Missing out on Triumph

I only have a few weeks left in this city that I've come to love so much. And I have even less, if any time to actually enjoy it. I have three more weeks of classes, then finals, and then I'll be done with this crazy adventure known as an undergraduate education (more or less). This semester hasn't been anywhere near what I expected (to put it mildly).

As the year started, I promised myself and God and everyone around me that I was going to throw myself into this semester and make the most of every moment. I wanted to throw myself into Chi Alpha and really connect with this community that had been so good to me, even though I knew that would make it all the more difficult to leave. I wanted to do amazingly well academically, as my schedule held such promise with classes and responsibilities that I felt I could excel in. I wanted to savour every last moment at my church that I love so much. I wanted to embrace God and finally begin to wrestle with what my salvation means for my outward life.

But then so many things got in the way. I began to majorly struggle with depression. My many medical issues began to flare up and I got sicker than I've been in as long as I can remember.

I'd like to say that despite all of this I still made a gallant effort and stayed as connected, involved, and committed as possible. I'd like to say that I never doubted or wallowed in self pity or gave up.

I'd like to say all of these things. It'd be nice to think that after everything else that I've been through I was still able to hold on to the truth through all the hurt and pain and doubt. It'd be a nice story of triumph through trial and testing of faith.

But I could never claim to be that neat. My life has never been able to be wrapped in some nice little bow.

Instead of staying focused on the truth and the hope and prize that comes with it, I doubted, wallowed and failed so many times. And I gave up. So much more than once. I returned to old bad habits and picked up a few new ones. I hid myself from all but my closest friends and family, not feeling like I could face the community that God has placed me in in my current state of doubt and pain and dysfunction.

I like being the strong one, the one with so much faith and love and passion. I've never claimed to be perfect, but honestly, over the past three and half years, I've found such strength in that declaration. I've found freedom and opportunity to just be myself and discover what God's love and calling means within my life. I don't have it all together, and for me that was one of the strongest and most faith-filled things that I could admit.

Yet in my time of trial and pain, and at the very depths of my not having it all together, I hid from the world, and perhaps far more importantly, I hid from myself. I got lost in television and movies and my own self-doubt and self-loathing.

But throughout it all, through every falter and failing, through my every calculated choice or conscious omission to not rely on God's amazing love and power and strength, God has never left my side. Every time that I've broken down to the point of giving up, God has pulled me back to me feet and given me so much love and tenderness and space and love and rest. So much rest.

I've had it so wrong. I've been wallowing in my own muck and mire hoping that somehow the strength from my past and from my faith would pull me through. What I've failed to realize is that that strength was never my own to use. I've wanted to get through this by the power of myself.

Oh, how arrogantly ignorant I have been!!

This was never supposed to be a story of my own triumph through temptation and tests and trials. I can have no triumph on my own! Yeah, I can get aid from modern medicine and from distractions and stress-relievers, but none of these things can help me succeed. This semester should've been one of the greatest of my undergraduate career. But instead of relying on the strength of God which he has allowed to build up in me over the past three and half years, I've tried to rely on my own strength, arrogantly thinking that the two were somehow one and the same.

I'm going to try to let go and allow God to redeem what is left of this semester. But oh how little time we have left!

But even though the time frame is short, I have seen God's power. I know what He can do, so I'm not going to balk at the thought of His redemption being possible just because of the short time span.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Pedestal

I'm broken and bruised and tattooed
And I'm not the girl you knew

So take me off your pedestal
'Cause I'm not some china doll
I won't live up to your standards
I won't feel guilt for failing

The girl you knew wasn't real
She was masked and hidden and confused
Underneath that mask was raw and broken and bruised

I'm still bruised and broken and tattooed
But this time I'm real
I'm a person with my own views
And I won't live up to yours

I smoke and I drink and I want to screw
I won't live up to your expectations
I won't abide by your views

I can't live on your pedestal
I refuse to change for your own views
I'm a real person now
Broken and bruised and tattooed

I might not live up to your views
But I have so much faith
I live by love and embrace the gray
My life isn't black and white
I don't always know where I stand
But I won't live up to your views
I'll find my own

So take me off your pedestal
'Cause I'm not the girl you knew
But find out who I am
I promise, she wants to know you

But first, there's one thing you must do
Take me off your pedestal
You'll find me broken and bruised and tattooed

The Tangibility of Hope

Over the summer, I came to love the show Criminal Minds.  The main characters are all fascinating, and they work so well together; the storylines are always new and horrifying (in a good way; it's a show about serial killers...).  But one of the lines that they have repeated throughout the show's 6+ season run really struck me: "Hope can be paralyzing."  Now, I get where they are coming from.  For a parent of an abducted child to keep hoping, after years and years without a lead, that their child is still alive can have a paralyzing affect on that parent.  But I don't think that it's hope itself that is paralyzing.  It's letting yourself become obsessed with, and yes paralyzed by, the notion that what you want could come true.  And it's believing that, somehow, you standing still and just agonizing over this possibility is going to bring your desires to fruition.  If that is what you call hope, then, yes, hope is paralyzing.

But I'm coming to realize something entirely apart from that notion: hope isn't a feeling, it's not a thought or a want or a desire.  Instead, hope is tangible.  Hope springs from faith, from trust, and from a true knowledge and understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what that means for you.  This kind of hope could never be paralyzing. It can only be freeing.

I honestly believe this.  But that doesn't mean that I'm there yet.  I don't yet have this tangible thing called hope.  I'm not yet free.  On a daily basis, I'm struggling with depression and with feeling like there's no hope.  I want so badly to get there, to not just know but also feel this hope.

The Last Night

by Skillet

You come to me with scars on your wrist

You tell me this will be the last night 

Feeling like this

I just came to say goodbye

Didn't want you to see me cry

I'm fine but I know it's a lie

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everything you need me to be

Your parents say everything is your fault

But they don't know you like I know you

They don't know you at all

I'm so sick of when they say

It's just a phase, you'll be okay, you're fine

But I know it's a lie

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everywhere you want me to be

The last night you'll spend alone

I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let you

I'm everything you need me to be

The last night away from me

The night is so long when everything's wrong

If you give me your hand, I will help you hold on

Tonight, tonight

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everywhere you want me to be

The last night you'll spend alone

I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go

I'm everything you need me to be

I won't let you say goodbye

And I'll be your reason why

The last night away from me, away from me

"I'll never know till I try"

That was what the first man I ever kissed said to me after I had to tell him multiple times to stop as he tried to escalate our first kiss very quickly into areas that I was in no way ready for or comfortable with. I immediately wanted to retort: "No, actually, you'll never know until you ask!"

Achieving consent is not trying something and seeing if your partner protests.  It's asking.  It's communicating your desires and requesting permission to proceed.  And I have no problem sounding like a SlutWalk poster when I proclaim: "My dress is not a yes!" and "Consent is sexy!"

But here's the thing: as much as I may proudly proclaim these concepts at a rally or in my classes or on my blog, when it comes down to actually living it out, I failed.

As I listened to the multiple feminist badasses at the sexual assault meeting at AU tonight, I really have to wonder if the only reason why I'm not another statistic, another victim, another survivor, is simply because my college social life has never leaned towards the partying side of life.

I've been passionate about these issues of sexual and dating violence for over six years, and an activist for at least two years now.  I've even been "trained" to stop guys from going to far since junior high.  Yet at my first opportunity to assert my beliefs, my confidence, and my sense of personal control and safety, I chose to timidly say no a few times until finally just backing away and saying that it wasn't ok.  I never communicated though.  I never explained (at least not at the time).

