written for a whole week!
In the exciting and sad interim I had my white coat ceremony, in which I stood up and recited the Hippocratic oath with my classmates and received a white doctor’s coat, and gave a speech in front of everyone. I also danced for more hours in a row than I ever have before; including dancing on a table in the bar during our after-party. (You should’ve seen it!)
It is bittersweet. I told myself that I would return to Antigua some day on vacation, but I know that even if I do, it won’t be the same. I said goodbye to the campus I’ve spent so many long days and nights at- the bushes heavy with pink flowers, the goats on the hills staring at me, the little white bungalows and the mango trees- a place that has stolen part of my heart.
My last morning in Antigua I got up early with my roommates and we drove to Half moon bay to watch the sunrise. We watched it come up over the ocean and streak the sky with pink and the huge waves crashed all around us and the salty spray mingled with the happiness and sadness that was so heavy in the air.
I said goodbye to the dear friends I’ve made. My professors, who have been more than just teachers; my classmates who have walked this journey with me, and saddest of all, my roommates. When Burton and Asa pulled out of the driveway and waved goodbye I stood there feeling tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.
“Goodbye, little bit!” Asa shouted at me (that’s one of his nicknames for me).
Burton didn’t say anything, I think because he was feeling too emotional as well. We’ve walked this path together and there have been ups and downs and even if I see him again some day it will be different. I don’t know quite how to express how empty it makes me feel inside.
But it isn’t all sad, of course. I spent my last day on the beach soaking up the sun and I flew to New York with three of my classmates who live there. I slept most of the way on the plane and then went to Marina’s house in Queen’s. Her family is warm and welcoming and they invited me to share Yom Kippur with them. Marina took me to Long Island and we went shopping and sat in a little salon and had manicures and pedicures (which I’ve never had before but it was FUN!) and ate sushi and talked and talked.
I stayed up late with Marina’s family and her husband tried to get me to drink shots of vodka (how those Russians can drink!) and her brother-in-law tried to introduce me to cognac (yuck.) I ate some strange things I’ve never had before and went out with some friends for dinner to a fancy Italian restaurant. (I highly recommend going out with doctors, they always want to pay for everything.)
Now I am back home. It is freezing cold; I think I went from 40 to 0 degrees in two days. But it is so good to be home and I’m feeling happy at the thought of the adventures that are awaiting in the near future.
My focus in the next few months is going to be studying for my board exams- and studying, and studying. I am planning to eat, breathe and sleep it. Well, maybe not sleep….. I figure I have a backlog of about 150 missed hours of sleep from this month in Antigua, which probably explains why I lost weight and have some gray hair and every muscle in my body hurts all the time- but it is okay. I will catch up.
I woke up this morning at some ungodly hour because I have jetlag, and I lay in bed and thought about God and his plans for our lives and how they are not easy and straightforward, but when we have our eyes fixed on him, he shows us the next step, just before we’re ready to take it.

Cutting and dicing

The highlight of my week was being in the anatomy lab helping dissect a cadaver. The first module class was working on the lower extremities and abdomen of their cadaver, and since I had only practiced on female cadavers and this one was a male, I was interested in taking part. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Rust had managed to get a perfectly preserved dead fetus for us to examine.
A new lab is being built on campus and it is 100 times better than the old one- except for the fact that the air conditioning units aren’t hooked up yet, so it is smoking hot, and leaving the doors open just invites the clouds of mosquitoes in. At least there are no rats, the floor isn’t collapsing, and we have running water to wash in. We struggled for some time to move the body onto the dissecting table and then began to unwrap him.
The unfortunate gentleman had the normal pattern of bodily decomposition- after death occurs, all muscular sphincters in the body relax- which means that a dead body will urinate and defecate- as well as the hair keeping on growing. He was a little worse for wear after having been lying in his own waste for a while and as we unwrapped him Dr. Rust looked at me sternly.
“Whatever you do, go slowly so you don’t splash!”
DHBF (dead human body fluid) exposure is the most disgusting thing that can ever happen to a medical student. It happens when you forget to put on your face mask and you are leaning over with your mouth open and someone’s knife slips and stuff sprays up into your face….. or you get a hole in your glove and suddenly realize that your hand is swimming in liquid…. Or you are rushing to get a new scalpel blade and you slip and put your hand out to steady yourself and your hand lands on the edge of the table and it comes up wet….. There are not too many things that gross me out, but getting DHBF sprayed in my face that day was one of them. I was fully gloved and there was nothing to wipe with so I went up behind my housemate Asa who had a clean spot on the back of his shirt, and I rubbed my face off.
The little baby was cool, though. I took some pictures and I was telling Burton about it and saying how the baby was so cute I just wanted to take him home and put him in a little jar of formaldehyde on my shelf so I could look at him. Burton looked at me blankly.
“Heather, it’s not cute. It’s a dead fetus.”
“He’s a perfectly formed and beautiful baby.” I protested.
“Heather, it’s a dead fetus.”
Whatever. He was still adorable.
As a senior class we took our professors out for dinner this week, and we sat in a little restaurant called Trappas and talked and laughed and ate and took pictures together. Good memories. After dinner most people went out dancing but I was too exhausted from not sleeping that I stayed and had a drink with Dr. Gilbert and then he took me home. I sat at my computer screen for half an hour but I couldn’t keep my eyes open and my mouth closed and eventually I collapsed onto my bed. I slept 10 hours and felt amazing.
10 hour nights don’t last, though. Last night I was studying for this morning’s pathology exam and I only got about 2 hours sleep. I’ll catch up later, I guess.
I’m sort of paranoid about coming out of medical school with gray hair from not enough sleep. But the fact is, I love what I’m learning.
I gave a presentation this week on De Quervain’s syndrome (which is a type of tendonitis of the thumb) and instead of being asked questions by the instructor, I ended up engaging the class and asking THEM the questions. There is something so satisfying about teaching, about explaining to people how something works and seeing them understand and put it all together.
I think if for some reason I don’t manage to get a residency or I can’t license anywhere, I think I will come back here and apply to teach the anatomy lab. I think it takes a certain person to get excited about cadavers- Dr. Rust is a real trooper- but dissection is a necessary skill and what you cut on a real body, you remember.
This week I was deeply engrossed with removing the skin from the lower calf of the unfortunate gentleman, and I looked up to find a couple of my classmates laughing at me.
“Heather, you look like you’re having way too much fun there.”
I was. What can I say?

