The world can be a heavy place

Work has been pretty busy this week.  It is winter in childhood virus-land and everyone in the community seems to be sick.  Add to this weird accidents and occurences and it makes for some long days.   I was on call Tuesday and had a few calls to make yesterday and had planned to finish up some paperwork during lunch.  I came out of the room with my last morning patient to find out the person on call for the day had just run over the ER.  She was called over because a child had come in in cardiorespiratory arrest.  I'll leave out the details but all she could do was watch as the team already there tried unsuccessfully to revive the little girl.  To say the least, it put a damper on the day.  And, from a completely selfish perspective it put me even further behind as I was seeing her patients during lunch.  I was glad to get through what I needed to finish at the end of the day and get home.  Mike and I escaped to our favorite thai restaurant for dinner and finished the meal with a cream brulee.  (Yes, I'm still occasionally not a strict vegan ...)  I have today off and am grateful for a little breathing space.

And speaking breathing, I've been re-reading _Going on Being_ by Mark Epstein, one of the first books that I read on meditation while in St Louis.  The book really spoke to me at the time, and it's gotten me re-energized and interested in spending some sitting time meditating again.  More on that another time.