This has got to change.  I can't go in to another situation like that without clearly explaining who I am, what I believe, and where my boundaries lie.

Where do I go from here?

I'm not sure how I got here. And I definitely don't know how to get out.  But I do know that I am here, back in this place, back in this darkness.

My depression from over three years ago is back.  And while I can't and won't hide from it, I don't know how to go through it.

People have been asking me, "why?", "what caused it?", and essentially, "why can't you just snap out of it?"  And while I usually retort with some variation of "I wish I knew," the truth is that I know all to well the truth.  It's just not an easy truth to comprehend or explain.

Depression (real, biological depression) isn't really caused by much of anything.  Don't get me wrong, it can be influenced and exacerbated by environmental causes, but it's not caused by them.  I could give out a laundry list of the things that exacerbate my depression, but what's the point?  Doing that just obscures the truth of the matter: depression is a disease, an illness that is caused by biology, not environment.

Over the past three years, I thought that, if I ever faced a serious case of depression again, I would see it coming and be able to do something to, essentially, "snap out of it."  But I was just kidding myself.

So here we go again.

You know, back in March, I wrote a blog post declaring to myself, to the world, and to God that I am, in fact, "All in."  I'm here with Him, not letting, not giving up, no matter what happens.  I wrote that post and made that decision in anticipation of a horrendous bout of medical uncertainties, tests, and procedures.  And I meant it.  I even meant it after my Grandfather died.  And I even mean it now, though I'm not sure what that means.

I don't know what it means to still know and feel that I love my Jesus and would do anything for him, but at the same time feeling the desire on nearly a daily basis to take the nearest knife and carve another round of scars on my arms, to jump in front of the nearest car or train, or to swallow the nearest bottle of pills.  Or maybe some combination of the above.

I once wrote on this blog that I would never fully give in to suicidal feelings again because I know, believe and claim that, while death is gain, I am still called by Christ to stay here, and to live for Him, to live in His place, and to do His work.  I still feel those same things.  I still desperately want the words, "To live is Christ" and "To die is gain" tattooed as mirror images on the insides of my ankles.  So how do I know and believe that same truth when something in the makeup of my brain is telling me to kill myself?  Because, as much as I would like to believe it, it's not nearly as simple as just clinging to what I know to be true and somehow finding victory over what the depression is telling me is true.  Because it's not like they are two easily separate-able parts of me.  They are intertwined and muddled and confused.  Because "death is gain."  I know that, and I believe that, and I cling to it.  And it gives my solace when I contemplate that knife, that train, or those pills.  Because I don't fear death.  I rejoice in the idea of spending an eternity with the one person who can give me true joy, true purpose, true passion, true love...  I want to be with my Jesus.

So where do I go from here?

So I've done the SlutWalk; now let's talk modesty

I always grew up hearing lecture upon lecture about the importance for young women to be 'modest.'  I will (somewhat shamefully) admit that I've even given a lecture or two on the topic myself.  Modesty was hashed and rehashed at home, at school, at youth group, during Bible studies, during worship sessions, during meals, during shopping trips, and during pretty much any and every other opportunity possible.  And even back in my semi-brainwashed-by-religion phase, I always knew that the arguments given were crap.  

Why on earthy would it be my job by nature of my being female to somehow control or even just affect how guys may or may not look at me?  

That was always the first question that popped into my head any time the topic of modesty was broached.  Why would the onus be on me to control how another autonomous human being thinks or acts?  I simply can't control another person’s thoughts or actions.

Now I guess I've always kind of known this, but it wasn't until this past weekend's SlutWalk that it dawned on me the reason why this logic is so very wrong.  It's because it is just another one of the many symptoms of this horrible rape culture that permeates our entire society.  I could never come anywhere close to explaining rape culture as well as Melissa McEwan at Shakesville does here:

Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn't follow all the rules it's your fault.

Telling girls that they must dress (or not dress) a certain way to somehow try and control how someone else thinks or acts is a direct extension of this culture.

But even beyond the injustice of placing this burden, blame, and shame on women for when guys think or act a certain way, it dawned on me the other night that there’s a bigger (or at least equally big) problem with this lesson being taught to young girls: it places the entire focus of the discussion on how girl’s choices affect guys.  Instead of being an empowering discussion about how the way a young woman dresses and acts affects and reflects her self-confidence and self-worth, it does the exact opposite: it places the entire discussion in terms of boys.  And this all happens most frequently during a time when young women are trying desperately hard to figure themselves out.

But here’s the thing: for girls who have somehow managed to grow into women with at least some degree of self-worth, self-confidence, and self-respect, the way they dress (most of the time) has very little to do with how it is perceived by the rest of the world.  Instead, confident and empowered women wear clothing that expresses who they are, what they are comfortable in, and what makes them feel beautiful and strong.

A woman who is assured of her own worth doesn’t wear a low-cut top or a short skirt to try and attract a guy’s attention.  If she chooses to wear these things, it is because she feels comfortable and empowered in these clothes.  It will have nothing to do with the reactions she receives from others.

When I was growing up and trying to develop my own sense of style and fashion (and self-worth), I was never told to look for clothing that makes me feel beautiful and confident and powerful and loved and respected.  I was simply told that certain clothes were too tight or too short or too low-cut or too little or too much or too…  I was lectured about how to pick clothing that wouldn’t “force” guy’s minds to wander or lust or desire or even simply to guess.

Now, quick disclaimer here: I’m not writing this as (another) angry rant against how I was raised.  Really, I’m over it.  And I really don’t blame any of the many people who lectured me about modesty.  How girl’s clothing affects a guy’s mind has been the only way that the issue has been framed for so long that’s it’s in no way surprising that the people I grew up with didn’t know any better.  So, no, that's not the point.

I’m writing this because there has got to be a shift in focus.  The only way to change the rape culture is to continually combat it, and so this is one thing that has to change.  The discussion needs to be shifted off of the term “modesty” (because, really, it’s such a fucking ambiguous term anyways that’s it’s already pretty much useless), and instead focus on fostering confidence, self-worth, and self-respect in young women.  And then let them make their own choices about what types of clothing they are truly comfortable wearing.  And even if their motives have nothing to do with their own confidence and empowerment, we must always remember that, no matter what a girl/woman wears, it is never her fault if a guy chooses to think or act improperly.

UPDATED: Feminist Icons: Past, Present, and Future

UPDATED: This blog post of mine was edited and reworked to be posted on the EMILY's List blog here. Below remains the original version posted on my blog last week.

This week The Daily Beast and Newsweek published a profile of one of the greatest icons in feminist history, Gloria Steinem.

Mention the name Gloria Steinem to many women under 30, and if there is a flash of recognition at all, they put her in Florence Nightingale’s league—an admirable figure from the history books. To them, feminism was a war won before they were born, the miniskirted 1970s revolution that freed their mothers and grandmothers from drudgery and discrimination, paving the way for their own generation’s unfettered freedom. But in the living room of the funky Upper East Side duplex where she has lived for more than 35 years, Steinem, 77, is still on the front lines of a fight she considers barely half finished.

Now, on my college campus, the name Gloria Steinem holds incredible weight and even a measure of awe.  For weeks after her visit to American University last year, dozens of friend’s maintained FB profile pictures with Steinem.  But my world is an anomaly in which feminists and progressives abound and feminist icons are not only known but regularly sought out.   So I guess the question remains, does Gloria Steinem sill matter?  Or, perhaps the far more important inquiry is, who’s the next Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, or Alice Paul?

When it comes to feminist heroes, there seems to be this problem of giant gaps in time where no one takes the lead. 

But is that entirely true?  I know that throughout my time in highschool, whenever we got around to talking about anything related to feminism, the only people mentioned were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and maybe Betty Friedan. 