One foot in each world

This weekend I took time to relax, finally. I had been looking forward to it for so long. After classes on Saturday I helped Dr. Rust was organize a BBQ for all the students. She lit 20 lbs of coals in a brick fire pit she’d built, and we lay chicken and burgers on it and I fanned the flames. We had to take refuge in her house during a brief thunder shower but then kept cooking.
All the students and professors came together and we ate dinner and then watched a Tom Cruise movie projected onto the powerpoint screen on the wall. I snuck out of the film after half an hour and went over to Dr. Torres’s house to sing Karaoke.
I sat on the couch with him and Vem and Burton and Leera and Dr. Gilbert and Asa and drank rum and beer and sang Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you”.
When we’d sung our hearts out we drove to English Harbor to a club called ‘Life’ that was open-walled to let the breezes through. I danced with Dr. Gilbert and my classmate Sabina and then sat and talked with Dr. Torres, who the more he drank, the more open he became. He told me that my class was the worst class he’d ever taught before. Then him and I fox-trotted together to some crazy Antiguan rap. The rain came down all around us and sounded like thunder on the tin roof.
Burton took me home at 1 or 2, I don’t remember, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and wishing my stomach would settle.
In the morning I cooked bacon and eggs and pancakes. At 11:00 our friend Arnold came and picked us up for church and we sat and stood, sat and stood, throughout the Lutheran service. The power went out towards the end but the girl on the steel drums kept playing and we kept singing. Afterwards I went outside and snuck over to the bell tower and pulled the rope and listened to it clang. (Seriously, those things are loud!)
Later we went to Half Moon Bay, my favorite beach on the island. On the way we stopped at a gas station and Burton accidentally backed up into another car that suddenly appeared behind us. Asa suggested offering the guy some money and Burton suddenly remembered he hadn’t got a driver’s license yet. The owner of the other car looked at his dented car and our broken bumper and shrugged and said, ‘no problem’ and drove away. Only in Antigua, Asa said, only in Antigua do you hit someone’s car and they say ‘no problem’.
At half moon bay we played in the waves for a bit and then I went for a long walk along the shore to the next bay and looked at the stunning wild beauty of it all. Dr. Gilbert eventually joined me and we sat in the next bay together, completely alone on the beach, talking and studying pharmacology. We took turns snorkeling and looking at the schools of fish, jellyfish and eels under the surface. It was incredible. I lay in the waves and it rained for a bit and then cleared up and when the sun went down we walked back to Half moon bay. I drove back home with Dr. Rust and Dr. Gilbert, getting attacked on the way by a cloud of mosquitoes. In a few short minutes as I ran to the car I was bitten 17 times on the back and legs. I look like I have chickenpox.
Today I had an exam and then I came home and was by myself and I walked over to my neighbor’s house to ask him about fixing our car. Mr. Reynolds is an old man with twinkling eyes and more stories than anyone else I’ve ever met. I sat on his porch for an hour and we talked about everything, including him telling me all the sordid details of his multiple relationships over the years. (I certainly learned more than I needed to know!) He told me, Heather, if I was 40 years younger, I would definitely pursue you. Thank you, I said, I’m flattered. You can come and stay here anytime, he said, my door is always open. I will miss you when you go back to Canada.
He gave me four pomegranates from his tree and I fed his dog for him. I had to go back to school where we practiced examining a newborn infant and then inserting a vaginal speculum. Back home I lay by the pool with my pathology textbook and then cooked dinner and now I’m sitting studying and drinking diet coke out of a wineglass.
I will miss it here too. I can hardly believe that I only have a week left here. I told Mr. Reynolds that I will come back on vacation some day. When will that be? He asked.
I don’t know. I don’t much about anything these days.
Do you notice what children do? I asked Burton when we were talking after dinner. When they see something beautiful, they’re all over it. When they want to say something, they say it. They are so filled with joy. They don’t try to keep everything inside and be something they’re not.
If this all sounds disjointed it’s because I am a little bit disjointed these days. There is no continuity between my adventures that helps me organize them in my mind. I have no camera to record the special moments, there is no normalcy here.
Do I want a normal life? Tonight I am feeling that the answer might be yes. Maybe just for a while. But I was not blessed with any semblance of normalcy here in Antigua; I have just been blessed with a serious of unfortunate events, or exciting adventures, depending on how you look at it. And I am learning to respond like a little child and embrace the threads of joy and beauty that are woven through it all.

