Category Archives: gratitude

Gratitude Again

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Office view 11-20-17

NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine

I generally dislike cold, damp, cloudy weather.  I have survived this in Chicago the past 26 years, somehow, by grace.  Usually the second half of fall just feels dreary, wet, and lame to me.  And yet this season, on this drab day, I feel warm and happy inside more than last year.

Can’t say why, really.  Another year older and wiser, perhaps?  Maybe because the kids seem to have crossed some magical threshold on this side of which they seem suddenly much more mature and self-sufficient?  I’m entering my fourth year in my current practice, which is the magic number for really settling in, it seems.  With the patients I only see once a year, the third and fourth times bring a familiarity and rapport that can only come with time.  It’s like catching up with old friends.  I’m grateful for another year of watching my family grow and flourish.  I’m grateful for my work, and the immense personal and professional fulfillment it affords me.

Two years ago for my first NaBloPoMo, I wrote November Gratitude Shorts.  It was a spinoff from a Facebook trend in which my friends and I posted gratitude for something every day.  Writing a couple sentences a day was fun and easy; converting those ideas to full-fledged blog posts proved more daunting than I had anticipated.  It felt like a slog much of the time, though I did write some pieces that I’m still proud of.  Last year I felt more relaxed, less pressured to write profound things.  This year I’m actually having fun, though I can still only rarely make myself sit down to write before 10pm.  That will be the challenge next year.  I am grateful for the chance to practice my writing and share with a community of readers, writers, and friends.

I feel the holidays coming on, a little more acutely this year than last…  It’s been a tumultuous year, no doubt, in so many realms.  And yet we are all still here, relationships intact for the most part.  And many of us, happily or begrudgingly, have learned a little more about our biases, our emotional triggers, our friends’ and families’ hidden beliefs, and similarities and differences we did not know we had before.  The conversations continue, then maybe stop for a while.  Emotions heat up, cool down, heat up again—and hopefully the connections remain or even grow stronger.  I have hope that we can continue to do better, and I’m grateful that the trials of the past year have shown me what courage and resilience we have.  I am grateful for the holiday season every year, and the chance to reflect and advance.

A friend told me recently about marriage advice he received when he was young.  We get beyond infatuation and on to real love, he was told, through commitment.  This past year I have seen myriad examples of people making meaningful commitments—to their families, to their core values, to their ideals, their aspirations, their fellow humans.  The examples are everywhere, if we are open to seeing them.  I am grateful for the persistence of humanity, and for our innate drive to connect.

The holiday season is upon us, and truly, I wish us all peace, love, and joy.  I’m grateful to have so much to celebrate, so many to celebrate with, and so much to look forward to.  May you feel and be moved by all that holds you up, this season and for all seasons to come.

Mobility is Confidence

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It is Day 11 of NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine, Day 10 of Bum Knee Cathy.

So far, so good!  This third time through NBPM is definitely easier and less stressful than before.  It’s not my best writing, but it’s not bad.  I’m spending less time thinking and writing, and having ‘way more fun.  Can’t say that much for BKC, though.  I’ve never had an injury like this and I’m not quite sure what to expect.  The good news is, swelling is decreasing and I limp a little less every day.

I had not gone 7 days without exercise in almost three years, and it was starting to feel a little too comfortable.  It also did not help that we had a bag of Kit Kats left over from Halloween—bad planning.  So on day 8 I decided to see what I could do in the gym.  Turns out, I still need to avoid activities that require me to plant my feet or fully extend the knees.  But there is still a lot I can do, and today I found a full suite of moves, some modified, that were enough to break a sweat, woo hooooo!!  Even though I wrote that I was good about losing my training discipline, I was still worried.

Today, however, I have my confidence back.  Earlier this week I reconciled with the possibility of not playing volleyball anymore, but I have not given up on my intention to get back on the court.  And if that’s not possible, then I can try the other things on my list: martial arts, kickboxing, tennis, and who knows what else?  Still so many possibilities!

The day before I hurt myself I passed a lady on the way to work.  She was older, obese, walking with a limp and a cane.  I came up behind her, slowed down, and passed her when space opened up on the sidewalk.  I suddenly appreciated my unencumbered gait.  How ironic.  My parents are almost 70 years old and they just returned from a month-long tour of China and Taiwan.  He golfs and she still precepts nursing students in the hospital.  Neither of them has ever had a prolonged period of immobility, even after major surgery.  They still move through life confident in what their bodies can do, looking forward to their next trip.  I know many orthopaedic surgeons.  With them I have shared patients who got their lives back after joint replacement surgery—able to walk, golf, and even ski again—without pain, and with confidence.

Tonight I appreciate that much more what my parents have achieved and what my colleagues do.  I appreciate my body that much more, and what is required to maintain it.  I appreciate the importance of conversations with my own patients, when we talk about establishing habits in middle age that will allow us all to be strong and healthy in old age.

How much do we take our mobility for granted?  For myself, not as much today as I did 12 days ago.

Conscience and Ego?

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NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine

I’m so grateful for my many friends who make a daily practice of examining and reflecting on feelings, behavior, and meaning.  We see each other often and trade stories of enlightening, demoralizing, enraging, moving, curious, inspiring, dismaying, confusing, validating, and human experiences.  Tonight one of them texted me about a conversation with a fellow cosmic journeyer: “Wise Friend told me that when he’s really wrong is when he’s the most defensive and I thought about it and it’s true for me, too.”

It didn’t take me long to relate viscerally to this message.  I tried reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford some years ago.  It’s all about facing our specific areas of self-loathing and overcoming them with I don’t know what.  Because while I usually take pride in my ability to explore my insides and be with the ugly, I could not make it through that book.  When I got to the comprehensive self-loathing-identification exercise, I had to stop, and my subconscious gnarled such that I picked a fight with the husband that lasted two weeks.  I like to think that I have evolved since then, that my inner life is slightly less gnarly these days. I now choose to work through my self-loathing one small piece at a time, in small doses with my therapist, on and off.

I texted back tonight from my gut, “I think it’s true for all of us, most defensive when most wrong.  Our consciences know better than our egos.”  It was one of those unguarded moments that allows for a new (for me) expression for an old concept.  And now I have a new idea to consider: how do conscience and ego interact, and what are the products of their collaboration and/or competition?  More importantly, how does the interaction (entanglement?) show up in our relationships?  Marriage, parenting, friendship, physician-patient?  How can we manage these relationships optimally through exploring this mental/emotional interplay?  Maybe I’m overthinking…  If it’s mostly true that our consciences know better than our egos, then maybe I can just continue practicing awareness of Ego’s tendency to bully Conscience, and training Conscience to peacefully and firmly Resist.