Once I got to college, I discovered the remarkable stories of Alice Paul and Carrie Chapmann Catt and how it was them, not Anthony or Stanton, that actually got the 19^th Amendment passed through Congress and finally ratified by the states in 1929. And then came the 70s and the likes of Shirley Chisholm, Sarah Weddington, and Gloria Steinem.  But these names were never mentioned outside my feminist world.

And while Gloria Steinem still has a voice, and is still fighting hard, I have to wonder, who’s next?  And why are there massive gaps between feminist icons?  Or at least between women whom the history books recognize as icons.

Today, we have Carolyn Maloney, who, every single year, largely unnoticed by everyone but the most dedicated feminists, reintroduces the Equal Rights Amendment.  We have Kirsten Gillibrand who is taking a stand and gaining national recognition for her “Off the Sidelines” campaign which urges more women to get involved in the political process.  And we have women like Nancy Pelosi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Hillary Clinton who have broken through more ceilings and down more doors than perhaps anyone else in feminist history.

But will these women be viewed as iconic figures in the harsh light of history?  So many of them are still villianized by half of society and the rest are just plain ignored.

Who will stand up?  Who will stand out?  And who will lead the way to finish the race that all of these iconic figures and those running along side of them started so long ago?

Show Your Mercy New

I have been so incredibly ungrateful.  Over the past several months, God has proven himself more faithful than I could ever hope to imagine.  And yet...it's like once He's done what I need Him to do, I practically just forget that He ever existed.  So now there's only one thing that I can do: simply ask, knowing what His answer has been and will always be, "Lord, have mercy."

From this past March till the beginning of June, I was suffering from debilitating and seemingly inexplicable pain.  Most of the time I could barely walk, and when I could it was only with the aid of huge amounts of narcotics and nerve relaxants.  An entire neuro-surgical team at Johns Hopkins Hospital couldn't find anything wrong with me, and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that I may be searching for the rest of my life for answers and never find them, and that I may have to remain in a constant mental and emotional flux due to the extreme amounts of medications needed to simply hold my pain to a manageable level.

And then my old doctor from back in Chicago had an idea: he thought that maybe my spinal fluid level was elevated and that with a lumbar puncture this level could be tested and then reduced.  In theory, this could completely alleviate my pain.

You'd think that this potential solution would excite me and give me hope.  Instead, it filled me with a dread and fear worse than anything I can remember.  You see, having to have a spinal tap again was one of my greatest fears in life.  When I was eleven and initially going through the ringer of medical tests before my doctors discovered that I have Chiari Malformation, I had several MRIs, and on one of them the doctors saw a blurry spot.  This could simply mean that I moved ever so slightly during the taking of that image or it could mean something much worse (i.e. a tumor or some other irregularity in my spinal column).  My doctor recommended a spinal tap, and my parents consented.

The actual procedure itself, while uncomfortable and quite annoying, wasn't that bad (probably mostly due to the fact that I had no real clue what they were doing, and thus my nerves couldn't set in).  The worst part was afterwards.  First, I had to lay flat on my back for upwards of six hours.  For an eleven year old kid, this seemed like torture.  I couldn't get up to eat or go to the bathroom or even just to stretch.  I had to remain relatively still and could only switch positions from my back to my side (or vise versa) every so often.  The reason for all of this was to make sure that my spine had time to form a clot over the hole which the spinal tap put in it.

While I vaguely remember this six plus hour process as being beyond annoying, that's not really what sticks out in my mind.  What I remember most vividly, what still makes me cringe at the very thought was the one thing that laying on my back for over six hours was supposed to prevent: spinal headaches (and all the wonderful things that come with it).

At some point while lying on my back in the hospital room, the doctors came back in with the results of the spinal tap: everything was fine and the initial assumption was assumed correct (I probably moved ever so slightly during the MRI process).  After about five and a half hours of lying flat on my back, I actually ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half and was thus flat on my back for at least seven hours.  After I woke up, the doctors sent me home essentially because they had run out of ideas to explain my pain and I was reasonably well medicated.

The next couple days were filled with a pain that I can just barely begin to explain.  My head literally felt like it was going to explode.  My room had to be blackened as much as possible and my family could only speak to me in whispers.  Every time I had to raise my head above my heart, these symptoms multiplied tenfold and I would begin to throw up violently and uncontrollably.  I barely let myself eat or drink.  This lasted for about a day and a half when my parents knew that I simply couldn't go on like this.  They took me back to the hospital where the doctors drew some blood out of my arm to essentially force a clot to form over the hole in my spinal cord where my spinal fluid was leaking.

These memories are some of the worst in my life.  On a scale of one to ten, the pain that I felt was easily skyrocketing past a twelve.  So knowing that I might have to go through it again terrified me.  But at the same, I knew that I couldn't keep living like that.  I couldn't spend the rest of my life feeling high out of my mind on narcotics while still only barely able to walk.

So when I went home in June, I scheduled an appointment with my old doctor in Chicago.  We scheduled the lumbar puncture for the day after my LSAT, which actually meant that I couldn't focus on my potentially paralyzing fear, so that was good (although the stress of studying for the LSAT wasn't necessarily a fun alternative).

The actual procedure turned out to be not that bad.  They put me under anesthesia, so I remember very little. After I had been in recovery for about an hour, the nurse started talking to me about sitting up.  This is when my fear really set in.  It took me probably another hour or so to get up the courage to just tilt the bed forward a little.  Over the next several hours and even days, I was incredibly anxious at even the slightest pressure or pain in my head.

But the headaches never came.

I have yet to really sit down and process what all this means.  Since I had that lumbar puncture and they drained a huge portion of my spinal fluid, I have yet to feel like I cannot walk down the hall.  To be perfectly honest, the hardest thing since then has been both getting off of my narcotics and building back up my endurance after having been forced to remain relatively sedentary for several months.  For the past week or so, I have been pretty much off of my narcotics (for the first time in months) and my endurance is coming back.

You'd think that I'd be shouting about the amazing provision of God from every rooftop I can.  And yet...

And then at the end of last month, it became quite evident that my maternal grandfather's leukemia had progressed rapidly and he would only have a couple more days to live.  I've only begun to process everything that happened in the days before and after my grandpa's death, but there's one thing that I know for sure: the one thing that I asked God for was some form of reassurance that my Grandpa was truly a man of faith.  You see, everyone had been saying that we knew he was going to a better place and that he was just "graduating" into heaven and other such platitudes.  But the thing is that for my entire life my grandfather has always just been a man that I see at most a few times a year.  I loved him dearly and will always remember his love and sense of humour incredibly fondly.  But unlike my paternal grandfather of whom practically my every memory is of him telling stories about how God has worked in his life or professing his incredible faith, my memories of my maternal grandfather are all about him playing games and telling jokes to me and and my brothers.  The day that my grandfather died, when I knew that he only had a few hours left, I lay on a park bench just crying because while every one else had such confidence about where my Grandpa was going, I felt like I couldn't know.  While I know that no one but God can ever know for sure, there can at least be a reasonable degree of confidence if you know the person's heart.  I cried because I never really knew my Grandpa, at least not on a spiritual level.

A few hours later I got the call from my Dad that my grandpa had passed and the story that he told me took my breath away:  throughout that whole day, my grandfather had been almost entirely out of it, never fully having a lucid moment.  Furthermore, he rarely had his eyes opened, and when he did they were foggy and unfocused.  But in the moments before his death, my grandfather opened his eyes, clear as ever, tried his hardest to sit up, hum, and sing along to his favourite hymn: "How Great Thou Art".  After he sang through the whole song once, my mother and aunt told their daddy to go home.  And he breathed his last.

