Sutures and Wanderlust

I was rotating in anaesthesia. Standing in the preop area, waiting for the next patient for our operation room to arrive, I overheard perhaps one of the most significant conversations of my life. There was a young patient, and her OBGYN. There was some talk about removing her uterus, perhaps a cancer or something else threatening her life. I couldn't really hear. I wasn't paying any attention to it. They were going to remove her uterus to save her life. That much I could tell. And then she asked her doctor a simple question. A simple yet bone chilling question. "meray paas bachadani nahi hoge tw mujh se shaadi kaun karay ga?" (if i don't have a womb, who is going to marry me?) The doctor paused. Smiled reassuringly. "Beta shadi bachadani se thori hoti hai." (Child, it's not the womb one marries) I couldn't stop thinking over these words. The day ended. Our operation room list finished. I changed out of my scrubs. I walked my way back...

Dr Ruth Pfau came to a land, far away from her home in Germany, in 1960. And since then she has spent 50 years of her life,serving people, in a strange land, people who don't speak her language, who don't look like her, and who are shunned by the world for their suffering. But she learned their language, and she accepted them, making the world accept them. On a visit to Mary Adeleide Leprsoy Center, we visited her home as well,which is in fact within the center. There is her room, a shelf with some books and a frame of her parents picture, and chirping birds. She has lived here for the past 50 years. How does one do that? Make home in a strange land. Tirelessly remain in servitude to humanity for so long. I wonder if she ever gets tired. I wonder how has she managed to do what she does. I wonder how did she have the heart to give up a life of ease at such a young age and never regret it. When I think for an answer to these questions, I'...