Bold

The Experiment was a bold one.  She had been planning it for ages.  Endlessly dreaming about each minute piece of the whole project.  Intricately working everything together in her mind.  The process was arduous.  The wait intolerable.  Each day, a new piece of equipment would arrive at her door, and each day she imagined it's place in the set-up.  Bunsen burners, Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers.  Today it was the retort.  Yesterday was a small case of test tubes.  The chemicals each arrived item by item as well.  Her checklist was almost complete.  She would be able to begin on Friday, work through the weekend, hopefully something brilliant by Monday.

Finally the week was dwindling; her time to create approaching.  Thursday night she spent setting up each of the delicate glass vessels.  Round bottom flask held upright by a ceramic donut on the bunsen burner.  Erlenmeyer flasks and beakers lined up with various burettes  and separatory funnels hovering in the air above, poised to release minuscule drops of liquid into the containers below for precise mixing.  At the end, the retort with the resulting distillate designed to drip into a rack of test tubes.  The end result.  All was ready.  All would start tomorrow.

She couldn't sleep for the anticipation.

Friday morning.  She painstakingly rechecked the glassware set-up.  No cracks, no imperfections, all was set-up as it should be.  She began.  One chemical and then another was placed into the round bottom flask, dissolved in water and heated.  The colors swirled and mixed.  Once dissolved, she began to pour the liquid into various containers.  New chemicals added at each stage.  New colors emerged. Reds and oranges like flames licking the inside of the flasks containing it.  The last stage before entering the retort, a violaceous liquid, like melted bubblegum, filled the beaker.  She held her breath, knowing that one wrong move would upend her entire life's work onto the table where it had been created.  The mixture, safely transferred to the new container, swirled and rolled, exploring its new entrapment.  She relaxed only slightly.  The last step of its journey and hers.  The effervescent concoction warmed by the bunsen burner turned a deep, afternoon sky, blue in the dim light of the laboratory.  A green mist of vapor quietly ascended into the top of the retort containing it and condensed as a radiant teal liquid into the softly curving neck above.  Slowly the distilled liquid dripped into a tiny test tube, turning the new, final mixture an iridescent purple.  Glowing with life unknown.  The scientist smiled with content.  Her experiment worked.

Narrative Medicine

I am rounding out the end of fourth year of medical school in a class called "narrative medicine".  For most medical students, we are never truly taught how to process the emotional situations that we encounter daily in a way that allows us to continue growing.  Narrative medicine provides the base on which to be able to process the emotions we feel on a daily basis, giving us the chance to provide better care to our patients.

It boils down to returning to our humanity.  To begin to again deeply experience and enjoy the world around us through readings, movies, art and music.  As we are exposed to the arts, we are provided the chance to reflect and determine how each piece can fit into our idea of self and our interactions with others.

It is the most enjoyable class I've had since my creative writing classes in undergrad.  It is the release and decompression I needed before starting intern year.  My hope is to continue this writing through residency as best I can.  I will need to continue reflecting in order to maintain my compassion and ability to empathize.  I have a fear of becoming hardened and apathetic during residency thanks to sleep deprivation and the grueling schedule.

I do have fears about residency, perhaps not ready to be posted here.  I can do it.  I have a great support group with me.  I am competent and empathic.  I have the tools to reflect on all that I learn and see in the next year.  Now just to hope that time allows it!

I will try to continue posting similar posts to the one below from reflections I do during narrative medicine.

The Movement

Tin Win became Mi Mi’s legs because she couldn’t walk, and Mi Mi became Tin Win’s eyes because he couldn’t see. Together, Tin Win and Mi Mi were one. Tin Win had discovered that “parellel to the world of shapes and colors, [was] an entire world of voices and sounds, of noise and tones”. What he could hear, the sound of an unborn chick’s heartbeat, the rustling of butterfly wings, the voices of leaves, Mi Mi would seek out and describe. Together, each allowed a new world to appear for the other. Mi Mi discovered the world of sound, the voices of the Earth. Tin Win was able to discover what he was hearing through Mi Mi’s descriptions. He was able to see the world his eyes failed to show him as Mi Mi guided him through it. 

