Even though I was physically born in Wisconsin, I was "born" in Colorado. The first time I laid eyes on the Rocky Mountains while driving along I-70 with my uncles I was awestruck. The expansive view through the windshield near Lookout Mountain was one I had dreamt of for years, since I was a small girl watching Swiss Family Robinson, or Little House on the Prairie, or any of a handful of other rural/mountainesqe type TV shows. Even at 18 years old I knew I would move to Colorado the first chance I could. And I did.
Now, the North Cascades of Washington are fulfilling the role that the Rocky Mountains did when I was living in Fort Collins and Denver, CO. These are now the mountains I drive towards when I need to get back to who I am.
When I think of mountain healing, I think of Sue Fear, a mountaineer I met years ago on a plane from Tasmania to Sydney, Australia. Sue was a striking woman in her 40's, drinking a beer in the airport --which was allowed -- but the beer she was drinking they didn't sell there. So, she was escorted outside of the terminal until our flight boarded. I thought it was a bit silly that the Tasmanians, in all their kind heartedness, would be so strict with beer, but there it was. I went outside and gave her one of my beers, which they also didn't sell at the airport. It was over the next hour that I began to realize who she was.
Sue Fear, in 2001, became the first Australian woman to summit Mount Everest. And here I was, an American mountain lover, looking into the blue depth of this woman's eyes and trying to imagine all the glorious glacial beauty she had beholden. She told me she went to the mountains to live, and went back home, to Sydney, only when she was drained. At home, her nest, she filled her reservoir back up - her hopes, her desires - and once it was full again, she went back out into the world to tackle another high peak. We stayed in touch and she sent me a copy of her book, Fear No Boundary. I was back in Australia and trying to track her down to meet up for dinner when I heard, through a friend of a friend, that she had fallen through a crevasse on K2 a week prior. Her body was never recovered.
I think of her today, because the mountains are where I go to heal. Where I personally go to BOTH fill and empty my reservoir.
After the last month in my surgery rotation, I didn't realize how much I needed a bit of healing until I said goodbye to that last patient on that last day. And what resonated about that final meeting was that that patient was going home to die. And the mountains were also a place of healing for her. She would never get to hike in them again. I told her I would take her with me next time I went.
So, my question is: Where do you go? What heals you? This is something I want to think about, and respect, as I move forward through this next week "off" from school and patients, because one week from today I begin again, and my next rotation is in Internal Medicine. I am most excited for this next rotation because I am ready for it. And I want to remember that the patients are more than medical enigmas, more than bodies in a bed. They are humans with memories, and places and favorite spots to have picnics or to watch the sunset. They are people with mountains, in every sense of the metaphor imaginable.
As medical providers I believe we can offer more than we think we can. Sure, we can provide diagnoses (hopefully sooner than later) of complicated medical conditions, we can provide comfort care. But we can also acknowledge and nurture the emotional and spiritual lives of our patients--some of which are most important in the healing process.
So, this week I am healing. In some of my favorite places.
Ask me sometime, and I will take you there.
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