But while I am living the adventure here, I am still aching for home. Sometimes I think it is in that tumultuous place of joy and sadness that life's most worthwhile experiences lie.

Hanging on

I haven’t written on my blog for a few days, not because there is nothing to write, but because writing takes emotional energy and these days I am sadly depleted.
There have been some amazing things happening, some good days, some bad days. I had two (almost) full nights of sleep this week which bolstered my spirits a bit. We have had some tricky situations with the student association and some difficult people and I have struggled with my feelings towards one particular woman. I caught myself envisioning how I was going to angrily tear her apart during one of our meetings. Then I was shocked and humbled to see my housemate Burton turn the other cheek and demonstrate a gentle response that did far more than my anger would’ve accomplished. He totally pulled the rug out from under her feet and in the end several people came and complemented his Christ-like example.
I sat on the couch in our house this morning and felt too tired to fight anymore. I had left the sink piled with dishes for two days hoping one of the guys would wash them but finally there were no dishes left to cook with and the garbage was overflowing and the counters were filthy and the fridge was empty and I just had to suck it up and do it. There is dirty laundry everywhere and my toilet is leaking and pooling all over the floor and I haven’t had time to call the landlord. As I went out the door this morning I saw a giant cockroach sitting by the table but I just left him and ran out because we were running late for school and the car horn was being honked for me. At school the power went out so we moved into the open-air cafeteria but it started to rain and the mist was soaking my computer and my notes. Asa took the car and went home without me so I guess I’ll have to hitch a ride with another classmate. I am too tired to cry.

‘I have not knowledge, wisdom, insight, thought, nor understanding, fit to justify thee in thy work, O Perfect. Thou hast brought me up to this--and, lo! what thou hast wrought, I cannot call it good. But I can cry-- "O enemy, the maker hath not done; one day thou shalt behold, and from the sight wilt run."’
- George MacDonald

Hallelujah.

