Fragile...

With every end, comes a new beginning. With every event, we try to understand its purpose. At times though, I can't make sense of the things happening around me. But life after all, is lived forward, and understood backwards. However, right now, I can't run forward fast enough in time so that I can understand everything that is happening around me. It's almost like the physics concept of - what goes up, must come down - extends beyond inanimate objects. You work so hard to rise up, but then you are knocked down. Why? I don't know yet.


It's not just the circumstances around me that make me realize how fragile we all are. Everyday in the hospitals, I see babies, teenagers, young men and women, and elderly from every ethnicity being stricken down. People who were full of energy one day, keeping busy with life's little quirks and repetitive motions, and then one day God hits the pause button in their lives. To be vibrant one day, and to be counting down your days the next. I remember this one patient during my surgery rotation who came in with a two day history of severe abdominal (stomach) pain. Her CT scan (picture of her bowels for non med readers) showed ischemic bowels (dead guts). We stayed up through the night in the operating room to surgically explore if there was any way we could save part of her bowels so that she can live. Nothing. Absolutely nothing could be done. Every inch of her bowels were dead. It felt futile. The OR was dead silent aside from the noisy beeping machines and the respirator. Noises that were giving false hope of life. We put her bowels back to where they belonged and proceeded to neatly suture (close) her abdomen. We then waited for her oxygen levels and blood pressure to become even more stable. It was odd to see all these little steps taken to make sure she was medically "stable", despite the fact that she will die tomorrow. We then proceeded to talk to her son who had just flown in to see her. The surgeon explained that everything possible was done, but that she will still die tomorrow. Tears came down his cheeks. Here was a vibrant, active woman, living one day, and dead the next. The surgeon and I walked to the elevators after this sobering evening. There goes another life I thought. Another existence gone. The surgeon and I quietly walked into the elevator with our heads down. On our way up, the elevator stopped one floor above us. A mom and an adorable little boy stepped in. He wanted to push the elevator buttons, and then he was excited to see two doctors. The surgeon and I looked at his enthusiasm for the simple things in life, we looked at each other and smiled finally. With one end, comes a new beginning.

"On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are"