My grandfather died with a song in his heart and worship on his lips.  And I know that, at least in part, my grandfather died in that incredible, God-filled way in answer to my prayer.  My grandfather's death was God's amazing way of giving me peace.

Yet I haven't admitted that to anyone.  Until now that is.  And I really can't seem to figure out why.  I don't know why I feel like I can't admit how much God has done for me.  I'm still in this place where, if my Christian friends are talking on the metro about how God is working in their lives, I still look around, worried that some people within earshot might hear what we're talking about and think that we're crazy.  I don't entirely know why I'm like this, but I do know that it needs to change.  I need to be bolder and I need to be so much more willing to just be honest about who I am and what I believe.

So I claim God's mercy, because I know that it truly is new every morning.  So tomorrow I will begin a new day, and maybe tomorrow I will be just a little bit bolder and I little bit less shy about everything that I am and everything that God is, and how incredibly amazing He has been in my life.  Maybe I'll actually be able to use this testimony and this voice and these words to impact someone's life, someone else who is desperately crying out for some reassure, crying out for answers, crying out for some peace.

I might actually be good at this...

I know I said a couple weeks ago that I'd write a post updating you all on what has happened with my medical situation, and I really have been trying to...for the past two weeks...  And it's just become this long, rambling, and fairly incoherent post with no actual point.  I'd be happy to give actual details to anyone who really wants to know, just Facebook me or email me or whatever.  But suffice it to say that I went back to my old doctor at the University of Chicago and he had a solution...a solution that scared the shit out of me (due to a horrendous past experience), but by the power of Jehovah alone, I was able to get through it.  And for the past two weeks, I've been relatively pain free...for the first time in about three months (except for the fact that I'm going through major narcotic withdrawal, which is never fun).

But that's not the reason I'm writing this.  I'm writing this because, yesterday, I went on my second hospital advocacy call with the DC Rape Crisis Center.  And it was...intense, to say the least, but it also served as an amazing reminder of where I'm going and what I need to be doing with my life.  And it re-confirmed that I might actually be good at this...

Since school ended I've been focusing pretty much all my attention (with the exception of studying for and taking the LSAT) on my political interests.  I've been interning at EMILY's List, an organization that works at all levels, (national, state and local) to elect pro-choice democratic women.  Furthermore, working at this incredible (and remarkably influential) organization, I've begun to believe that my next step after graduation (this coming December) may be working on a campaign.  And this place can get me there  After asking some former interns if they had any specific advice regarding how to get onto a campaign, the thing which stuck out in my mind the most was one of the former interns saying, "Think about and write down the five names of the people on whose campaigns you would most like to work.  Then talk to people here [at EMILY's List].  They'll make it happen."

 My jaw is still kind of on the floor after that one.

See, when I applied for this internship, I knew that I loved EL and that it had a great mission and had done some cool things.  I had absolutely zero conception of their reach.  I didn't know that the President of EMILY's List, Stephanie Schriock, was the campaign manager for Al Franken.  Yeah, that campaign.  I had no clue that Denise Feriozzi, the director of the WOMEN VOTE! department (basically, EL's Get Out The Vote arm) was the Field Director for Hillary Clinton's Iowa Caucus race.

This place is incredible, and there are so many people here that I can learn from and so much to do that I agree with and love doing.  But...

There's that little thing in the back of my head that I know: This just isn't my passion.  Yeah, I love it, and in so many ways I'm obsessed with it, but it's not my calling.  It intrigues me, amuses me, and excites me, but I don't have that guttural need to do this.  Not like when I'm touching on anything to do with combating sexual violence.

That's where this past weekend comes in.  As many of you probably know, I'm a volunteer at the DC Rape Crisis Center, and I take both crisis hotline calls and hospital advocacy shifts.  Well, on Saturday I had an advocacy shift and, for only the second time since starting, I got called in.  Now, as usual, I can't actually talk about details, but needless to say it was a very intense call.  But beyond all that, for me, it was a remarkable affirmation of who I'm meant to be, of everything I'm meant to do.  Because this was my second time going on an advo call, I was confident enough about where I was going and what I was doing that I could actually just settle in and trust my instincts.  And as I've seen many times in the past, that's when I actually can do a good job.  After the major portion of the call was over, I had a moment alone with the SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), and even though throughout the call I thought I had been getting very mixed signals from her, she actually told me that I had done a really good job, and she was shocked that it was only my second call.  Later, as I was spending a few final minutes with the survivor, she told me that I had made the whole process much easier for her and that she thought I would do a great job as a sex crimes prosecutor.

I'm not repeating all of this to try and toot my own horn or brag or whatever.  It's just that as I'm getting deeper and deeper into the political world, I love remembering what my true calling is.  And I need to remind myself that politics isn't it, as much as I may love this crazy world of American politics.

Oh, and by the way: I'm an American citizen now.  It's very weird...

Who I am Meant to Be

I was reminded yesterday of how very much I love litigation.  In my honours colloquium, Women and the Law, we posed as fake lawyers and Supreme Court Justices alternatively and argued a real Supreme Court case.  We had to prepare briefs and be aware of the inquiry style of the Justice to whom we were assigned.  It has been so long since I have been in a fake litigation setting that I entirely forgot what it felt like: the exhilarating anxiety, the feeling of my brain finding the central issue at hand and articulating it, the heart-pounding feeling of not having the answer, the amazing ability to bullshit something that somehow manages to be convincing.

I find it very strange.  I really hate speaking extemporaneously.  My brain seems to always freeze and I can't remember what I wanted to talk about.  I especially don't like to be forced to talk when I'm not highly versed in the field.

Now with that last statement in mind, I'm in no way claiming to be highly versed in the law, or even in any specific area of the law.  But somehow, for some reason, when I get up to the podium and begin to articulate a legal argument, and then a panel of "justices" inquires, interrogates, and attacks everything that I say, I get this incredible high and I find a way to combat and to redirect and to figure out what the central issue is.  And I somehow manage to focus on that central point, and hopefully manage to get my point across.

I'm going to get to do it again a week from today in my Con Law class, and I'm beyond excited.  Not because I have some lofty idea that I'm somehow amazing at it.  But because it reminds and affirms that this is what I was meant to do.  Even if I fumble, and falter, and fail, I still have this feeling inside that I can't even begin to describe.  It's just this feeling, this high, this invigorating voice which whispers in my heart and in my soul: "you were meant for this."

And I needed this affirmation.  I'm facing the prospect of LSATs and law school applications and all of these overwhelming things which seem to try and discourage me from pursuing this long-standing goal.  So I'm just so grateful that right when I needed it most, God gave me this affirmation of everything that I am striving to be.

Rejecting Jesus

My roommate recently told me about a class discussion which she had to participate in which was essentially a very frank and open discussion about the class members' personal religious beliefs.  Of those in the class with religious beliefs, there were several Roman Catholics, one culturally protestant Christian who openly admitted to not actually believing in God (not entirely sure how that works), one protestant Christian who didn't say much other than that she was a protestant Christian, and my roommate, a very passionate, outspoken, and charismatic protestant Christian.  The rest of the members of the class were either agnostic or atheist.

As the discussion progressed, much of the attention became focused on my roommate, as she was the only regularly active and devoutly outspoken religious person in the room.  Furthermore, her beliefs seemed radical to most of the rest of the class.  Much scrutiny was paid to the fact that my roommate believes that whether or not one goes to heaven is not based upon the good or bad things which one does in his/her life.  Instead, it is based upon one's belief and faith in Jesus.  Serial killers and child molesters, if they truly believe and accept that Jesus died on their behalf, will go to heaven; likewise, if Gandhi or Mother Theresa never came to believe and accept Jesus' sacrifice for them, they will go to hell.  To everyone (or at least every one who spoke up) in the room, this was an entirely novel concept.