More crazy adventures

I’m sitting at my dining room table right now, supposed to be studying. Outside it is pouring so loudly that it sounds like thunder on the tin roof. Every 20-30 seconds there is a massive bolt of heat lightening that lights up the sky, then the thunder that shakes the windows. The wind is blowing through the house and even though I’m nice and dry I feel like I’m in the middle of a hurricane.
Yesterday I paid another visit to the infamous bat cave. We’ve made friends with a really nice man named Arnold who runs the resort down the road; he is an adventuresome type and brought masks and flashlights to go with me. I brought a ball of string and wrapped my hair in a turban and convinced my classmate Vem to come with us. It had been raining a bit and we picked our way down the overgrown trail to the entrance of the cave. We stopped at the entrance to put on our hats and lights; I had a headlamp and I tied the end of the string to the rusted railing at the entrance to the cave.
We hadn’t gone more than a few steps into the cave before I realized something was wrong. I heard a shuffling noise and when I realized there was something in that cave other than bats I just about wet myself.
“Goats.” Vem said grimly.
I shone my light down into the blackness and it reflected off the wild eyes of a goat standing right there. It nervously jumped away from me and then towards me as if it wanted to run up past me out of the cave. Arnold was just outside the cave and Vem and I stood to the side of the entrance and suddenly they came in a rush. There must have been a few dozen and they suddenly all came out in a giant herd, pouring out of the mouth of the cave past us. It was a little eerie.
I shone my light around to make sure they were all gone before we proceeded. The last time we’d been in the cave we’d taken a route to the right; this time we went left, unwinding the string as we went. Arnold and I took turns leading the way with Vem following behind. It was late in the day and Burton had refused to come because apparently at dusk all the bats come out of the cave all at once (several thousand?) and he didn’t want to be stuck down the tunnel when they all emerged. Well, the bats weren’t coming out yet, but they were certainly more agitated than normal and we tried to keep our lights down and not shine them at the ceiling of the cave.
We climbed for ages, the sweat pouring down our faces and clambering over the guano-infested rocks, trying to breathe through our masks and avoiding the odd bat that flew too close. At times we had to duck down for a minute until they calmed a bit. We made it into a second cavern and I shone my light up once and saw the ceiling covered in the furry gray bodies of a million bats. I could feel their guano dropping down on me as I went, but I kept my head down, avoiding the nests of massive cockroaches. We came into a third cavern and then I climbed into another one by sliding on my belly. The passageway was too narrow and I felt the instant release of adrenaline as I suddenly imagined the ceiling collapsing in on me like in the movies I had seen as a child.
“I can’t go any farther.” I told Arnold, who was right behind me. “Let’s try the other direction.”
We came to the end of the string and left Vem, who was almost beside himself, holding the end, while Arnold and I went on. The bats were stirring even more and their screams were a little unnerving.
“I think we should go back.” Vem kept saying. “The bats are really starting to move, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
You only live once, I thought. I was trembling with excitement. Arnold suddenly shone his light at one of the walls.
“Hey! Crystals!”
The walls of the cave were encrusted with sparkling crystals, like you see in those giant rocks that are split open in jeweler’s shops. Arnold used the butt of his flashlight and I cupped my hands and he knocked off some crystals into them. The biggest one he put into his pocket. I wondered if they were worth anything; or more importantly, if anyone would brave the bats to come get them. We took some photos (watch facebook, I’ll try to post them soon!)
We’d gone far enough away from Vem and the end of the string and it was getting late, after all, so we decided to turn back. I turned around and suddenly right in front of me was a huge white rat, staring at me with unblinking red eyes. I gave a squeal and then he started coming straight for me, completely unafraid.
“Go away!” I shouted at him, shining the light at him. I jumped sideways and clambered up on a rock and just about put my hand on a giant cockroach that quickly scuttled away. The rat kept coming and the bats were beginning to get more agitated and I felt the cold rush of air as their wings brushed past my face. I looked back at where we’d come from and in the darkness, the small passageway we’d come from was completely obscured in the craggy rock walls. The only clue to where we’d come from was the white string emerging from the blackness. A bat hit Arnold in the head and he shouted.
“Let’s go!” I said, shining my light at the ceiling and suddenly feeling a small bit of panic.
Vem began to run, with me behind him, and Arnold bringing up the rear. The bats were swarming. We were panting as we rushed through the passageways, pulling up the string, leaping over the cockroach nests. It was like a bad Indiana Jones movie. Arnold dropped one of his flashlights but he didn’t stop. We didn’t stop until we made it to the entrance of the cave and clambered out, breathing heavily. We were covered in slime and sweat and I felt like I was crawling in bugs and it was so wonderful to breath the fresh air and see light. You don’t understand true darkness until you are trapped in it, smothered in it.
We cleaned up a bit with some wet leaves and then Arnold and I went exploring the side of the mountain a bit before heading home. I felt exhilarated, exhausted, and filthy, but it was wonderful.
This morning was Sunday and Burton, Arnold and I drove to a Lutheran church on the other side of the island, which was pretty interesting (the pastor wore a long white dress!). It would have been your typical North American Lutheran service, except instead of a solemn organ there was a steel drum and a guy on a pipe organ playing jazzed-up gospel music, and there were little blue and green lizards skittering over the walls. In the afternoon we studied, and since Asa had the car, I decided to walk to the grocery store with my cue cards (about 6 km). By the time I got to the grocery store I was exhausted; I got what I needed and started back. I had several people stop and offer me rides, but I told them I wanted to walk. Halfway back home I was stopped by an older British man in a car who needed directions. A few minutes later he stopped going the other direction and I talked to him for a while. He was already drunk (had a beer between his legs) and he invited me to come to a party he was singing at that evening in English Harbor. It was hosted by his friend Sam, who was a millionaire, he told me. I didn’t doubt the part about Sam, because there are a lot of extremely wealthy people that hold parties in English Harbor, but I politely declined his offer even after he told me was a true gentleman and kissed my hand to prove it.
I kept walking and about 2 miles from our house I saw three donkeys by the side of the road and decided this was my lucky break. I approached them and started petting them and talking nice. Then I came up beside the biggest donkey and started trying to climb on her. If you can imagine me in a little sundress with a bag of groceries trying to climb on a donkey, you’ll have an idea how funny it was.
I got on the donkey and then suddenly thought, now what? I didn’t have to worry for long; she began to run. Straight towards a thicket of thorn bushes. Not only that, but these donkeys here are a little bony and with each step I was bounced on top of her backbone. I wondered which would be worse: being bucked into the thorn bushes, or breaking my tailbone on the donkey’s spine?
I bailed, groceries and all. Picked myself up and limped to the road.
Well, I made it home, and lay in the swimming pool for awhile to recover and then tried to make some supper. As I was cooking I noticed flies beginning to collect around the stove. By the time we sat down to eat there were more than just a few: there were several thousand termites collecting all over the table, around the lights, all over the walls, falling into our food, all over the beds. We searched in vain for their nest but they are in every room of the house, so it is hard to tell. I stood in Burton’s room while he sprayed OFF all over the walls and tried to shake out his sheets and then I just started to laugh. God, I love this place. It is the adventure of a lifetime.

