Lord, teach me to be generous (reprise)


Lord, teach me to be generous.

Teach me to spend the morning with her like we've got the whole day in front of us - luxuriously unhurried, devotedly present. Teach me to linger over first cups of milk and breakfast with baby dolls. Teach me to walk out the door with a smile on my face so that she'll only remember me as happy.

Teach me to serve you as you deserve.

Teach me to recognize you in other people's children when I wish I could be cuddling my own. Teach me to meet each patient with kindness in my voice and compassion in my heart. Teach me to listen, to question, to heal.

To give and not to count the cost.

Teach me to take it one day at a time. Teach me to cherish this breath - to live today without worrying about weekend rounds or overnight calls. Teach me to measure my days in service to you, not in moments lost with her.

To fight and not to heed the wounds.

Teach me to smile when I would rather cry, laugh when I would rather protest. Teach me to leave old hurts where they belong and to face each new challenge with courage and reliance on your grace.

To toil and not to seek for rest.

Teach me to greet her with open arms at the end of the day. Teach me to leave work at work and just be her mother 100%. Teach me to smile, laugh, tickle, and snuggle to the fullest each minute until bedtime.

To labor and not to ask for reward...

Teach me to walk through this life with humility and gratitude for all you have blessed me with. Teach me to savor bath time and story time and last-minute snuggles before bed. Teach me to whisper that I love her each night so that she'll never forget that eternal truth.

...save that of knowing that I am doing your will.

Teach me to be obedient to you. Teach me to lay at the foot of the Cross my feelings and frustrations, dreams and desires. Teach me to discern your will, Lord, and to separate it from my own ideas about happiness, purpose and fulfillment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This first week back on rotations is hard. In some ways it is easier than when I went back the first time. G was 11 weeks old then. I was pumping and stressed about my milk supply. I still had half of my third year to finish. Now she is 18 months old, no longer dependent on me for physical nourishment. There is no need to drag my black Medela bag with me everywhere or scout out places to pump every 4 hours. I have only a handful of electives and residency interviews left before graduation.

But in other ways it is harder. I had a glimpse of life at home with her this past year (even if it was only part of the time) and it is so very hard to give that up. I am mourning the loss of our slow morning routine - breakfast and playtime, walks to the market, naps in the stroller. I am thinking of all the tiny, insignificant moments with her that I'll miss; all the chances to experience the sublime and mundane realities of her toddler years.

I am trying to take it one day at a time, to focus on this rotation and this rotation only - not my Acting Internship or interview season, not intern year or inpatient services or questions of fellowships. Just today. Just these 8, 10, 12 hours until I see her again.

It will get better, my husband reminded me gently yesterday evening. It always gets better.

And that is probably true. Transitions are the hardest for me - I don't like the feeling of being caught between two realities.

But that is how we live in this life - caught between heaven and earth. Made from dust and returning to it, but knowing that our Creator calls us to something more.

G update: 18 months


G had her 18-month well child check this morning. Her current stats:

Length: 33 inches (85%tile)
Weight: 25.1 pounds (85%tile)

She is a big girl - but very proportionate!

G was in a very friendly mood and hardly fussed at all during the exam. Her physical and behavioral development is right on track. She is walking and running, talking up a storm (with a growing number of intelligible words), and is interested and engaged in the world around her. The one challenge we have is to cut back on her milk intake - she basically drinks milk ad lib throughout the day, taking in between 28-32 oz (well above the recommended 12-14 oz!) We'll be trying to substitute water during meals and snacks, saving those precious few cups of milk for wake-up and bed-time.

It's always a bit of a strange experience to take G to the pediatrician. I feel like I should know everything about the expected growth and development of a toddler, as well as have a differential ready for any concerns that are raised. If the pediatrician brings up something - a physical finding or behavioral issue - that I haven't noticed, I feel like I've missed something huge on an H&P. I have to keep reminding myself that in that office my primary role is parent, not medical student - I'm there to report how G is doing on a daily basis and to bring up concerns that might get missed during a quick visit. I don't have to have all the answers, and it's okay to ask questions or be uncertain about milestones...I'm not her doctor (nor should I be).