Now, I have no clue who all reads this blog or what your respective backgrounds are, but I grew up in a devoutly protestant Christian home in which we went to church more than once a week, I went to a Christian highschool, and even here at American U., my closest friends tend to share at least my most basic religious beliefs.  So, to me, the idea that someone wouldn't understand the most basic tenant of my faith made no sense.  We live in a supposedly Christian nation, and while I know AU is very unique in its frequent rejection of devout Christianity, it never really dawned on me that some people here (or really anywhere in America for that matter) might not understand at least the very basic tenants of my faith.

So I'm going to lay it out.  Not to try and convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point, and beyond that, it would never work.  Believing in this requires both knowledge and faith.  Knowledge alone will never lead one to believe.  But I digress.  I'm only sharing this because I don't want to keep talking about being a Christian and about having faith, without people understanding what it is I mean by that.  It was my own naivety, personal comfort bubble, and cowardice that has kept me from doing this thus far, and I really am sorry for that.

This is what I believe to be true to the core of my being.  It is my statement of faith, and my declaration of love for this crazy radical man and son of God named Jesus:

I believe that this world is broken, and that everyone in it is entirely screwed up.  There's something terribly wrong with this place and these people.  We weren't meant to be like this.  We were made by a sovereign and holy God who loves us completely, but who also gave us free will, because he didn't want robots.  With this free will, we screwed up, and we continue to screw up.  Because God is entirely perfect, entirely good, and entirely holy (meaning that He cannot allow Himself to be with anyone who is not entirely perfect and good as well), he can no longer be connected with us like He used  to be.  However, because God is also compassionate and loving beyond anything that we could ever imagine, He cannot stand to be away from us, and He continues to help us and even show Himself to us, even though it hurts his holiness.  So God had to somehow find a way to reconcile His need to not be with imperfect beings and his need to embrace us with His unceasing love.  Well, God has a Son, and that Son agreed to come to this earth over 2,000 years ago to show us the extend of God's crazy radical, heart-wrenchingly awesome love for us.  Jesus didn't come here to condemn us, but simply to love us.  He also came here to show us what it's like to love those around us.  He wasn't here to set up some great moral code, but instead to be a radical, crazy example of what it's like to love those who are absolutely least in this world.  The culmination of this radical life of love was to agree to be tortured and brutally killed, accepting the ultimate punishment for every crappy thing which every human being to walk this earth has ever done so that no one else has to.  Jesus died for everyone, because He loves us all so God damn much that He couldn't stand the thought of any of us spending an eternal afterlife of total separation from all things good, including and especially God Himself.  God doesn't want anyone to experience what that total lack of Him is like, so he offered His son to die on our behalf.  The even more amazing thing about it all, though, is that, because Jesus never actually did anything wrong while on earth, death had no power over Him, so after three days in the grave, He rose from the dead, having conquered all disease, every horrible thing any human being has ever thought or done, and death itself, both physical and spiritual.

I don't fully understand it all, and it makes no sense to me why Jesus would do what He did, but what I do know is that if I simply believe it to be true and accept and truly accept that Jesus died in my place, and I will be able to spend eternity being completely connected to Jesus and everything that is good and amazing in this world and the next.

What I think that I like most about what Jesus did for me (and everyone else) is that he lived out this crazy radical life, basically just showing us how it's done.  He was entirely radical.  I know that I've said it already, but he really, truly was.  He declared the entire legal and moral code obsolete.  He advocated socialism.  He was a total feminist.

That last one's my favourite, and I love how much evidence there is to support it.

During the time of Jesus, women were not allowed to learn the Torah or address men in public (or even in private depending on the relationship).  Yet many of Jesus' good friends were women, during a time when women were viewed as essentially less than maggots. He allowed women to be His disciples.  In fact, Jesus' female followers were the only ones to stay with Him throughout His whole trial and execution; all of His male followers deserted Him, though they eventually returned.  He listened to women and showed them respect.  He refused to condemn and therefore saved the life of a woman with the worst reputation imaginable (she kept sleeping with other people's husbands).  Many scholars believe that Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' closest friends, yet she was a former prostitute.

And yet over the past years, decades, even centuries, the organized Christian church has chosen to reject this Jesus whom I have come to love so much.  The church tends to pay lip-service to Christ, and then immediately launch into its impossible laundry list of moral and political expectations for "good" Christians.

The Church has forgotten about Jesus, about his radicalism, and his socialism, about His feminism, about all of the crazy stuff which He did for the sole purpose of showing how radical His love is.  In fact, it's worse than a mere forgetting.  I believe that, in so many ways, the modern church has rejected this Jesus.  Instead of focusing on the most broken and hurting populations in our society in order to love them radically, the church seeks out these populations in order to condemn them and tell them how to change.  Instead of picking up Jesus' feminist mantle and advocating for female equality, the church lectures young women about their proper place in the church, in society, and in the home.  Instead of rejecting the legalism of the religious leaders which Jesus condemned so harshly (the only people whom Jesus condemned were the religious leaders, ironically), the church has created its own hierarchical list of morality.

By embracing the gospel of fear, the gospel of capitalism (aka the "Prosperity Gospel"), and the gospel of the Religious Right, the modern church has utterly rejected the radical, all-inclusive, even socialist message of Jesus.  This is why I have such a problem with the modern Church, and yet I still love Jesus so much.  But like St. Augustine says, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother."  As much as I can't stand how the church has distorted and utterly rejected my Jesus, I still must love her, even though it hurts.

This is what I believe.  I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point.  Jesus didn't sit around arguing and cajoling people into finally conceding that He was the Son of God.  No, half the time He didn't even want it to be said out loud.  Instead, He just lived his life, let his radical actions and ideas speak for themselves, and then asked His followers to live radical lives too, and to simply tell His story.  So that's what I'm trying to do.

I refuse to reject this amazing man named Jesus, no matter how crazy radical He seems.  He is my salvation, my reason for living, my everything.  And a long time ago, I said to him, "Yes, Here I am.  Send me."  And so I go, knowing full well that where thus life may lead may be crazy and radical and uncomfortable.  But that's ok, because the Jesus that I know will give me exactly what I need to live this life.  I will not reject Him, and I even will not reject the modern church, but I will reject what they've done to my Jesus.

Another feminist rant. What else did you expect?

So it really annoys me when people (male or female) make references to a specific piece of the male anatomy as a dysphemism for courage of some kind.  It's another one of those cultural slip of the tongues that most people say without even thinking.  It permeates our airwaves and our movies and our every expression.  And yet it serves as a constant reminder to women that they are less than, that they are incapable of achieving the same level of courage, audacity, or toughness that a "real man" can.

A friend's recent facebook status update used the phrase "...maybe one day I'll have the balls to [do the same thing which someone I respect does now]."  He was talking about a man of God and the courage which he had to talk about the true meaning of sex, as well as calling out men's improper and even violent treatment of women.  The message of the video my friend was promoting is absolutely fantastic, but I almost didn't even want to watch it due to the off-handed "balls" comment.

In one of my favourite movies, Whip It, the main character's best friend, Pash, tells Bliss that she doesn't have the "balls" to try out for the Austin all-girls roller derby team.  The movie is about a bunch of kick-ass, rough-and-tumble, anti-establishment women who basically say a big "F-you" to society's view of the proper place of women by wearing slutty clothing, having tons of very visible tattoos, and obsessively competing in the hard core game of Roller Derby.  And yet, by saying that she will "grow the balls" to learn how to play Roller Derby, she basically infers that this all-female sport really requires some form of maleness.