Zaza learns about grace

Seriously, I don’t know why I feel so happy this morning. Maybe I’m ill.
There has been lots of stress recently and we had a student council meeting the other day and there was shouting (much of it directed at me from one of my beloved classmates!) and some pretty angry feelings. I started to defend myself, and then thought, what’s the point? And I closed my mouth and waited until she was done and then waited some more and then kept smiling and then after the meeting didn’t say anything to her, just smiled graciously and went home. (And cried, but she didn’t know that!)
Yesterday all our classes were cancelled because the school had arranged a community outreach program. I got up at some ungodly hour and met the other keen students at school (there were only 7 of us because it was bucketing rain and pretty early), and we squished in a van and drove across the island to the Port authority. We had to go through security checks and then we set up a mobile health clinic with several stations and put up a sign. Over the course of the next 5 hours we saw about 150 people: doing basic health screening like blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. I was with another student named Charles, manning the patient counseling station. So after the patients had gone through all their tests, they came and sat down with us and we discussed it with them, made recommendations, etc. A little scary and totally fun!
It was ridiculously busy. All the port employees came and Charles and I talked until our mouths were dry. Most of the people had minor health problems and we ended up just recommended healthy diet and exercise, but there were a few that needed more help. One lady was having an acute angina attack so I spent some time with her impressing the need to go to the hospital! Another woman, when I asked if she had any more questions, shared that she had been having panic attacks since going through menopause and couldn’t handle the stresses of life. Thankfully I’d just learned about medications for anxiety the day before and I was able to give her some helpful counsel. One older man told me how he was the union boss and the job was killing him and he couldn’t handle the stress, his blood pressure was through the roof. He was a Christian and I talked to him about true peace coming from praying and resting in God….it was pretty cool.
There was a tv crew there from the local news and the president of the university was there and she came to me and asked if I would say something in front of the camera. I stood up and gave a spiel about hypertension and what the average Antiguan could do to limit their risks and get treated. The camera man stood in front of me while I interviewed patients and he was standing there while I talked to one lady who had a wandering eye. I wasn’t sure where to look in her face (which eye actually worked?) and the camera was hanging over my shoulder and finally I turned to him and said, “Excuse me, could you go away? This is a private conversation.”
My landlady called me last night to say I was on tv and thankfully they edited out my comment to the camera man. I was pretty excited, though, even though I discovered later that I had been sitting on a piece of gum the whole time.
We are having a series of big storms right now and the wind has blown down one of our clotheslines, so Burton strung lines up across my room and down the hall and I hung the laundry up inside to dry. It looks like a little Laundromat now.
I stayed up late last night studying and then caught a couple hours sleep and then got up early. Asa had an exam this morning and was roaring around the house like an army tank about to blow a gasket. Asa has been chronically late and chronically messy since we moved in and the only thing that has kept me from wanting to kill him is the fact that my classes start after him…. So even if he’s 20 minutes late every day, I’m still on time. He hasn’t slept much the last few days and is worried about his exams, so let’s just say that the tension level is running pretty high.
“HD, we gotta leave in 10 minutes” he came and told me as I was still sitting in bed reading my bible.
5 minutes later, “HD, are you dressed yet? Please tell me you have clothes on. We have to leave! I’m all ready to go!”
I threw my stuff in my bag and jumped into my pants.
“Listen, HD, we gotta go! I’ve got an exam!”
I don’t know if he would’ve heard if I’d pointed out that Burton and I also had exams, but we weren’t yelling and stomping around the house. I thought about the fact that anytime I had needed to be somewhere a certain time I’d told him the night before, then woke him up early enough in the morning, and then reminded him graciously, and then Asa still managed to make me late for everything. Sometimes an hour late. I could feel steam beginning to rise from my ears. There is nothing I hate worse than being made late because someone couldn’t get their act together in time- unless, of course, it is being rushed out the door.
Yes, it’s true. I have done a colossal shift in my mind. One major argument over the years in our house has been the issue of lateness. Lateness is rudeness, Dad always said. I hated being rushed out the door and would balk to the nth degree.
I will publicly go on record today and say that I was wrong and Dad was right: I now agree with him that lateness is rudeness. This morning I had to pray for an extra helping of grace. God, please keep my mouth shut so I don’t say anything to Asa. Please help me to be respectful and gracious and resist the temptation to throw something in his face. And please, please let him remember this next time I want to be on time.
Being able to go through daily life with grace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is one that I want produced in my life: can I be publicly slandered in a meeting, talk with patients, appear in front of a camera, deal with a room full of laundry, get no sleep, interact with my roommates, pass all my classes, and still do it all with grace? Can I respond politely and respectfully and graciously when that is the last thing I want to do?
The answer is yes- but only with the help of the Spirit. It’s one of those things that is impossible in my own strength, but totally possible with God.

