Eleven Cents

I am struggling with a frustrating reality: a person hoping to do research to build up the culture of life has to do twice as much work as a person who hopes to do amoral clinical research. Becoming a clinician-scientist is hard enough. They have to see enough patients, do enough surgery (when applicable), and earn enough grant money to make their institution value them. This means they have to stay on top of their clinical game. And like it or not, this usually means they have to choose result- and revenue-generating research topics.

Becoming an academic physician who also builds up the humanity of the unborn or builds up the science behind FABMs is even harder. Those topics don't make money and don't make friends, so these people either can't overtly do this research (i.e. they have to cloak it as MIGS or MFM) or they have to do amoral popular research in parallel. In my limited experience of successful pro-culture-of-life physicians, there is a proportion involved: the more pro-life/pro-family research you do, the more amoral research you do. The more you cloak your pro-life/pro-family research, the less you have to lead two lives to put bread on the table.

This initially made me very frustrated. Why should I have to do twice as much work as other people in order to do the research I care about? In this age of non-discrimination, why should I be effectively treated differently because of my beliefs? Of course, I realize that I'm not alone. I'm sure there are hundreds of MDs and PhDs who have pet topics that are non-fundable because they are too obscure, too unstudied, or not flashy enough to earn grants. But still! This is different. Want to do research that builds up humanity and saves the world? Tough luck.

This makes me think of a story from my childhood. I was at a big family reunion as an early teen. I have a lot of cousins that span almost two decades in age, and we were all at the pool. There was a wading pool for the little cousins and a regular pool for the "big kids." Most of the kids who could swim were in the big kid pool. Then the reunion held an event: all the adults tossed coins into the pool and the kids could keep any that they picked up.

The competition in the "big kid" pool was fierce! I was bumping into people and the coins I was diving for would get picked up by someone else. I think I ended up with a penny and two nickels. I was actually pretty pleased with myself.

I was pleased, that is, until I went over to my dad, who was with my younger sister by the wading pool. My younger sister was with the little kids and had collected almost a dollar, just by bending over and picking up coins. She hadn't even gotten her face wet. I was so angry! I worked so hard to get eleven cents and my younger sister, who had no appreciation for money anyway, had easily collected almost ten times what I got! And I hadn't even realized that the wading pool was an option. My pleasure turned into hurt.

My dad took the chance to teach me something I have thought about several times since then. "There will always be people who get eleven cents with lots of work and people who get dollars without doing much," he said. Later in life, he would add, "We're called to be faithful, not successful." So I'll try to apply this attitude to work. I will do what I can to pursue my calling faithfully.

Stories from Vacation: Bedbugs

I have encountered bedbugs before. But I have never encountered bedbugs in my next door neighbor's apartment. My next door neighbor is a retired policeman my grandfather's age. When I first moved in he gave me a new microwave oven, a re-gift he didn't need. I picked it up and as I was leaving with it, I noticed a semi-automatic rifle mounted on the back of the front door. "That's in case some guy I sent to prison comes knocking," he said.

"Ah," I replied, not sure what else to say. Was my neighbor paranoid?

"No, I mean it," my neighbor said. "There one particular guy who sent me letters and called me telling me he's coming for me now that he's out of prison."

"Sir, do you tell all your neighbors these things?"

"Well, I guess not," he mumbled. "Well anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna happen but it'd be a good story if it did."

Img credit: houstondwiPhotos mp

My neighbor was full of stories. "My step-son," he'd grumble, "was a disaster as a kid. He'd get drunk and get into fights and do drugs. I was always afraid that me and my wife were gonna get the call that he was dead. One time--" he started to laugh, "one time he called me, you know, once there were cell phones. He called me from the bathroom of a bar and said, 'Dad, come get me. I'm in this stall and the whole rest of the bar is out there ready to kill me.' I was in favor of him getting in trouble. His mom wanted me to go get him. She said 'He'll be arrested, and then he'll have a record.' And that gave me an idea. So I said, 'All right, son.' I got on my uniform and got my gun and a pair of handcuffs and went to the bar. Sure enough, there was a riled-up crowd shouting for him to come out and trying to bang in the door. Poor bouncers. I moved through them and banged a little myself. I shouted, 'You're under arrest!' And I put handcuffs on him, the works. We left and I took 'em off in the car and we went home. I hung up my uniform and he went to bed. Everyone was happy."

I thought my neighbor was hilarious. I would bake bread for him occasionally and I took him to Mass once or twice. He gave me a tablecloth and an end table, and he made mechanic recommendations. We'd see each other as I went to and from work and make small talk. I knew that he helped the others, too.

Then I learned he'd been diagnosed with cancer, but couldn't be debulked because of his coronary artery disease. He had a combined triple CABG and cancer surgery. He came home in a wheelchair with an incision as long as my arm. Home health visited three times a day. I went to see him and found out that he had bedbugs. First, he told me the fact. "Thanks for comin' over," he said. "Don't mind the exterminator who'll be here in a bit."

"You're brave," commented his step-son, who dropped in to bring groceries in the middle of my visit. "When I visit him, I sit on a wood chair."

I soon learned why. I flicked away no fewer than five bugs of at least two different species (or different life cycle stages?) while I was sitting on his living room couch. It was tricky to be cordial and let him decide when the visit was over! He was clearly bored and wanted some company, and my visit lasted three hours. As I walked to my door when I finished, I vowed that I was going to wash every thread I wore with steaming water and dry it on super hot. As I was taking off my hoodie, I saw and crushed a blood-filled bug.

Img credit hiroo yamagata

Luckily, after that there were no signs of bedbugs in my apartment. Then a few days later, I noticed that the hand sanitizer at our secondary hospital really bothered my hands. I was itching like crazy. As I was driving home, I realized it wasn't the hand sanitizer. I had several discrete red bumps on my hands. "Oh good, it's just bug bites," I thought, "I can still use the sanitiz--OH NO. I HAVE BEDBUGS." I immediately called my apartment manager and he sent a home debugging bottle, complete with personal spray wand for the tough-to-reach spots.

I don't think I ever had bedbugs, though.  I got those bites just sitting with my neighbor. Happily, he's now bedbug free, too. Please pray for him as he recovers. Pray especially for his return to Christ and his conversion.