The beauty of the story of Tin Win and Mi Mi is not just in their discoveries of life together. Not just the wonder in the time they spent together. Their first meeting, Tin Win’s discovery of Mi Mi’s presence is the most beautifully heart-stopping moments I have ever read in a book. They unite at the beginning and reunite at the end of their lives in a way that highlights the true wonder of discovering another person who truly knows you. Tin Win found Mi Mi through the chaos at the beginning and end of their life together, and their spirits were inseparable, even when they were not in each other’s presence.

“And through all that crackling, through the creaking, whispering, and cooing, the dripping, trickling and cheeping came that unmistakable soft knocking. Slow, calm and even… There it was. Her heartbeat.”

Across the monastery, through a world full of many distracting noises, Tin Win heard Mi Mi’s heartbeat and following it to her. And when they were separated by continents as adults, each with their own lives, families, jobs, it was as if Tin Win could still hear her heart beating. It grounded him. And it eventually brought him back to her when the time had arrived for them to die.

“He laid his head on her breast. He had not been mistaken. Her heart sounded weak and weary. It was ready to stop.

He had come in time. Just.” 

I have never been so moved by a love story. The pureness of Tin Win and Mi Mi’s delight in their deep connection even when apart. The way Mi Mi wanted so badly to hear the world Tin Win heard; how delighted each was in discovering the source of Tin Win’s noises. It truly felt like one of those moments where I was honored to be allowed in presence of someone else’s most intimate moment.

This story taught me two things that I will carry with me. The first is the pure joy of connection. The delight of someone else wanting to enjoy your world with you and share theirs in return. It’s about taking the time to understand that our perceptions of our surroundings differ, allowing us to be in the same place, look at the same thing and interpret the environment in vastly different ways. IN stopping the hear what another is sensing, allows that connection to form and a new approach to life to be learned. In a clinical sense, I need to remember the raw emotion that can affect a patient and their families understanding and comprehension of a situation. I will need to be able to interpret the situation as they would, and provide the guidance that they need during such a difficult and vulnerable time for them.

The second lesson is how vision clouds our senses, providing cacophony that shrouds other truths from us. By not seeing, Tin Win learned to hear his world. At first, all the sounds, noises, symphonies were overwhelming, making it difficult for him to determine his surroundings. Then, Mi Mi’s heartbeat broke through. It provided a steadiness that allowed him the opportunity to explore his world and make sense of it. When we keep our eyes open, it mutes our other senses and denies us the steadfastness needed to explore our world through other routes. In closing them, we remove that additional chaos and allow ourselves to experience the true beauty of the world around us. Until I read “The Art of Hearing Heartbeats”, I had wondered why closing your eyes made listening with a stethoscope easier. By removing the distraction of sight, we allow our ears to hear the subtleties hidden previously. We distrust our ears otherwise.

This was one of those books that when I finished, I felt I’d lost a beloved friend. I felt so connected and part of Tin Win and Mi Mi’s beautiful world, that when it was gone, I felt lost and immobile. Even now, I find I have trouble completely explaining how unbelievably alive I felt in this book. I wanted to reread it just to hear those beautiful sounds again, to experience a world I felt I had no other way of being part of. I remember sitting on the back porch of my parent’s beach house and closing my eyes in dispair of finishing exploring such a wonderful world. Sitting with my eyes closed, the sensation slowly overtook me. The soft swish of the gliders on the sofa swing with a gentle squeak at the end of each arc. The purr of my sweet Maine Coon asleep next to me. The beating of the tiny birds’ wings and the crack of the millet as they gobbled down the soft center. The creak of a branch as a squirrel jumped from tree to tree. The rustling of the voices of the leaves talking to the wind. The cracking of a twig under a deer’s hoof as it approached the bird bath for a drink of sweet water. I couldn’t help but smile as the realization that the world of “The Art of Hearing Heartbeats” would always be with me if I just closed my eyes and let my ears take over.