The best medicine

Stupid power outages. And other things. We had a second flat tire on our car, can you believe it? In an attempt to keep away the mosquitoes at night, Asa has been burning citronella candles while sleeping. He was sleeping in my room last night (because it has ac!) and in the morning I went in to get something and discovered the entire room covered in soot: all the sheets, stacks of towels, the walls, my clothes, my books and papers, everything coated in black soot. Maybe Asa knew how I would react because he had tried to pile up some of the towels on the floor and then just left for school. Tonight we’ll negotiate who gets to wipe down the walls, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be me.
Our coffee pot dropped and broke the other day so we are making coffee in a teapot. The generator keeps running out of gas…. The night before last, the power went out and Burton had to stay up late to study and didn’t want to leave me alone at home (there were 2 strange guys loitering in the shadows outside our house), so he made me come with him to our classmate Anita’s house to study. There ended up being 9 of us studying there and at 2 or 3 a.m. I went to sleep sharing a teeny double bed. We got up at 5 to get ready for school, but by sometime in the afternoon I was a mess. Everyone was stressed and grumpy at school and there were several arguments and it was so hot I felt like passing out in class. At dinner time Burton looked at me across the table when I was falling apart about something stupid and he just said, ‘go take a nap’.
Last night I slept okay except for getting up at 2:00 because the power turned off (and hence my fan) and I heard footsteps outside my window (Burton turning off the generator), and I got at 5:00 because Asa slammed the bathroom door, the bedroom door, the kitchen door, the fridge door, and the toilet seat. (Why can’t he just close things normally?)
At school we were supposed to take an online exam but the internet went down and we had to restart and then our next class was late. Anita and Marina were so frustrated that they haven’t even showed up yet. Dr. Rust is boiling mad but she lost her voice so she can’t yell at anyone. Actually the whole island is suffering….. the source of the power outages is a feud between the company that owns the power plant and the current corrupt government…. And the island is running out of gas and places like the school, which don’t have a functional generator, are not doing so well. (The generator is missing a part…. They sent someone to Puerto Rico to get it… the airline wouldn’t load it because it wasn’t crated….. when they finally got it crated, they didn’t have a forklift to move the crate…. The dean of the university is trying to hire a private plane to get it here….. there is a tropical depression heading this way and gas has gone up to $13/gallon so no-one wants to fly….)
Sometimes it just makes me laugh. It’s the little things, like going to turn on the generator and accidentally putting my hand on a giant lizard…. Stepping out the door and stepping into a fire ant nest….. taking a cold shower by candlelight …. Being halfway through cooking dinner when the power goes out and it is pitch black….. giant cockroaches under the dining room table…. The stray dog that Asa let in the house that had fleas….
I think the trick is to laugh. Proverbs 31 talks about a godly woman, and I’m encouraged by some of her character qualities. She is clothed in strength and dignity, it says, and she can laugh at the days to come.
Laughter reduces stress hormones, increases life expectancy, increases oxygen to the body tissues, burns calories, helps with sleep, improves work performance, and improves over-all well-being. The average adult laughs 4 times a day, the average child laughs 100 times a day.
Laughter helps us survive the tragedies of life by allowing us to view them as comedies. Happy Heather’s Hullaballoo categorically supports the use of laughter as a survival tool and a necessary daily therapy. Think of me this week and have a good laugh over something.

Solitary adventures

There are 2 types of people, I’ve heard; the type that recharges by being alone and the type that recharges by being with other people. I am the latter: I need fellowship like nothing else. Sure, I need my alone time, but there is nothing that makes me more energized than being around other people, talking with them, encouraging each other, building each other up.
So far this last adventure in Antigua has been a very solitary one. And I am struggling with it. You know how it feels to be in a roomful of people and still feel desperately alone? Or just to find yourself alone- sleeping alone, eating alone, studying alone, and after a while you are not sure if the thoughts you are thinking are actually real or maybe someone else said them and you just dreamt them….man oh man, I would never ever make it in a convent or in solitary confinement. I would just go crazy.
My housemates Asa and Burton are great and I have no real complaints (except for the fact that Asa is really messy, and even more of a type A personality than me, hence the two of us butting heads a few times). But our schedules don’t really coincide this term and the two of them like to go to the gym and work out so I have been alone a lot.
Last night I was home alone and had to deal with a couple of things myself like filling the generator with gas etc. This morning I was desperate to go to church and the guys didn’t want to so I took the car myself. I only got lost once and ended up on this deserted dirt road with potholes bigger than a car.
I made it to the church; a tin-roofed building full of people who loved each other and loved the Lord. I was the only white person but I didn’t feel conspicuous, I felt welcomed and accepted. I drove home and had to swerve from an oncoming car passing a taxi and hit a pothole on the tire that Asa had already run into a fence, and I got a flat tire. I had to stop for groceries and there were two drunk guys there who started giving me a hard time. They wouldn’t stop until the store owner came and told them off. When I got home Burton changed the tire for me and although we’d planned to go the beach, he had too much homework so he dropped me off at the nearest beach. There were 3 semi-trucks blocking the road so I got out and walked the last 2 kilometers myself. I had sort of hoped to find some of my classmates there but they weren’t there so I sat by myself watching the crashing waves and the wind in the palm trees and picked up shells and swam and prayed and read.
I started to walk home but my injured arm was getting more and more painful and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it back. The pain radiated from my elbow all the way down to my waist. I prayed that God would help me somehow and one of my classmates Fred happened to drive by and offered me a ride.
At home I made some supper and while I was in the shower it burnt and Burton and I sat there trying to choke it down. When you’re hungry enough, anything tastes good. I wanted to talk to him, about church in the morning and things I had been thinking that day, but he was busy studying and anyway….it’s possible to be right in front of someone and know they don’t even notice you, let alone hear what you are trying to say.
The moon is full over the ocean and it lights up the balcony and the hibiscus are heavily fragrant in the humidity. There is something wild about it, but very quieting at the same time.
Over the last couple of years I have read a scripture over and over again: Isaiah 40 “They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength… they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Every time I’ve read that verse I’ve thought of waiting on God for something specific- like, I’m waiting for the Lord to give me the answer to my prayer, or I’m waiting on the Lord to provide for me, etc.
I’m beginning to see that it is very different actually. God wants me to wait on him… for him. Just to remain in that place of being still and knowing that he is God. Quieting my soul and being okay with sitting by the water and watching the waves, being okay with watching the moon alone, being okay with not being able to share my thoughts with someone else. (Hey! That’s what I have a blog for!)