I've never understood why this anatomical reference is necessary.  I'm very aware that the people who say it rarely mean anything by it, but there is a very clear subtext behind the phrase.  That subtext goes something like this: "I am less than a true man because I can't do [whatever it is that he/she is trying to do]; furthermore, a true woman would never be able to do this thing."  However, what most people who are using this phrase truly means is "I don't have the courage/toughness to be able to do this thing, but I wish I did."

I'm gonna state the obvious here, because it apparently isn't so obvious to some people:

Men are not inherently more capable of courage or toughness.  Nor do men who lack said qualities become less than a true man.
Women do not inherently lack courage or toughness, and they don't have to become like a man in order to gain these qualities.

The phrase "grow some balls" (and its variations) is just one of the phrases which permeates our society which inherently degrade women.  "Man-up," "who wears the pants in that family?" and "Is it that time of the month?"  All of these phrases tell women that, due to their sex, they are somehow less than men.  Womanhood is negative.  Our two little tiny X-shaped chromosomes determine our lesser place in society and in the world.

Speaking of which, I find it incredibly strange that at a University which is 70% female, women very rarely run for student government positions and are even more rarely actually elected.  For this reason, I'm considering applying for an SG cabinet position for next fall.  Not sure though.  I've never really thought about getting officially involved in politics, but I figured, if I'm going to complain about a lack of women in the Student Government, I might as well do something about it.  Because at a majority female institution, we deserve to have female representation.  Because I am woman enough, and no actual balls are required.

It's not about me

Yesterday, I had a really, really good appointment with my new primary care physician.  We now have a plan for going forward, for figuring out what's causing this.  My pain is now firmly under control.  It spikes every once and a while when I overdo it, but I can usually just take an oxycodone, and it gets back under control.  I'm back in classes (actually in a class right now.  shhhhhh...don't tell the professor), and feeling like my normal life can actually resume.

On Monday night, I took a hotline shift (for those who might not know, I volunteer for the DC Rape Crisis Center and help staff their 24 hour crisis hotline).  Because I've been taking hotline for quite a while now, I actually felt fairly comfortable dealing with the two calls that I got (due to confidentiality reasons, I can't share anything about the actual calls).  But I think what felt even better than that was the fact that, for the first time in practically two weeks, I was able to completely forget myself.

I wasn't talking to these two people about my own present pain levels or my medications or my search for doctors or answers.  Instead, I was simply spending three hours of my life being ready to listen...and counsel...and encourage...and empower...and just listen.  Listen to people who, at that moment in their lives, had no one else in their lives who could just listen to them.  So I was that person for them.  And it had nothing to do with me.  It was all about them.  And it felt so amazing.  To shed my own problems and concerns for a while and just be there for someone else.

It made me realize how much I don't like it when everything is focused on me.

Because that's not the point of my life.  I dedicated my life a long time ago to helping people, to making the lives of people who have been through horrible trauma just a little bit better.  And spending the last two weeks just focused on myself has been in such opposition to who I am, and what I care about.  It's been so draining. And I really don't like it.

I understand people's urge to ask how I'm doing, to find out if I'm in pain, to ask how they can pray, to see where the doctors are at in finding an answer.  I get it.  And if I were in their shoes, I would be doing the same thing.

But I miss being able to just have normal conversations.  To talking about how other people are doing, how classes are going, what's happening in current events, or even about the weather.

I want it to not be about me.

The Final Chapter

Earlier this year I felt the need to start reading through the Bible chronologically (i.e. in the order that the events actually occurred, which may or may not be the order in which the books are placed in the actual Bible). Therefore, after getting through Genesis 11:10, I flipped to the middle of my Bible and began reading through Job. Now I began this whole process in January, and actually started reading Job at the beginning of February, long before I had any clue about what was going to happen with me medically.

Well, as I have been saying continuously throughout this whole thing: Jehovah Jireh. The Lord provides. Today I reached the final few chapters of Job, when God finally comes out and provides Job with clarity. Not necessarily the clarity that Job thought he wanted, but absolutely the clarity that he needed. God explained in magnificent, poetic language just how beyond Job’s comprehension His infinite wisdom and understanding are. At the end, Job was satisfied, not because he had answers to the age-old question of why suffering exists, but because he had learned what it meant to fellowship with God in suffering.

I’ve been here at the hospital in Baltimore for the past 21 hours. Late last night, as I was still sitting in the ER admittance area, I was told some of the worst possible news I could be told: my MRIs look normal, better even than before. Now you’d think I would be happy and relieved by this conclusion, but what it means is that we have absolutely no clue what is causing my reoccurring symptoms. We’re back at square one. And square one means weeks and months of re-explaining my symptoms to countless nurses, physician assistants, residents, and specialists. I’m already beyond exhausted. I don’t know how to explain my pain in a way that these medical professional can comprehend and fit within a specific box.

It’s not burning or sharp pain. It’s not tingling or numb. It’s not really aching. It’s just extreme hypersensitivity. To everything. My mom got here today and simply laid her hand on my leg at one point in a gesture of comfort, and I jerked away in pain. Just lying on this bed, my legs will sometimes start shaking because it feels like my nerves are going crazy. Like they’re on hyperdrive.

These are the types of things which I say to the medical staff, and they never seem satisfied. They want me to explain it more, or differently. Just like nine years ago, it doesn’t seem to make sense to them because the pain doesn’t seem to fit within their strict categories of types of pain.

Well, what can I say: I’ve never been one for fitting within predefined boxes.

But getting back to the point: when I heard the news that nothing was wrong, that the MRIs were essentially clear, I just broke down sobbing. I can handle it when I know what to expect, when I know the war path. If it’s that my Chiari decompression surgery wasn’t complete enough or needs to be redone for whatever reason, fine. Do it again. Take some more skull out. Make it better. If it’s that my syrinxes are acting up and need to be shunted: fine. Shunt away. But when you tell me that neurosurgery sees nothing wrong with me and we’re starting over: that, I can’t process. That sends me over the edge.

I spent the rest of the night alternating between sobbing and just staring blankly at the wall, trying not to think about what this all meant.

But I’m coming to realize that, no matter how scary, no matter how overwhelming, God is in control. I know Him. I know His providence and His grace and His love. As the title of this blog (and my next tattoo) references, I know that even in my darkest hour, even when I feel totally alone and abandoned, God is here, hovering over me, protecting me, sheltering me. I will rest in His shadow. Because the Lord will provide. Just like the lesson that Job learned, there’s no point in asking why if you know who God is.

And just as the book of Job ends with Job restored, not because of his personal repentance or righteousness, but because of the Lord’s graciousness, I know that no matter what happens in my life, God will write the last chapter. And it will be beyond anything I could ever imagine. I can’t even begin to describe my elation.

Updates and Still More Questions

So I guess I should update to let people know what's going on with me.  After Monday, I was totally freaked out and had no clue what was happening.  My hands and especially my legs all felt like they were on hyper-drive: every touch, every step, every move was excruciatingly painful.  My knees gave out on me a few times and I could barely move my feet and toes.

Upon the urgings of my parents, friends, and even my former surgeon (the head of Neurosurgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center), I spent most of the day Tuesday on the phone with doctor's offices and radiologist offices in the area trying to figure out what to do and how to set up appointments for the right tests and such.  I finally had an appointment set up for next Thursday (March 24th) with the head of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, and two MRI appointments for Friday (i.e. yesterday) and next Tuesday (the 22nd).

