Mistakes & Failures
First, a big praise. We got to 100% of the support we needed for our upcoming trip to India as of one week ago! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our trip as well as the many who have so generously given to help make this trip a reality. This whole support raising process has always been an incredible process of faith building for us. It is amazing to see how God moves in the hearts of people to generously give to make this possible. Of course, I would like the whole process to work on my time frame but often God uses delays and frustrating days to continue to increase our faith and to trust HIS provision. Yet again we were amazed at the variety of people who gave and especially moved by those who gave who did not have much to begin with - a true lesson for us about sacrificial giving. We are also excited because we are now less a week away from leaving for India. We leave next Saturday, April 2nd. A couple of things you can be praying for:
- Travel mercies as we spend over 24 hours in flight and travel through Paris and Bahrain on our way to Delhi and then as we spend another 24 hours on a train on our way to Raxaul.
- Pray for supplies to be become available for us to take to the hospitals in India. We have hit several roadblocks with getting supplies donated from Parkland due to hesitation from the legal department and we need God to work to allow us to have several pieces of equipment to take to India.
- That our hearts would be in the right place and that we would rely on God and not ourselves as we make this trip
In my continuing series of posts on themes from the emergency department, I wanted to use this post to write about several patients where I made a mistake or did not pick up on a condition fast enough to prevent them harm. I think very few physicians want to speak about mistakes because they ruin our sense of infallibility but I feel like the lessons I've learned for patients where I made a mistake have been invaluable in my development as a young physician and have taught me to hold on to my humility. I'm human and will always make mistakes but sometimes these are hard lessons when they involve the life of a patient.
Humor in the ED & Support Update
It's the beginning of February and we are having a hard time figuring out if we are still living in Texas or Minnesota. We have had almost two weeks of sub-freezing temperatures along with ice and snow which have again reinforced for us why we live here and not a 1000 miles further north! Melissa was quite sick last week and spent 4 days in bed with the flu but she seems to finally have turned the corner. Appachan and Ammachi and Chrisly were gracious enough to watch the kiddos for several of those days so that Melissa could work on regaining her strength.
We are continuing to make progress on our support raising goal although it has slowed the last few weeks. Hopefully many of you got a reminder postcard in the mail to continue praying for us and to consider supporting us financially to make our upcoming trip to India possible. We are almost 60% of the way to our final goal but still need to raise about $5500 to make the trip possible. We trust that God will provide us with the resources to make this trip possible and we are excited that we are now less than 7 weeks away from leaving for India. If you would like to help us with our trip just click the donate button on the top right or send us a check made out to Crossroad Church with "India Medical Mission" in the memo line for a tax deductible donation. Vivek got his visa in the mail today which was one of our last administrative hurtles to make the trip to India and the other kids all got a series of vaccinations a couple weeks ago to make sure they are well prepared for our trip. Thankfully Melissa and I did not need to get new vaccines for this trip which was better than our last trip whenI think we ended up getting over 25 shots between the entire family!
I wanted to write about the lighter side of the ED. People often wonder how people can work day after day in a place as stressful as the emergency room. Although I do meet a lot of people on their bad days, there are always patients or stories that bring a smile to my face or sometimes have me on the floor laughing. I think it is these lighter moments in the ED, the ability to laugh about the little things, the ability to laugh with my coworkers that makes my job fun and keeps me coming back to the emergency department.
Medical Mission Trip to North India
First a couple of quick updates. We just attended the Global Health Missions Conference (GHMC) that gathers together every year during the 2nd week of November in Louisville, KY. It was a time of much needed spiritual encouragement and a time to meet with several organizations that we have been considering partnering with in order to facilitate our return back to India. The conference is the largest of its kind in the US with over three thousand medical professionals that have a heart to serve in medical missions here and overseas. The last speaker we heard yesterday, Dr. Carol Spears, was especially encouraging to hear about how God has worked in her life and through her sufferings to call her to a life of mission service in Kenya.
We also wanted to let all of you know that we have set into motion most of the things that need to happen for us to go to India in early 2011 to work at two missions hospitals that are part of the EHA network of hospitals.
The Dog Days of Summer
So the end of July and August has been unbearably hot in Texas. I believe we've had almost two weeks of greater than 100 degree weather! Our plants are wilting and so are our spirits as we try to stay indoors as much as possible. I finally had some time to work on some of the pictures from our big road trip to the west and northwest coast which I've uploaded along with this post. I think I've got a couple hundred more pictures to look through to get to the end of our trip and then I can start taking some new pictures!
Happy 4th of July Weekend
Its 12:30 at night and both Melissa and I have decided to be late night owls tonight and risk our sleep by staying up way too late since the kids will be up in 6-7 hours like clockwork. I'm officially now a 3rd year resident at Parkland and Karuna is now officially a 6 year old. Karuna had a great party about a week ago celebrating her 6th birthday with many of our friends and family. Per Karuna's choice we had pizza from a local pizza place called Oak Cliff Pizza and it was an instant hit.
Welcome to 2010…6 Months Late…
As you might have figured out from the lack of posts, the 2nd year of EM residency at UTSW is the hardest year and thus the multiple months away from the writing desk. But do not worry...I've been collecting up plenty of interesting stories over the past 7 months from my great patients and will have some good ones to share soon.
Finally an Update
No we have not disappeared to the ends of the earth or gone missing. It has been many months since we updated the blog mainly because of the demands of residency and taking care of three very active children but don't worry we're doing well...maybe I should rephrase that...surviving my second month of all night shifts in the ED.
A quick overview of the last few months:
- Vivek is now 9 months old, we cannot believe how interactive he has become
- Karuna and Luke started their second year of homeschooling and are loving every minute of it
- I finished one month of night shifts in the ER, a month of day shifts in the ER, a month in the ER at Baylor Dallas and am now on a second month of nights at Parkland/Childrens
- Melissa helped to start up a Side by Side chapter in Dallas three weeks ago and they are going through the book Sacred Marriage
- We harvested our crops from the past year incluiding 4 honey dew melons, lots of raspberries (they are still bearing for us) and strawberries, and ate our first pomegranate from our tree
- I traveled to Boston for a week to attend the annual American College of Emergency Medicine conference
- We traveled to Nebraska for a week to visit Melissa's family
Christine & Stan Mathew Wedding Pictures
Just wanted to post some pictures from my sister Christine's wedding at the end of June. I'm just finishing my two weeks on the neonatal resuscitation team after I finished two weeks in the burn ICU. Both have been good rotations but definitely some long hours in the ICU. I'm starting a month of nights back in the ER starting on Monday. Melissa is still sleep deprived as Vivek still wakes up 2-3 times a night to eat but we'll start solid food with him in a couple more weeks and so I'm hoping he will sleep a little more soundly.
Christine’s Wedding
Well it appears that I've gone blog crazy over the last few days since I've posted now three times this week...thankfully this excessive blogging will end soon for our blog readers as soon as I start a brutal week of multiple call days at the cardiac ICU at the VA. Today was a very special day for us as we got to rejoice with my sister, Christine, as she married her new husband, Stan Mathew.
An Update Long Time Coming
Clearly we have not done the greatest job keeping the blog updated over the last two months or so. Hopefully I'll be able to remedy part of that this evening. Since our last update, I've finished two more rotations of intern year, Vivek has gotten to 3 months, we made a 4500 mile road trip to North Carolina, Florida & Alabama, made another road trip to San Antonio and have spent lots of time in our garden.