Trying to keep my head up

When I am in Antigua it is like life is jacked up by 200 degrees and there is so much going on that I have to write about it just to be able to emotionally process it. I was intending to write a list this morning of all the incredibly frustrating things that are upsetting me right now and then I thought, why do that? Why not focus on the good that is coming out of it? I’m not joking when I say it is extremely hard being here. I know some of you read my blogs and think it is pretty darn exciting to be doing what I am doing. But the day to day tragedies here can totally destroy your spirit unless you choose to see them as adventures and keep pressing on. So here is my list of ‘complaints’ and why I am glad for them.
1. It is about 3-4º hotter here now than last time I was here. The heat makes it almost unbearable to sleep at night and in a house with only 2 air-conditioned rooms and 3 people we have been taking turns sleeping in the cool rooms, sleeping in shifts, napping during the day, etc. The bright side is that sweating makes you lose weight and it cleanses your pores and is good for your skin.
2. I haven’t managed a full night of sleep yet (i.e. more than 5 hours). But the good news is, I am optimistic that it is coming tonight!
3. My injured arm aches constantly and at night I have to take ibuprofen just to sleep. The bright side is that I’m learning to be ambidextrous and write and type with my left hand.
4. As great as he is, I would describe my housemate Asa as a bulldozer. He mows through the house leaving chaos in his wake and it is driving me crazy. Spilled food. Clothes all over the floor. Dishes strewn all over. Books and papers blowing in the wind. Doors open, doors unlocked, toilet seat up, etc. He is late for everything and makes me late for everything when we carpool. But on the other hand I am glad because it is teaching me to let go and be more gracious and patient. I am learning that it is not a big deal and I can just relax and ignore the mess around me. (Also he is a chiropractor and adjusted my neck for me so I’ll cut him a bit of slack.)
5. Burton keeps forgetting me at school when we’ve arranged to drive home together and I have to catch rides with other people, walk, or wait for him to show up. The bright side is that I am learning to let it go and be patient and forgiving.
6. The power goes off every day (including water and air conditioning and internet) for several hours at random intervals. The bright side is that we have a generator at our house and I started it yesterday by myself successfully (it’s sort of like starting a lawn-mower)
7. Because the power goes off randomly, we have been forced to completely rearrange our class schedules to accommodate it. Right now that means we start classes at 6 in the morning and go through until we run out of power or our laptop batteries are dead. Then we go home and return at some other time to continue (sometimes even late in the evening if the power is on). The good news is that I am a morning person anyway so I don’t really mind getting up early, as long as I have enough coffee. Not having a fixed schedule is teaching me to just let it go and roll with the punches.
8. The mosquitoes here are insane right now. I have several dozen bites and counting. The bright side is that these mosquitoes are silent killers- they don’t make that annoying whine that keeps you awake at night. And I have lots of OFF and citronella with me.

Have you noticed a theme here? It seems that the trials I am encountering here are hand-picked by God to build character in me. I know that I am a bit high strung and all these little frustrating things are teaching me to take a deep breath, stop shouting and fighting, and just give God room to have his way. There are some crazy things happening here right now (a serial rapist on the loose who has raped 35 women, 3 decapitated bodies found on a sailboat outside our local grocery store yesterday, etc.) and the temptation is to retreat in fear from this crazy adventure I’ve gone on. If I didn’t know God was in it, I’d pack up and come home. (Maybe… I do love a good adventure…) But the fact is, God is in it, and he has tailor-made it just for me. There are some wonderful things too that I did not expect: only 7 ½ hours of classes a day, fun and interesting classes, finding out I did well in every course last term (which I thought I’d failed!), great housemates, no hurricanes, and no ants in my kitchen.