Wednesday is my busy school and work day, so I tried to cope with the pain with over-the-counter analgesics like Tylenol and Advil, but nothing was cutting it.  About twenty minutes into my first class, I knew without a doubt that I needed to get into an ER as soon as feasible to get some stronger meds and some answers.  I somehow made it through the rest of the day on Wednesday, and then my family friend, Mrs. Harrison, who lives near Annapolis, MD came and picked me up from work so that we could head to the ER at Johns Hopkins Medical Center first thing in the morning (or even that night if I couldn't fall asleep).  After a long bath (which tends to calm my nerves down a bit), a bunch of Tylenol and Advil, and of course some Rachel Maddow, I finally fell asleep.

I woke up Thursday morning, grabbed a piece of toast, and drove to Baltimore.  Mrs. Harrison got to the ER around 10 and of course sat around for awhile.  Explained what was happening to a few nurses and to the attending ER physician.  They contacted the Neurosurgery team and sent me to a hospital room where I could wait for the on-call neurosurgery resident to come see me.  Thanks to my horribly tiny veins and perpetual state of dehydration, it took two nurses four different attempts to get an IV in me.  When the neurosurgical resident, Dr. Bydon. finally came, I explained once more what was happening (that my symptoms from before my Chiari Decompression surgery were re-occurring for the first time since the surgery in November 2002), he ordered an MRI and a whole cocktail of meds, including nerve relaxants, analgesic narcotics, and steroids.

Right after I got my first dose of meds around 1:30, they sent me off to get my MRI.  Once I got in the MRI, it became clear that the doctor had only ordered me to get my brain and cervical region (upper portion of the spine) studied.  The problem with that is that I know that my multiple syrinxes are located in my thoracic and lumbar regions (middle and lower portions of the spine).  I asked the MRI tech about it, but she could only do what the doctor ordered.

By the time I got back to my hospital room, it was well after 3 o'clock.  A different nurse than my attending came in (my attending nurse was on a lunch break), so I couldn't ask her about the partial MRI.  She gave me some more meds, and by that point, with the combination of all of the meds and the magnetic field from the MRI, having only eaten a piece of toast at 8:30am, I was feeling beyond out of it.  I ate some crappy hospital food and leaned the uncomfortable hospital bed back to try and sleep (or at least rest) off some of the loopiness.

Mrs. Harrison was no longer with me as she had to go retrieve her children, and because I was so loopy, I couldn't seem to get the nurse to understand that I needed to go back to finish the rest of the necessary MRI.  My nurse just said that I'd have to wait to talk to the Neurosurgeon when he came back.

By the time 6 o'clock rolled around, I was feeling much more coherent, Mrs. Harrison was back, and we were just waiting for the doctor to come back in.  So far throughout the day, we had been relatively happy with the quality of doctors and nurses we had encountered.  I've had a ton of horrific experiences with doctors who just give you the runaround and have no clue what they're talking about, so I was pleased that that didn't seem to be happening here.

Until...

This woman walked into the room.  She was wearing typical hospital scrubs, but she had a horribly handwritten stick-on name tag which read "Marcia [don't remember her last name], PA / Physicians Assistant".  She had one of those face masks that dentists wear half covering her mouth, and she stood several feet away from my bed at first, saying that she had a cold and didn't want to come near me.  She also said that she forgot her name tag, but she really is a Physicians Assistant. Altogether, not the most confidence-inspiring introduction.

Marcia then proceeded to run me through a bunch of typical neurological tests (all of which I've done dozens of times before, including several that day).  She made me get up and walk around the room, without making sure I was ok with it and not really caring that it was incredibly painful for me.  She also ran a few other more invasive and in no way normal neurological tests which I will refrain from posting in cyberspace.  Needless to say, this woman had horrible bedside manner and had no clue about the concept of achieving consent before running tests.  We told her that we felt the MRI's they had run were incomplete, and she proceeded to lecture both me and Mrs. Harrison (a former ER triage nurse) about how when you come into the emergency room, they are only required to treat your immediate problems and make sure you're ok to leave.  None of which I disagree with, but she said it in such a condescending way and she was so incredibly dismissive of the fact that I was still in extreme pain.  All she kept saying was that she was getting ready to discharge me and she listed of a bunch of meds that she was writing me a prescription for, some of which were entirely different from the meds my Neurosurgeon had told me I was going on (and which I had already received doses of).  We asked her what meds I had already been given today and when they were given to me.  Mrs. Harrison was not in the room when I received my meds, so she hadn't kept track of it, and I was very, very out of it while receiving them, so I had no clue.  Marcia, while staring at a computer screen which listed the meds and when the nurses had administered them, could not give us a straight answer.  She kept saying one thing, then saying something entirely different.  She kept trying to convince me to go on more and different meds, rambling on and on about how she has no actual evidence that certain meds work better, but she knows it does through anecdotal evidence...and on and on and on she went.

I proceeded to explain to her that, in the past, I've gone into the hospital several times, and they've thrown meds at me, and then kicked me out before actually making sure that the meds are working.  And then I'm back 24 hours later.  After giving us even more runaround medical bullshit, I finally insisted that I see my the neurosurgeon on call again.  Marcia protested a few times, saying that she was relaying everything he wanted. We finally got her to cave and she paged the doctor to come see me.

Finally, a little before 9pm, the neurological resident came back in.  We explained to him everything that had happened, from the impartial MRI to the horribly incompetent physicians assistant.  He apologized profusely, made sure I got the correct prescriptions for the drugs he had originally ordered, told me to keep my appointment for the MRI the next day (i.e Friday/yesterday) to finish off the lumbar and thoracic spine studies, and to call Dr. Weingart's office if I needed anything else.

Finally feeling calm and no longer having horrible flashbacks of all the weeks which I spent dealing with the horrible medical incompetence of doctors who just like to throw drugs at a problem and then walk way, I went home (well, back to the Harrison's house for the night, and then home).

So really all I have right now is a bunch of meds, a complete set of MRIs being sent to multiple doctors (my Dr. from back in Chicago is kind of overseeing the case from afar), and an appointment on Thursday to go figure this all out.  I'm feeling better pain-wise, but still quite loopy off-and-on.  Especially yesterday after getting the other MRI done...I was quite out of it.  Thanks to the wonderful Heather G. for taking care of me.  Dr. Bydon kept talking about needing to redo the Decompression surgery, but, as surgeons think about everything in terms of surgery, I'm not actually reading too much into that.  I'm just hoping to get some answers.

But I will say this much:  I'm all in.  There are no questions about that. If this is where God wants me, what He wants me to go through, I'm here.  Yes, I never thought I'd have to go through this again.  Yes, it's thrown me for a gigantic loop.  But, no, I'm not angry or upset.  I'm just here.  All in.

How much is "All In"?

I'm always surprised when I find out that people don't know about my past medical issues.  I know I shouldn't be.  It was almost nine years ago.  But it's become such a major part of who I am that I just assume that people know.  So operating on the assumption that there are some people out there who may stumble across this blog who do not know, I guess I should give some background:

On August 1st, 2002, I began having extreme pain in my feet and up through my calves.  Over the next few weeks and months, this pain progressed and spread throughout my entire body to the point that no one could physically touch  me without me screaming in pain, I was sensitive to light and sound, and I couldn't even lie still through an hour-long MRI without shaking uncontrollably because I didn't have the morphine in me to control the pain.  After countless pokes and prods (including a spinal tap and the ensuing and oh-so-dreadful spinal headaches), too many tears, more morphine and other narcotics, nerve relaxants, and even anti-depressants than any eleven year old should ever have, we finally found a doctor who knew what the hell he was talking about.  Turns out, my brain is literally too big for my skull. The back, lower portion of my brain (the cerebellum) is sticking down through the opening at the base of the skull where the spinal chord connects.  This lovely little malformation is known as Chiari, and I was born this way (cue Gaga anthem).  Well, long story short, I had a portion of my top vertebra and a piece of my skull removed, and no more pressure, ergo no more pain.

