Lemurs Leaping

Yesterday I sat in the "Hollywood Theatre" of the hospital with patients, families and staff waiting for connection with the international spacestation. It was an exciting event organized by the hospital and a European radio program. We spoke to a Canadian astronaut and one by one all eight children were able to ask questions which were answered with sincerity and humor. One event of many at this hospital which makes children struggling with great health challanges, excited for the day. Next week I will attend the hospital theatre production of "Tails" a play that was written by a physician here many years ago. It will be the goodbye evening to my Syrian family. In our last conversation, via interpretor, the father told me that he is forever thankful for my help and that they will miss me. I feel great sadness for these goodbyes. These connections that will be "terminated"; a term used by social workers that I despise and dread. Goodbye letters and closing of cases, I worry about all this unfinished business but my African friends help me to not worry and my Buddhist friends help me find peace and my supervisor tells me that this sadness is symbolic of the great work I have done and the meaning of my relationships with my clients. And it is good. I finished my interviews today with staff urologists, genetics, endocrinology, child life, nurse practitioners about medical photography for our patients in urology who are born with ambiguous genitalia or other conditions that may be stigmatizing. I feel enlightened by different contradictory perspectives that have allowed me to have unbiased and well rounded ideas about this subject.... something that since Amsterdam in 2006 I have been investigating in my own mind. For possible research in the future, these interviews are fundamental to my career and I think the colleagues I've had here will be also- willing to help me and support me. I'm leaping (as a lemur) forward, accepting the movement, constant and irreversable, this is what sustains us, propelling ourselves from branch to branch to find a different view, a NEW view.