A lame day

Today was kind of a lame day. The island power plant is having work done which means portions of the island undergo periodic power outages. Ours just happens to be every morning from 9-2 for the next 3 weeks, and sometimes in the evenings. Power outages doesn’t just mean using candles for the evening: it means no air conditioner, no internet, no power-point in the classrooms, no water once the reserve tank is empty, no fridge, etc. The novelty began to wear off last night when I tried to cook dinner by candlelight. Not to mention lying awake at night in the sweltering heat with mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
Today we had one of our classes outside in the open-walled cafeteria with a nice hot breeze blowing through. My arm has been hurting a lot lately (I have some kind of tennis elbow that is exacerbated by typing and writing and is so painful that I have to take a painkiller just to fall asleep), so I had to type all day with my left hand and while I’m getting faster, it is a nuisance. I haven’t slept more then 5 hours a night since I got here so I’m pretty tired.
I came home at lunch time and forgot my key and had to climb in a window only to find no electricity anyway. I was planning on inviting a professor over for dinner so I popped over to the grocery store to buy some food. I had been thinking about apple crumble, but there were only 3 apples in the store…. and 5 rotting bananas. The lady gave me the bananas for free.
I have this awesome recipe from the Sanz that is a ham-banana casserole served over rice (I know it sounds gross), but it is absolutely phenomenal. I had it at their house and written down the recipe in detail and it looked pretty easy so I thought I’d try it.
During lunch break I went to sautee the bananas…. There was a reason I got the bananas cheap. They didn’t brown nicely like the recipe said, they turned into a giant mass of mashed bananas. I didn’t have curry powder, I had curry paste, and when I added it, it turned into a reeking giant mass of mashed bananas. I didn’t have time to salvage my dignity before class so I just left it in the fridge.
After school I talked to my professor and then I invited another new student to come over and I talked to my housemate Asa and he agreed that he would drive home with Burton at 6:00 for dinner. It was just past 5 and I wanted to run anyway so I ran home (with the key!)
I furiously started cooking. I made this amazing looking salad and tried to resurrect the banana dish. Since I obviously couldn’t roll the bananas in the ham slices (and since they were turkey slices anyway), I decided to layer them in the pan. It began to look worse and worse. It was now a reeking giant mass of mashed curried bananas and turkey. I sprinkled parmesan cheese on and threw in some sliced onions and shallots and some frozen corn niblits and more layers of turkey and grated goat cheese and chili powder and salt and popped it in the oven nervously. I decided to name it ‘Vancouver delight’.
We had no rice….I decided to cook pasta instead. I was hot and still hadn’t changed from running by the time 6:00 arrived. Dr. Gilbert showed up with some drinks and I waited until the dinner was finished cooking and then decided to have a quick dip in the pool with him while I waited for the other guys.
The pool was lovely and warm and we stayed out there for ages, talking about medical things, and listening for the sound of the gate opening.
At 7:00 I was feeling more and more upset and I finally said to Dr. Gilbert, we should just eat. I put the now-cold dinner on the table and was feeling like I wanted to kill Burton and Asa when suddenly I heard them pull up. They breezed in the door and obviously didn’t notice the thundercloud over my head, cause when I asked where Leera (the other guy) was, Asa said, “Oh no, I forgot him!” and they said they’d been at St. James’ club down the street. I was smoking mad by now but I didn’t really say anything and we started to eat dinner.
I knew right away that it was one of the worst meals I’d ever cooked. The pasta was like glue and underneath the turkey slices I could see lumps of graying bananas. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dr. Gilbert discreetly removing the pickled beets from his salad and next to him, Burton was strategically serving himself casserole from the pan and dousing it with tomato sauce like it was going out of style. I felt like crying. I think they must have known I felt insecure about it, because after awhile they started to compliment it.
“This is SOOO good, Heather.”
“Wow, HD (that’s Asa’s nickname for me), you sure know how to cook!”
“What is this delicious cheese mixture on top? It tastes like it has Cajun spice.”
They went on and on.
“Don’t say anymore.” I said graciously, but I was quite serious. The next person that compliments Vancouver delight is going to get a spoonful in his face, I was thinking.
“I love the salad.” Dr. Gilbert kept saying over and over again. “I’m really glad you’re making me eat vegetables, Heather!”
When we were done I started to clear the table and then realized the cardinal sign of a completely failed meal. The casserole pan was still half full. Burton and Asa eat enough for 4 or 5 people and for them to leave a small casserole dish half full meant that they hated it. I put the dishes in the sink and Asa said, “HD, you are such a gourmet cook!” And I told him, “thank you, but that is the worst meal I’ve ever cooked.”
Burton kindly put a hand on my shoulder. “Uh…no, sweetie, that’s not the worst meal you’ve cooked. I’ll be honest with you.”
Burton and Asa gave each other a knowing look and then I saw them take two new plates out of the cupboard and head back to the table. They sat down and Asa picked up the spoon and divided the rest of the casserole between the two of them and they began to eat it. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. These two guys were such Southern gentlemen that they were going to finish that casserole if it killed them. Burton had left one large slimy chunk of graying banana in his bowl and even though I knew he hated cooked bananas I said wickedly, “Aren’t you going to eat that too?”
He looked like he might throw up but he picked it up and shoveled it down. I put the ice cream on the table and Dr. Gilbert was watching me worriedly and laughing a bit.
“Look at this girl!” Asa said. “She didn’t just make us dinner, she made us dessert too!”
“You’re something else, Heather!” Burton said.
“You two better watch out.” Dr. Gilbert said to them, looking at me. “I don’t think you’re reading her very well.”
“HD’s the best cook ever.” Asa said.
I’d had enough. I burst into tears. I got up from the table and ran down into my room.
At least my room was air conditioned. I sat on the bed and cried and felt like a failure. I was mad they hadn’t had the decency to come home for dinner and then mad dinner was so horrible and then mad that they ate it anyway and said it was good.
After a while I thought about the important things in life. And how cooking Vancouver delight was probably not one of them. And how being late for dinner was no big deal, they weren’t mean-hearted, they’d just forgotten. And how they had ate all that casserole trying to make me feel better.
I came upstairs and they all apologized and I apologized and it was all right. I washed the dishes and killed 3 cockroaches and then packed my things and decided to go stay at my classmate Nikki’s place. Burton wouldn’t let me walk alone in the dark and he told me to get in the car and I left anyway and he came after me and we argued about it until I got in the car and he drove me over.
Maybe it’s that time of month. I don’t know. I’m not sure how long I’ll stay at Nikki’s house but it might be for a while. Nikki understands why I was upset that my meal didn’t turn out. Nikki’s toilet seat is never up. Nikki’s shower is hot and she doesn’t have cockroaches and she has a generator for electricity.