I love my job. I am an administrative assistant and I support 4 Gastroenteroligists and 3 Hepatologists. I've only been doing this for a little over a year, and I've learned so much about colons and livers. By nature, I am the kind of person who likes to take care of people, and my doctors quickly picked up on that and they make sure I have plenty to do! I love my doctors and am very thankful for the relationships I have with them. They've been very good to me.
Yesterday, I had to walk over to St. Paul Hospital, where one of my doctors was spending his day doing procedures. He told me he would leave some paperwork I needed from him with the lady at the front desk. Of course, he had forgotten to leave it with her. She called back to one of the procedure rooms and asked for him. I heard the nurse say, "Yes, he is here, but he is scoping. Tell Brenda to come on back." So, I did. I walked my happy self right into that room and was told to "stand right there and watch this". I looked up at the screen suspended above a sleeping patient and realized that I was waching a colonoscopy - not on TLC, but in real life!
Yes, this fascinated me. If that makes me weird or gross, so be it - I was indeed fascinated. I watched the screen in awe as Dr. S. looked at the inside of a colon, turning the wand (or whatever they call it) every which way. He found a polyp, he snipped it and it was deposited into a small jar filled halfway with saline solution. He did this over and over until he was positive there were no polyps left. Incidentally, the polyps on the screen appeared much bigger than they were in that little jar of saline solution. While I was watching this procedure, Dr. S. and one of his nurses explained every step to me and answered my questions. "See that shady area right there? That's the liver. Over here is the appendix". At the end of the procedure, Dr. S. turned the wand in such a way that the scope was "looking at itself", trying to get a reflection of itself, making sure Dr. S. didn't miss anything.
Yep, I was completely fascinated by this process. Of course, given my present state of mind (see yesterday's post), as I walked back to my office, my thoughts were going in every direction, but they quickly landed on one word: analogy. As gross as it may sound, I began thinking of what a patient has to go through just to prepare for a colonoscopy. They have to drink nasty stuff and wait for everything to be cleared out - all the "crap" (pun intended) has to be removed so that the doctor can go in and inspect the colon, looking for polyps that will be snipped out and biopsied to check for cancer. Here's the analogy: Christians are just people - no one is better than another, and sometimes, in my case, a lot of times, the "crap" needs to be cleaned out of our lives so that God can actually use us. I think that God, in His infinite wisdom, allows us to go through things - tough things - hard times - drinking that "nasty stuff" that causes us to finally humble ourselves and shine the light on the junk that needs to be cleaned out. That's the point when God can take His scope and go deep into our hearts and snip out the cancerous polyps that are keeping us from knowing Him better and from truly, honestly giving everything to Him, so that He can actually use us.
For me, it really hit home when I thought about Dr. S. turning that wand so that the scope could see a reflection of itself - when God looks at me, I mean, when He shines that light brightly and really looks at me, does He see a reflection of Himself? What do other people see when they look at me? Is there even a glimmer of a reflection of God?
So.....that's what I thought about yesterday afternoon and most of last night.
Soon, I plan on observing a liver biopsy.....I wonder what I will take away from that experience?
I do, indeed, love my job.
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