Anyway! G is now happily at daycare, playing with all her pals. Mom hat off, medical student hat on. I am headed to clinic, where I do need to remember those specifics of behavior and development, physiology and pharmacology (etc, etc, etc). But I'll be thinking of my girl all day...I guess the mom hat never quite comes all the way off.

Here & Now



Taking time to stop, breathe, and savor the present moment.

I am sitting in one of our comfy green chairs, with the windows open and the ceiling fan blowing cool air across my face. G is snoozing in her stroller on the porch (yesterday she took a 3-hour nap there...I'm hoping for a repeat performance). There is bread rising in the kitchen and whole wheat dough in the fridge to be used for grilling pizzas later tonight. The dishwasher is humming in the background (an unfamiliar sound), cleaning Ball jars to be used to pickle zucchini from the garden.

This was a wonderful weekend. My parents were in town to drop my sister off for the start of her year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. My mom drove in a few days early to spend some time with G and let me tie up the last loose ends from my research year. My dad and sister arrived on Friday afternoon. We spent an hour or so walking around the neighborhood. G was in her element, showing off her running and climbing skills at the playground and her bravery on the big slides. We met K for dinner and ice cream, after which he and my sister took a trip to the garden plot while my parents and I gave G a bath and looked at pictures of doggies on the Internet.

My parents took off after breakfast the next morning, giving us the day to spend with my sister. It was really wonderful to spend some intentional time with her during a regular sort of day. My sisters and I live far apart, so most of the times that we see each other are at holidays or special events. There's a different sort of connection that happens when you get the chance to step into someone's everyday life. That's one of the things I'm most excited about for the coming year - getting to share ordinary moments with my sister in a way we haven't been able to in years.


Monday is my first day back on clinical rotations. I'll be starting with two weeks of outpatient clinics, which is a nice way to ease back in. After that, there will be 7 weeks on inpatient services, which will involve longer shifts and weekend hours. But I'm not thinking about that right now. Right now I am looking forward to making pizzas on the grill, and just feeling grateful for all that I am blessed with.

7QT: Volume 2 (Ruined for Life Edition)

7QT
I started this blog during my two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), a service program that offers recent college graduates the opportunity to serve the poor and marginalized while living in an intentional community of other volunteers. I followed in the footsteps of several family members who had served in JVC before me. And now my little sister is continuing the tradition! I am so excited that she will be spending a year with this amazing program, and am especially psyched that she is going to be serving in my city and living just a few blocks away!

Linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes dedicated to the awesomeness that is JVC.


{1}
My experience in JVC was transformative. I went from working as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health with my own studio apartment outside of DC to learning the ropes as a Case Manager in a domestic violence shelter while living with six housemates in the heart of Philadelphia. Going from culturing mouse neurons to counseling survivors of domestic violence was about as huge a transition as I had ever experienced. There was a lot of discomfort in those first few months - but also so much grace. I am so grateful for the lessons I learned through JVC - I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.


{2}
There are four core values to the JVC experience. One is simple living. Each JV receives a paycheck from his or her service placement, all of which (aside from a small monthly stipend - ours was less than $100) is put into the community bank account and used to cover living expenses for the community as a whole. In part this was meant to encourage solidarity with those we were serving - men, women and children who lived month to month and didn't always know where their next meal was coming from or where they would sleep at night. We did not, of course, experience hunger or homelessness or so many other forms of marginalization the way that our clients did, but we did learn something about the difference between wants and needs, luxuries and basic essentials. Simple living is also intended to encourage intentional living - making decisions thoughtfully and carefully, with reference to values and beliefs. This value is something my husband and I are trying even now to incorporate into our family life.


