Trials of Many Kinds

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” –James 1

This is what happens. I’m sitting in my clinic room, hooked up to a breast pump, desperately trying to calm down and relax so the milk will come, trying not to imagine some patient or technician barging through the door without reading the DO NOT DISTURB sign I had hung up. Maybe I should have added UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, I’m thinking. Or, BECAUSE I AM HALF NAKED.

Meanwhile there are about six patients waiting to see me outside. My only surgical case for tomorrow just cancelled because she failed to show up for her pre-op physical despite my calling her twice yesterday. I realize I forgot to eat lunch. I wonder if that relates to why I can’t seem to pump enough milk these days, and try not to think about what happens when the freezer stash runs out. I stare at the pile of charts piled up on the counter. I talk like an auctioneer while dictating but still can’t manage getting through all thirty from the day without a few piling up.

Pumping is the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out how to multi-task while doing. The rest of the day feels like ten things at once. Bundling her up for daycare while packing my bags. Dictating while checking the pager, examining while getting the history. Filling out consent forms while waiting for patients to dilate. Studying at night while breastfeeding. Calling D while running to pick E up. He and I are like a two-person special operations team. The last time we were this strategically intense, we were at Disney World figuring out how to ride Space Mountain during their busiest week of the year.

But those moments, when I pump locked in my clinic room, I have nothing to do but sit caught by the weirdness of my life. By the fragility of my sense of self. By the weird duality of my existence. I feel rusty at work, uncertain about daycare. I wonder whether I am doing too many things to do any one thing well. I take D’s advice and try to use those times to pray, and mostly, I am praying, God, help me stay true. Help me, at the end of the day, to have pumped enough milk for her, to not have worsened anyone’s vision, to not have neglected D. Help me to experience joy as I can. Help me to have persevered.