Praying for Patients

I felt compelled to write an entry about my day today because it was quite unusual and emotional.  Let me start out by saying that I love my job.  I absolutely love "cleaning teeth" and everything that comes along with it.  That "everything" includes building relationships with my patients, recommending and following treatment plans (and seeing wonderful results), chatting about vacations, school, holidays and family.  Today that "everything" included praying for my patients, crying with them, and encouraging them.

I had one patient today that has been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby for years.  I have been seeing her for years and she has recently lost weight and looks fabulous!  From what I know about her, she is a wonderful, deserving woman who would be a fantastic mom.  I told her I will definitely be praying for her in her journey.

Later in the day, I saw another regular patient who has also been coming for years, along with her husband.  Her husband is in his early 60s and has advanced stages of Alzheimer.  Each time he comes to have his teeth cleaned, the deterioration of his condition is evident and it breaks my heart.  Today I learned from Mrs. Patient that she recently had to put her husband in a nursing home and that he is getting worse.  Professional boundaries disintegrated as I cried with and hugged her.  When they used to come in together, the love and patience she showed towards her husband was amazing.  My heart goes out to her, and I left her knowing that I would be praying for them.

Finally, I had a lady (first time I have treated her) who has come out of a 20 year remission from breast cancer.  She has finished with chemotherapy, will be having additional surgeries next week, and may be facing radiation.  She came in today with no hair and her head held high.  Her attitude and bravery amazed me.  She was optimistic and matter of fact and seemed to have a peace about her condition.  I admire her and will be praying for her too.

Please pray with me for my patients.  Their situations are weighing heavily on my heart tonight.  I know it is out of our hands but I pray mostly for faith, peace, healing and comfort.  I also pray that God continues to give me the opportunity to pray for my patients!  I am grateful for my blessings and my health and I feel like God has been working on my selfish, self-centered nature lately in ways like this.

Massachusetts: Boston

This is the Boston portion of our vacation.  We spent three busy days here.  The first two days were mostly following the Freedom Trail (the historical points in Boston).  We definitely got off path when we felt like seeing other things or spending more time exploring "off the trail" sights.  There are a lot of pictures so I will try to just label them, not elaborating much on what we did.

These first two pics are of the Harvard Book store, which we visited the first night.  There were more Harvard students there than there should have been at 9pm.  I guess that's what they do for fun around there :)

Faneuil Hall

Quincy Market:  Full of yummy food and unique shops

Inside Old North Church (and outside shown below)

View going over bridge to USS Constitution and Bunker Hill

USS Constitution

Cutie :)

View of Boston from USS Const.

Bunker Hill

ME!

Fish at Farmers Market that I wrote about in the "good eats" blog

BIG door in Faneuil Hall

Paul Revere's Home:  We got a tour

The Old State Building

Boston Massacre Site

Birthplace of Benjamin Franklin

To commemorate first public school

Gravestones of John Hancock, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams

I thought this was hilarious!  "Government Security System"

Boston Commons and below is a fountain in commons

Massachusetts State House of Rep

Adorable Brownstone homes everywhere!!!

Public Gardens

We spent a little while touring local art galleries.  This was my favie:  they painted a sailboat scene on a nautical map.

We had a beer at Remy's before the game.  We sat rooftop and had an awesome view of the outside of Fenway Park

Fenway

Museum of Fine arts: this took an entire day!Look how big this painting is!Wrapped up the day with a tour of Chinatown!

Massachusetts: Lexington and Concord

 On our way from Pittsfield to Boston, Clay and I stopped in Concord, MA to visit some Revolutionary War sites.  Here is the Old North Bridge where the "Shot Heard Around the World" was fired which began the war.  It was a beautiful site.






Then we visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (not the one in the story.  We saw the burial sites/stones of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa M. Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  It was weird because people had left notes, pencils, rocks and other stuff on/near their stones.

Then we headed to a  tavern in the Minute Men Park where a lot of the leaders of the Minute Men and colonial army gathered to plan. 

The house on the right is Louisa M Alcott's house:  Orchid house where Little Women was written and based on.  The house on the left is the "Author's House" where Nathaniel Hawthorne lived.

 We finished up the day by visiting Walden Pond.  The tiny house above is a replica of the house Henry David Thoreau built on Walden Pond when he wrote the book by the same name.  Clay got a kick out of it.  It was in the parking lot of the park.  The picture below is the actual site of the house, closer to the pond.

Overall, it was a fun and exhausting day.  We did a bit of war and literature history.  I learned a lot that day, especially about the Revolutionary war.  It was neat to see the actual place where the war began and to learn about ordinary people stepping forward to protect their country :)