Berkman 914 Obras Day 4 – Wednesday
What Fills the Cup
Today’s devotional came from within our own team – Abigail Berkman, our team leader, opened with a single idea: being here feels like a reset button. At home we’re always moving, always on to the next thing. Here, we stop. She asked us to carry that feeling home.
Abigail talked about Romans 15 – the idea that hope isn’t something we manufacture ourselves, it’s something we overflow with once we let it fill us up first. She put it simply: we all carry a cup around every day. Trust sits at the very bottom of it, she said – and it’s that trust that makes room for hope, and joy, and resilience to keep filling in on top of it, until eventually it overflows into everything else. A few people went around the circle sharing their own moments from the week, too – Raina brought up the patient who felt so bad she had nothing to offer for her care that she showed up with a bag of candy for the whole team instead. Someone else mentioned we’ve been seeing some of the worst knees any of them have operated on.
Dr. Rav Khazai mentioned his patient from yesterday – seventeen years old, a bone condition that had already bent one femur backward and would keep bending it if nothing was done – is doing well this morning. He could barely walk before the surgery. His mother hugged him afterward and asked for a selfie. He says it’s the truest form of orthopedics there is, if you go back to the word itself – ortho, straight; peds, children.
Hannah assisted in her first surgery yesterday – an ACL repair – and by the end of it, she was helping suture the incision closed. She barely knew anyone on this team when she arrived, and she was nervous about even asking to step into an OR. She said yes anyway. Nursing student, and by yesterday afternoon, hands actually in the work.
Dr. Michelle Henderson scrubbed in alongside her own granddaughter, Maddie, yesterday – the same two who’ve been showing up for each other, and for this mission, all week. That one got shared in the circle too, and by the time we’d gone all the way around, it was clear how much this week has actually been happening to all of us at once – we just don’t always stop long enough to hear each other’s version of it. This morning, we did.
In rounding this morning, Dr. Dan Ocel sat beside Verónica, patient and unhurried, telling her she’d be running a marathon by next year. She giggled. She lives seven hours away and will have to make the trip again in six weeks for X-rays to confirm everything healed the way it should. She told him she’d been scared before the surgery. She isn’t anymore. She’s been rejected by seven different consultations before this one – years of pain, told no every time – and she still doesn’t quite believe it’s actually over. Occupational therapist Devon is already walking alongside her, building the plan that’ll get her the rest of the way there.
In pre-op, anesthesiologists Ken and Dave sat with Diego before he went under. Diego’s mom was there too, and Kathleen, a mother herself, held her through it – one mom comforting another, both of them crying, the particular kind of understanding that maybe only passes between two people who’ve had a child in someone else’s hands. Ken and Dave both stayed on to walk him under, familiar enough with Diego by now that he’s basically a returning VIP. Dr. Dan Ocel and Dr. Joe Hsin took his case to repair a club foot today, Zac Brown Band playing through the whole thing. Down the hall, another room had Barbra Streisand going instead.
Anderson – seven years old, and an easy favorite of the whole team – picked out a Peppa Pig stuffed animal to bring in with him. He’s shy, but he’ll play peek-a-boo if you catch his eye right, and today he spent most of pre-op taking photos of the girls on the team, sticking his tongue out at the camera every time, pure cutesy flirt. Dr. Dan Ocel hasn’t quite won him over yet, if we’re honest – but he’s not giving up. Gummy worms, he promised, right when Anderson’s out.
Sixteen surgeries happened today.
In recovery, Cristóbal was ready to move the second anyone would let him. “Let’s go, let’s do it,” he told PT Isla and OT Laura – the same knee the surgical team had just replaced, the one Dr. Berkman called the worst he’s seen in thirty years. Cristóbal hadn’t walked in eight years. This afternoon, with Isla and Laura right beside him, he did a straight leg raise – a genuinely huge milestone this early out. With other health complications on top of it, he’ll need to stay longer than most before he’s stable enough to travel, but today, none of that slowed him down. Nursing and PT students spent the day right alongside Isla and Laura, translating and picking up everything they could.
Before the day wound down, we checked in on our two littlest patients. Anderson was propped up in bed, deep into a thrilling round of Pokémon Go. Diego was propped up in his own bed, his new stuffed animal sitting right next to him.
Grace is enough, we were reminded again this morning. Today, it looked like a woman who stopped believing anyone would ever say yes to her, finally hearing it. It looked like a bag of candy from someone who had nothing else to give. It looked like a man who hadn’t walked in eight years, already asking when he could get up. Whatever filled our cups today, we’re carrying it home.
