When I'm in the clinic, part of me is there and part of me is wrapping my head around Arthur Kleinman. This is just a tribute to the humbling stories you get to hear in primary care.
Like the Ukranian woman who survived world war II; whose husband was sent to Siberia when she was pregnant with her first child, never to return; who endured the cold noodles, applesauce, and black coffee of the camps where others asked her how she was so pretty despite that horrible food when everyone else looked so miserable ("I am of good stock," she said); whose second husband, whom she met after coming to the US, promised her an iPad for their anniversary he didn't live to see; whose children remembered and bought her the iPad and got her drunk with joy and alcohol at a dinner overlooking the Mississippi River.
Still going strong in her late eighties, and despite her losses, she is a lively woman who refuses to be crushed by sorrow.
Today was one of the most beautiful October days I've ever felt, and I spent it in a way that a few years ago I thought I might like to. My gray skies are passing clouds, and nothing compared to the pain that these patients have suffered. But you can still drown in a drizzle.
Medicine continually reminds me it is but a drizzle; but I continue to create my own storm to drown in.
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