empty lab reflections

Today I stood alone in an empty anatomy lab.  The cadaver bags were all closed for the weekend.  The students had cleared out to enjoy a little bit of freedom after a de-stinkifying shower and before the weekend studying.  

I had realized while exiting the lab that I hadn’t yet looked at the radiographs for this unit, so I walked back across the room to the lightbox and flipped on the switch.

Skulls.  Lots of views of skulls.

As I stood there, trying to orient myself amongst the panels of x-rays, I remembered a moment from last summer, almost as vividly as if I was once again standing in the office hallway. One day when I was working for Dr. W, we had a little patient come into the office with a hurt arm.  He’d been looking for centipedes or worms or some other creepy crawly under logs in his dad’s woodpile, and a big log had rolled on top of him.

He was oh-so brave as we examined him and waited for the x-rays to come up from the lab.  When they finally came upstairs, I peered over Dr. W’s shoulder as she examined it for fractures.  Sure enough, there it was, and we promptly sent him off to the orthopedic department.

Now today, I was the one looking at x-rays.  All by myself.

Only, I wasn’t looking for a fracture in an arm.  I was trying to figure out how the structures that we’d just seen in the lab could translate into grey and white shadows.

A song from one of my favorite albums from high school started playing on the ipod that is permanently embedded somewhere in my brain.  “This is Your Life” by Switchfoot off the album “The Beautiful Letdown.”  

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?

Begin another flashback.  When that album came out, I was dreaming of going to college so that I could go to medical school.  When I was younger, and I had everything to lose, that’s what I wanted to do.  I'd look at the lightboxes at the clinic and think to myself, "Those would make really cool art pieces.  Wonder if I'll get to use them for real some day?"

Now, here it is.  This is my life, and actually, it is everything that I dreamed that it would be- and more.  I’m here, where I dreamed I’d be.  It’s hard like I dreamed it would be.  I’m learning like I dreamed I would.   

I’m struggling more.  I have more support than I could have ever asked for.  I’m growing more than I thought was imaginable.

I went from being a kid who dreamed about doing sweet things like reading x-rays, to being a college student who hovered behind doctors as they read x-rays, to now being a med student who scratches her head in amazement that there are so many holes in the skull on that x-ray that she has to be able to identify by next Friday.

And then someday, I’ll be the doctor that reads the x-rays for diagnostic purposes.

Granted, I've dreamed about much more than reading x-rays, and I hope that by the time I'm done here I can do more than that.  But flashbacks are funny things sometimes.  The things you can connect...

Anyways.  Good stuff to remember as finals approach.

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you’ve got now
Yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have…

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?