Grand Canyon, Arizona
Both my dad and my Uncle Bob have driven from Arkansas to California, trying to move our cars. I think they did it in two days. Yuck! If memory serves me rightly, they both have stopped by this place:
The watchtower
In case anyone was wanting to win a Darwin award:
Frybread and Greenthread
Two things I kind of like about the desert Southwest.
and
Interesting pictures and lore about greenthread can be found at http://www.itmonline.org/arts/greenthread.htm.
This one man is farming an herb that grows naturally in the dry, cold desert environment. Common sense is a valuable commodity.
This area of the country is supposed to be dry. It is also supposed to have periodic wildfires. There are numerous wild plants, including some species of pines, that only propagate when exposed to the intense heat of a forest fire.
Loss and Regret
This week has been a very interesting one for me. Multiple things happened which seem very non-coincidental. It’s always that way for me. I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe things happen for a reason. Some people call it “acts of God”, and those who do not believe in God call these events “the laws of the Universe.” Either way, as a sentient being, I see patterns in events. And I understand that things are not as random as they might seem.
Recently, we had a patient with a chronic disease come in for a check up. Normally, my specialty consists of seeing patients who are younger than 18 years of age. But this patient was over 20.
As often happens with chronic disease that begins in childhood, adult physicians are uncomfortable dealing with these illnesses, because often times, these patients never lived to adulthood.
But this one had. And many more like this one, due to medical technology.
It was interesting to me, because it was a patient with this disease whom I met in my junior year of college who inspired me to enter medicine in the first place. Same age. Same disease. And same fiery spirit. Very independent. Daring the disease to keep *em down.
*e had a job. Was a musician. Lived on *eir own. Managed *eir own finances. And knew *eir medical history backwards and forwards, in *eir sleep. Could point to all *eir scars from numerous surgeries, in chronological order, almost reflexively, as if *e’d been asked thousands of times.
*e looked very battle-weary. And I understood. We all have our own trials and tribulations.
Sometimes I hear very cynical comments from attendings about the future of some of these patients with chronic disease. Sometimes I do agree. But in many cases, nay most cases, I see something else in these people who have a disease, that inspires me. It’s something that genes can’t give you. You’re either born with it, or you’re not.
By another “coincidence,” I found a poem by another person with a chronic disease.
Lost by LuAnn Howe I’ve lost things in a moment, I’ve loved a person dearly, Oh, I regret but nothing, I’ve won because I’ve learned from I see the glass as half full; I’ve lost things in a moment, No, I regret but nothing, |
Ms. Howe was born prematurely, and from reading a small part of her autobiography, it sounds like she had retinopathy of prematurity which caused her to go blind. She is currently in college, and I wish her all the best.
http://www.crystalwrites.com/AutobiographicalSketches.html
And another boat show I cannot attend. . . .
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January 2006, Houston Boat Show
You Have Wings, Learn to Use Them
“Some people die at twenty-five and are not buried until they are seventy-five.”
– Benjamin Franklin
I think one of my attendings was Benjamin Franklin in a past life.
