Day 7

After a weekend on call with ob/gyn and my computer being on the fritz for 4ish days, I am finally organized and my computer is up and running! Every so often my poor laptop fails when I try to push it to the limits using photoshop. Apparently my laptop and photoshop had a bit of a squabble but thankfully after a series of wiping my hardrive, rebooting (and then doing that all over again- yeah.), we are back online!

Here are the pictures that I took each day this week. The one I am most excited about is the abstract blue and white one. On Wednesday, I was driving home from a long day at the hospital and found myself thinking a lot about addiction. It feels like the theme of my week was meeting with patients in all areas of medicine that had struggled or are struggling with addiction. Many of these patients had children and families that cared about them and yet they would relapse time and time again into the sinking sand of drugs or alcohol, throwing away their health, families and sanity in the process. I found it hard to understand- how could they not see that they had something to live for? They say that they want to quit, but that they have no hope. How do you instill hope in someone who has given up? What do you say? Why is it so difficult for them to see?

As I was thinking through all of the patient encounters I had recently, I was driving by a road that was blocked off with a barrier. You know, those obnoxious orange and white striped ones that just scream: DO NOT CROSS THIS! And I got to thinking: for people in addiction, is it possible that they are so close to their addiction that they cannot step back and see the bigger picture? Just like if I was standing with my nose pressed against a road barrier, I would have no idea that it was telling me to not cross, that there is danger ahead if I do. Maybe people struggling with addiction cannot see that the line they just crossed was the very one trying to keep them from hurting themselves.