Lessons Learned at a Hospital

Today was my second fieldwork day at the hospital. I love going to the hospital. I love the patients, I love the treatments, I love the activity, but most of all, I love seeing the patients get better.

After these observations, I know I am going to love what I am going to do when I grow up.

Anyways, God taught me a cool lesson today.

Most of the patients at the hospital are really nice old people, like grandmas and grandpas, but there is this younger individual who has Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a really rare disease effecting only 1 in 100,000 people. You can read more about it here.

Anyways, to summarize Guillain-Barré Syndrome it is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. Patients begin to lose feeling in their limbs and trunk. Eventually, the patient is completely paralyzed. This loss of function can occur over hours, days, or weeks.

Our particular patient went from a fully functional adult to completely paralyzed in 4 hours. My therapist said a lot of patients as bad as him die from their symptoms. This happened to him over 5 months ago and he has been in the hospital doing rehab ever since he reached a stable condition.

Today, when we went to therapy with this patient, he had something he was really excited about showing us. He gathered us over, had us lift up his hands and showed us how he is now able to move his two pinkies and right thumb literally a centimeter, if that.

This guy lost his total independence in a matter of four hours. He had a life and a job and a family and everything changed in a matter of 4 hours. He has been working so hard for the last 5 months, all for some centimeter movements in 3 fingers. 5 months.

If you could have seen the look on this guy's face, you would have thought it had just won the lottery. Over a centimeter. Incredible.

I sit here and whine about how my life is hard and school is boring and God takes to long to answer my prayer requests, and then when He does answer them, I don't do enough to appreciate them.

This patient sits in the hospital and works is but off for 5 months for a centimeter. And then he is overjoyed at his progress, instead of getting frustrated that things aren't moving faster.

I am such a brat.

Admiring the determination of the human spirit,
Jenna