We learned to save our money for the things that mattered - like this awesome spread for our Christmas party (Phillies Navidad)


{3}
Another of the JVC values in community. JVC places volunteers in cities across the country, where they live in community with other volunteers, usually ranging from 4 to 8 per house. As if living on a tight budget isn't hard enough, JVC challenges you to do it with a group of veritable strangers, each with unique preferences and personality quirks. This is one of the hardest values to live, perhaps because there's no escaping the very real challenges of community life when living on a small income in an unfamiliar city. Living in community taught me a great deal about myself, and laid bare many of my faults and weaknesses I could keep hidden while living alone. Since our time in JVC ended, the members of my two communities have moved to many states and are pursuing many different paths - but we still share a powerful bond that few other people in our lives understand. There are still group texts and email chains that circulate between us from time to time, re-sending favorite pictures and reprising inside jokes.


This shot of our living room captures so much of the JV lifestyle. Random collection of furniture. Awful green carpet. Yes we had a TV, no we didn't have cable...but we did have a complete set of Friend's DVD's that we watched over and over and over. Retro exercise bike donated to the community...empty six pack in front of it. Try not to bond with your community members when this is your life!


{4}
The third value is spirituality. JVC operates out of the Catholic tradition, which informs the service placements and spiritual support offered to volunteers. In particular, JVC calls upon the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who taught his followers to be contemplatives in action, living lives of interior recollection while working to build the Kingdom of God in the world at large. While not all JV's are Catholic (or religious, for that matter), the program asks that each volunteer brings an openness to the spiritual life and a willingness to accept the faiths of his or her community members, whatever they might be. My two communities were made up of staunch Catholics, along with other Christians, spiritual seekers, agnostics and atheists. While it was sometimes challenging to connect on spiritual grounds, for the most part I think that we were respectful and loving toward one another, even at moments when we profoundly disagreed.


Altar cloth made by the Additional Year volunteers for the final Mass of our Orientation retreat my second year.


{5}
The final value is social justice. I think this is the value that draws most applicants to JVC, at least initially. The people I met through JVC were passionate and idealistic, on fire to relieve suffering, resist oppression and remake the world in the image of the God who is just and merciful. Even those did not identify with the Catholic and Ignatian spirituality of JVC were committed to accompanying the poor and marginalized. JVC's commitment to social justice emerges from Catholic Social Teaching, which emphasizes the value of the human person and envisions a society that respects and fosters the dignity and worth of each individual, particularly those on the margins. If I could change anything about JVC, it would be to emphasize even more strongly this particularly Catholic approach to social justice, which is founded on doing all for the sake of Christ. As Pope Francis has said:

{6}


JVC's unofficial motto is "Ruined for Life", speaking to the idea that the experience of living simply and in community, immersed in spirituality and social justice, changes you in a way that cannot be undone. This is perhaps a little more pithy than true - JVC can surely transform you, but only to the extent that you let it. And it's a profound challenge to continue living the four values after becoming a former Jesuit Volunteer (or FJV, as we like to say) - just as it's challenging to live the Catholic faith in general. I am certainly not living as simply or intentionally as I was in JVC, but I do believe that my experiences as a JV continue to shape my goals and vision for my life. In particular, my work with survivors of domestic violence is a touchstone for me as I discern my path in medicine. I have never known more challenging or meaningful work than that which I was blessed to do in the shelter, and I hope that I will be able to recapture and build upon some of that experience in my medical career.


{7}
Finally, to my little sister, as she begins this incredible journey - I am so proud of you for taking this leap into a year of simplicity, community life, spiritual exploration and the pursuit of social justice. You are moving to a new city far from home (though by God's Providence, just around the corner from me!), to live with new people who may become some of your best friends - or whom you may find barely tolerable. You are embarking on new and challenging work that will draw upon many of your skills and experiences, while also stretching you in ways as yet unknown. You are aligning yourself with a tradition you are not fully comfortable with - and I hope that you will be open with your community members about your beliefs, because there is so much richness to be discovered by meeting each other in the borderlands between faith and doubt (which is, I think, the place we all live most of the time). And whether you call it this or not, you are opening yourself up to the grace of God, which will flow into every crevice and chasm broken open by this experience.