Oh, and there's one other thing.  Due to the Chiara, I have a couple (two or three, don't really remember) tiny little bubbles of spinal fluid in my spine known as syrinxes.  These are what were putting pressure on my lower spinal chord and thus causing the extreme pain.  Well, they're still there.  Smaller than original (they steadily shrunk over time), but, last we checked (which was several years ago), they're still there.

I haven't really had any symptoms of Chiari since I had the decompression surgery in November 2002.  That is, until last semester.  There was one day that I was sitting in class and my feet and legs started feeling strange and painful, and dreadfully familiar.  I had a momentary freakout where I re-educated myself about Chiari and the risks of my symptoms re-emerging.  But it went away after a few hours so I didn't really think anything of it.

Well it's back.  And much worse than last semester.  This morning, as I was attempting to concentrate on studying for my midterm, I was making plans in the back of my head for what would happen if I tried to stand up and my legs gave out on me.  See that's the lovely think about the syrinxes: they can cause paralysis.  With little to no warning.  And there's no guarantee, even from the second best neurosurgeon in the world for dealing with this condition, that the surgery would stop the paralysis.  Really the only remedy would be spinal surgery, which is pretty much never recommended, as the surgery itself has side effects of...you guessed it: paralysis.

Needless to say, I've been freaking out all day.  It hurts to walk; it was painful to grip my pen to take my midterm; my knees keep almost giving out; and I have no clue what to do.

This morning, I felt God say to me that He wants me to give over my fear of paralysis to Him.  That's fine in theory, when paralysis isn't just around the corner.  But if going "All In" (as my church's most recent sermon series challenges) really requires me to be ok with never walking again, with never having control over my own bodily functions, with never having sex, I just don't know...  Or even to have to go through that hell again.  The pain.  The never ending battery of tests.  The uncertainty.  The drugs.  I just don't know.

And I'm scared as hell.  I was ok with giving up my family, my life plans, my friends, my interests...all of that I've surrendered.  But I'm so afraid.  I always have been, though I rarely let myself acknowledge it.  That was one of the scariest times of my life, and I just don't think I have the strength to go there again.  Hell, I don't even know if I have the strength to walk home tonight.

How much is required?

He answers: "Everything, because I gave even more."

Where does morality come from?

To some people, especially religious-leaning people, it probably seems like a fairly simple question.  I used to believe that every person inherently knew the basics of right and wrong.  It didn't have to be taught.  It was just there, endowed by God at birth and manifesting at a very young age.  But what about the answers to all of those supposedly "moral" questions that don't come instinctively?  I don't know about anyone else, but I personally don't know, by instinct alone, whether or not it's ok to have sex outside of marriage, to swear, to work only an acceptable amount instead of my very best...  When answering these questions, I need to look outside of my basic human instincts.  I must look to my experiences, to my upbringing, to the advice and counsel of those around me, and to my God.  The answers are not instinctive.

Now most people would probably say in retort to this that some moral issues still are instinctive, and the classic example is usually murder.  No one instinctively thinks that it's ok to take someone else's life.  That's the line in the sand.  That's the big f-ing deal.

And yet.

A couple days ago I re-watched The Reader.  By the way, the movie is absolutely stunning.  It has a lot of sexual content in it, but it's the one movie that I would recommend people who would normally not watch stuff like that to just get through the first half.  The second half is so powerful, and the first half is essential to understanding it.  That being said, if you really want to see the movie and don't want me spoil the whole thing, stop reading now, go watch it (borrow it from me, if you're in DC), then come back and finish reading.

While the movie seems to portray the central issue to be the shame of illiteracy, for me it raised much deeper questions.  Does one being literate make one understand morality?  Did Kate Winslet's character, Hannah Schmitz, honestly and naively believe that it was more important to follow orders and do her job as an Auschwitz guard than to spare the lives of dozens or even hundreds of people?  Is her illiteracy to blame for her crimes?  Or is her illiteracy a product of some mental deficiency which is in turn the cause of her seeming lack of morality?  She didn't seem to think it was at all a problem, as a middle-aged woman, to seduce, sleep and carry on with, and then mysteriously dump a fifteen year old boy.  Is it then a logical extension that she wouldn't understand how murder by order of her superiors could be wrong?  I don't think Hannah's illiteracy is the central issue here.  I think her morality is.  She isn't portrayed as a psychopath (someone completely devoid of emotions) or a sociopath (someone incapable of empathizing with someone else's emotions).  To me, at least, she seemed sincerely incapable of understanding the immorality of her actions.  So what went wrong in this woman that she couldn't comprehend the most basic moral questions?  Or does it go deeper than that?  Are these moral questions really not as "simple" as we would like to believe?

Now, I realize that this is a movie, so you can really only extrapolate so much.  But what about the now infamous Stanford Prison Experiment?




These were just normal college boys back in the early 1970s.  And given a few days and a little bit of power, many of the "guards" became monsters.  The worst of the guards, the one known as "John Wayne" stated afterwards that he just wanted to see how far he could push the "prisoners".  These people were not given orders to use cruelty of any kind.  They were even instructed to not use any forms of physical abuse.  But they could use psychological abuse, and so they did.  This was a fake situation in which everyone knew that at the end of the two week period, everyone would get out and resume their normal lives.  How much harder must it be for real-life prison guards, who are often given at least implicit permission to use physical abuse, to be governed by some universal standard of morality?

Now, obviously, I'm not saying that the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment were in the right.  I think their actions were atrocious.  And I feel exponentially stronger that the guards at Abu Ghraib and, of course, Auschwitz, were committing atrocities in the strongest sense of the word.  I could never and will never attempt to condone actions such as these.  But I still have to wonder, what is it about situations like prisons which seem to bring out the absolute worst in the people serving as guards, and afterwards, when asked to look back at what they've done, the perpetrators seem perplexed by the backlash.  They were just following orders.  They were just doing their jobs.

What would each and every one of us do in the name of following orders, doing our jobs, or even maintaining pride?  In an abstract land of comfort and ease, it seems easy enough to say that we'd follow a strict, moral line.  But both scientific experiments (albeit incredibly flawed) and real-life experiences seem to suggest that these questions of morality, even the big, line-in-the sand type questions are not easy or instinctive.  In fact, our instincts may even seem to scream the opposite of the "correct" moral answer in certain cases.

Possibly due to her upbringing, life experiences, or even her illiteracy, Hannah Schmitz took the blame for killing hundreds of innocents, seeming to truly not understand why it was wrong.  Similarly, guards at Abu Ghraib took pictures such as the now infamous one below with smiling faces and dead bodies, saying afterwards that it was only natural to smile for the camera.

It would be easy to try and blame the immoral things which our fellow man does on some villainous figure such as Hitler, Stalin, or Osama Bin Ladin.  But the truth is that all too often, oftentimes without being fully aware of what they're doing, normal human beings commit atrocities on an epic scale.  And it can't always be blamed on some fancy mental condition which conveniently takes the blame off of humanity.  The world has tried, over the years, to come to terms with its own brokenness.  And each time we collectively pledge: "never again!"  And yet again and again, it keeps happening.  And we keep looking away.  Maybe because some part of us knows that, if we were in the same position of power, there's no guarantee that there would be a different outcome.  Because the concept of inherent morality, while nice on paper, doesn't seem to have played out very well over the last few thousand years.