Who I am.

Last night I got into a debate with a co-worker about why God allows a young girl to get into an accident and teeter on the edge of death. This little girl was in the bed in front of us, all too real and close to home. I tried, in vain, to convince this co-worker that God is good, sovereign, and all things fall through His hands. I told him of Christ, who took all the deepest earthly pain and suffering along with the unimaginable wrath of God, so that we might live. He bore the pain so that we wouldn't have to.

But he chose to fight back with arguments and words and I'm not so much into arguing into the wee morning hours so I gave up. If I had another chance, this would be the story I would tell him.

When I was 14 I sat in that hospital bed. Right down the hall from the one we were looking at last night. I was afraid, in pain, and honestly had a moment or two thinking "what if I die from this?". I had a bad turn on a go-cart and ended up wedged underneath a van in the parking lot at my dad's office. I couldn't breathe (punctured lung) and everything seemed distant and surreal. This is shock, I assume, a state of protection for your body that protects you from feeling pain at that moment and almost gives you a sense of euphoria, from the catecholamines.

My dad threw me in the back of the car and raced me to the hospital. If you ever want to get right in without a wait, just come in sucking air and collapse on the countertop. It works.

I remember them cutting my clothes off and I didn't care, which was significant for me because I was a little Christian girl who didn't hardly wear spaghetti strap shirts. After a CT, they told my parents that a level 1 trauma center is what I needed so off I flew. Comically, the only thing I remember about that flight was that the guy nurse was cute and I cursed myself for looking so terrible on this occasion. Better luck next time.

I was admitted to the ICU, started on some fantastic drugs, and monitored for complications. Truthfully, I have almost no recollection of my time in the ICU, probably because of the medications. I can only wonder what ridiculous things I said under the influence. I'm sure my mother will never tell me.

The team was watching my blood levels, hemoglobin and hematocrit, to determine if I would need surgery because I had basically cut my liver in half inside my body. Your liver is a very vascular organ so you can bleed out quickly and drastically. They were watching for my levels to get to a certain number then they would take me to the OR and cut me open. At the time, the mortality of this surgery was close to 40%. Meaning, out of every 10 people that go in there, 4 don't come out. This is exactly what parents want to hear while they've already jumped off the cliff of sanity.

By the sheer grace and mercy of God, my blood levels got to the lowest they could go, then started coming back up. My body was healing itself and, fun fact: your liver is the only organ in your body that regenerates itself! Crazy, huh?! So my good ole liver started doing it's business, my lungs decided to grant me some air, and I got better. There were countless complications that I could have encountered but I was spared them all.

This sounds like a horrible experience to have as a young child you might say. Well, yes and no. Horrible because I couldn't hardly move my body for a month because of intense muscle spasms. Great because I basically got out of doing school for that amount of time and everyone glossed over the fact that I just didn't take my finals.

About two years later, I had a dream. In the dream, I was the patient in the bed, the same bed that I had on the floor actually. But I was also the nurse, taking care of myself. I was looking down on the scene as an observer and woke with a feeling of overwhelming sobriety, as if God had communicated a very secret and special truth to me. I didn't fully understand it at the time but soon decided to be a nurse and have never, not ever, changed my mind. Ask anyone halfway through college and they will tell you that to know what you want to do is rare and to be a nurse is arduous and time-consuming. You have to want it and I did.

Through a series of crazy, God-ordained circumstances, I now work on the same unit that I was patient. Some of the nurses remember taking care of me. I still joke with my doctor about how he told me I couldn't cheerlead for a while and I cried.

Does that sound like God didn't know what He was doing? I don't think so. I think it's hard for us to see past certain difficult, even tortuous experiences but God isn't surprised. He lets everything fall through His hands and "works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

I could say much more on this subject but that's for another day. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I think a testimony is about the most powerful thing that I have to offer on this subject. I know it's true because I lived it.

An Inconceivable Love

Three weeks out, India still seems like a jumble of experience, coated with culture, and laced with a sense of foreign mysticism (and possibly dysentery). The country does take on a personality, a life of it's own that forms in your mind in it's own unique way. Everyone sees it differently, takes away various nuggets of truth, and finally realizes they have a love for it they did not immediately perceive, especially after eating straight naan for a week. It's invariably true that you come to love even the disgusting or repulsive parts along with the beautiful because, in the end, it wouldn't be one without the other.

My writing right now has no cohesive train of thought. Stream of consciousness in it's highest and most chaotic sense. I believe part of this to be due to the nature of India. In India, anything can and does happen. If you can't leave the hotel because of a train workers strike, then so be it. If the rain causes the conference to be delayed a day, so be it. If you work so hard on planting your crops or harvesting and it gets destroyed in an instant, so it shall go. Start over and stop crying about it. Thus is the mindset of the people and it's manifestation in life. No one starts yelling "but I need to get to work!" because everyone adapts to the changes and no one takes the liberty of getting upset at others. No one furiously spats, "I'm an important person and I deserve better!" because the harsh reality is that there are a billion people in this country, and you sir, are simply ONE of them. This country was built around a collective humility of self that doesn't allow one individual to demand of others. People die if they don't work together. And you sir, will get swallowed up by the masses that you viciously insult. Don't mess with a billion devoted people.

Contrast this to The Great U.S. of A. We perpetuate the idea that everyone should rise to the top, be an individual, build a great building and put your name on it. Then you will be immortal in the science building of Texas Tech University. Sorry, but we strive for these lame claim to fame's as if a 100 years from now, anyone will care. I'm pretty sure no one cares about Tech now, but I'm only joking.

I left the airport in India (Mumbai might be my most horrific travel experience thus far, but that's another blog for another day) with a feeling of lazy contentment that excluded any sense of the frantic, stressful, and overstimulated. But what did I do when I landed in Chicago? Pulled out my phone and caught up on the 400 tweets I had missed. Checked my facebook to see who had desperately missed me while I was gone. Called my parents (probably the only noble thing I did while waiting in that customs line). I seriously could have kissed that dirty, germ-infested airport linoleum for the sake of being back in the familiar and getting a giant spinach salad. Yes, these toilets looked safe for human life and I was allowed to wear my shoes in them. Bless American hygiene.

Now, looking at photos nostalgically and remembering that yes, I was there and yes, it was real, I find myself losing all of the lessons I learned so very quickly. You go to a foreign country to glean some better aspects of their culture, correct? Then why am I so desperately attached to mine, even when I realize that some parts of it destroy my soul in little bits everyday?

Music in the car was offensive to me when I returned. Not just, turn it down but oh my gosh this crap causes me to have facial contorsions and spit it out like a knuckle in a chicken. Gross, I know. But now I don't mind. I've settled into the routine again and honestly, it pisses me off. It's as if America is some natural born addiction that forces me to pump Entertainment and Pleasure into my veins through an 18 gauge. I feel nauseous and unsettled without it because it's what's expected of me here. In India, I could get away with laying around for 2 hours, chatting, reading etc and not feel a sting of guilt about it. Well that feeling has long passed and I wonder how to get it back. What's it going to take for me to sustain those feelings against our culture of constant busyness, over-booked schedules, and obsession with success and beauty? Not one of those is a valiant quality and we have unknowingly, used our precious and valuable freedom to a sickening extent.

I don't have the answer, just an awareness of it. There's no anecdotal conclusion to this blog, no sentimental truth to leave you with except don't be ignorant of what the Lord shows you- here at home or at the farthest corners of the earth. Ignorance is not always bliss. Knowledge is uncomfortable but eventually, life-changing. I choose change any day of the week.

p.s. I realize these blogs aren't about nursing at all but get over it, my two followers :).