If you're interested, you can check out all my posts written while in JVC. Don't forget to head over to This Ain't the Lyceum to read what others have to say this week. And if you know any idealistic college students looking for a way to spend a gap year, or discern a vocation, or come face to face with poverty and grace...consider pointing them here.

Physician Moms Blog-Hop: Introduction

DIsis


Linking up with Sarah at Disis and the D Crew and Christy at Sunny with a Side of... for the first installment of the Physician Mom Blog-Hop.

So hello! My name is Katie, and I'm currently a fourth-year medical student with a wonderful, supportive husband and a vivacious 18-month old daughter.

I started medical school as a single gal who was entertaining thoughts of entering the religious life (i.e. becoming a nun). But God clearly had other plans for me, because midway through my MS1 year I met a cute grad student...midway through my MS2 year I married him...and midway through my MS3 year I gave birth to our daughter!

Being a mom in medical school hasn't always been easy (my husband could tell you plenty of stories about the hard times), and I often fall into the trap of focusing on the challenges of this current season of life while ignoring the blessings. But someone recently encouraged me to take a step back and look at life as a bell curve - some days are great and some are just rotten, but most are pretty good. And I've been recognizing more and more that this is true.

Some days I feel like I've got it all together: Daycare drop-off accomplished without tears! Submitted a manuscript for publication! Got great feedback on H&P's! Nutritious dinner already prepped!

Other days it seems like nothing is going right: Both the toddler and I had meltdowns before breakfast...my one pair of dress pants are now covered in oatmeal...I still can't find my stethoscope...we're all eating scrambled eggs and chia seeds for dinner because there's no other food in the house...

But most days fall somewhere in between: We all make it out of the house on time in (mostly) clean clothes, I talk with patients and maybe get the chance to put a note in the chart or suggest a treatment option, I realize (again) that there is so much I still have to learn and practice, we throw together more than two food groups for dinner and get our daughter to sleep after a few recitations of Corduroy and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (the texts of which now take up the space in my memory formerly occupied by the components of the brachial plexus).

It's been something of a wild ride these past few years, but I am so grateful for this vocation of marriage, motherhood and medicine. When I take the time to really look at my life, I am almost in disbelief that I am given so many gifts on a daily basis - the opportunity to journey through life with a partner who shares my deepest convictions, the chance to train in a field that will allow me to offer healing and hope to people experiencing pain and suffering, and of course, the incredible blessing of being mother to a toddler who challenges me in ways I never thought possible (but who gives me more than enough joy to sweeten the deal).

Between residency and a (hopefully) growing family, the next few years will certainly bring new challenges - but I am excited to meet them. I have been greatly encouraged by reading the reflections of physician moms like Sarah and Christy, and look forward to "meeting" many more through this Blog Hop! It's so helpful to know that there are others out there walking this same path - some right beside me in the rough patches, others a little further along, still others far down the road who can offer a glimpse of smoother stretches and bright horizons.

Check out the other physician moms here!

Slow Cooker Chicken Paprikash (ish)


Linking up with the fabulous Dwija of House Unseen - check out some much better recipes here!

love the crock pot. We don't use it as much as we could - maybe once a week. But when we do, it is just wonderful to throw some ingredients together the night before/in the morning and come home to a fully cooked meal.

We're not great about following recipes, which maybe makes me a poor candidate for a recipe link-up. I'd rather follow a general template (main ingredients + variable spices + variable accompaniments), working with what we have in the kitchen on a given day. What follows is more of a rough outline than a line-by-line recipe...but maybe it will work for someone!

Chicken Paprikash(ish) Soup*
Serves 2 adults + 1 toddler over several days

Ingredients:
6-8 bone-in chicken thighs (boneless would probably work as well)
1 quart chicken stock
Vegetables of choice (I like onion, garlic, golden beets, carrots and mushrooms)
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper, paprika + other spices of choice (I like tandoori and sazon)

Directions:
1. (Optional) Night before - Marinate chicken thighs in spices
I like to heavily spice the chicken, since the coconut milk will lend a milder flavor to the soup overall. You can skip this step, but I have been more pleased with the results when I do take the time to marinate.


2. Chop vegetables and saute in olive oil with salt, pepper, paprika and other spices until just starting to soften

Again, I like to go heavy on the spices with this step. Don't saute for too long, since the vegetables will be cooking for a while in the crock pot.


3. Mix sauteed vegetables, chicken thighs, and chicken stock together in the crock pot. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.

Those times are definitely estimates. Go with what usually works for cooking chicken in your particular crock pot.


4. After chicken thighs have cooked, shred meat and remove bones.

I just use two forks to shred the meat and fish out the bones...there's probably a fancier way to do it that I don't know about.


5. Add coconut milk and stir. Keep on low for 30-60 minutes, then serve or keep warm!

I think this is the most important step! The coconut milk is what makes this dish delicious - it thickens up the broth and adds a mildly sweet flavor that when paired with the spices is quite tasty (in my opinion, at least).

*I haven't had much chicken paprikash in my life, and this dish is probably not really like most chicken paprikash...or maybe it is, I wouldn't really know! It's loosely modeled after a chicken paprikash soup my husband likes from a local restaurant.

How We Met, Part II

Where I left off in Part I, we had just made plans to attend the orchestra after an epic weekend of beer drinking, salsa dancing and karaoke singing.

In preparation for the great phone downgrade of 2015, I saved the text messages that K and I exchanged early in our courtship. They included this gem from K sent on the night prior to our first date:



He ran a little late picking me up, giving me plenty of time to stress over whether or not I was "formal" enough.


I think he was originally supposed to pick me up at 5:30.

True to his word, he went pretty formal - bow tie and all. I wore a maroon dress and a raincoat, because I guess the forecast predicted rain. We went to dinner in Little Italy, where I ordered eggplant parm and he ordered veal. I remember being puzzled by his entree choice - it didn't seem to fit with the somewhat crunchy impression I'd gotten of him when we first met (knew the JVs...didn't have a TV...rode his bike to work...) I also remember electing not to mention that I was (at that point) a vegetarian, thinking it would make a bad impression on him. Always with the over-analysis on my part.

Despite our (unspoken) philosophical differences regarding the eating of meat, that first dinner was lovely. We ran through the usual first date questions and found out that we were both the eldest of three (he of three boys, me of three girls) and that both our mothers were one of seven children. When the check came, I made that awkward half-hearted attempt to split it with him, but thankfully he insisted on paying, in exchange for some baked goods to be delivered at a later date.

We then headed over to the orchestra (Beethoven's 9th). I remember it being a pretty great performance, with a full choir accompanying the musicians. During intermission, I asked him all sorts of questions about his preferences for baked goods and learned that we weren't exactly in agreement in this area (I said I kind of liked fudge...he said something along the lines of "there are two kinds of people in this world, those who like fudge and normal people"). I did learn that he was fond of strawberry shortcake, topped with whipped cream and doused in whole milk (I thought that sounded like a strange way to eat cake, but kept that opinion to myself). 

After the performance, he drove me back to my house. We sat there in the dark for a few awkward moments while I tried to figure out whether or not he was going to kiss me. Finally I had run through all of the parting small talk I could think of and wished him a good night. He looked at me, leaned a little bit towards me across the middle consul and said... "Don't forget to take your leftovers".

Thankfully, the story doesn't end there...there was still a night of strawberry shortcake cookies and a shvitz awaiting us...

The Long View

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

~Archbishop Oscar Romero

The Credo Project

Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach me to be generous
Teach me to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labor and not to ask for reward
Save that of knowing that I am doing your will

~St. Igantius of Loyola