I had a chance to play basketball with some church guys last week. It was fun to run around like a kid again. And though I haven't been a kid in a long, long time, the next day I felt surprisingly OK. Myung, on the other hand, said he had to leave work early because he was so tired. The sadness of getting old lies in accepting small concessions.

During one of my calls last week, Erin, one of the ER residents on the Trauma team, got a voicemail from the husband of her best college friend. It was a short message that said she had had a stroke and was hospitalized. The couple had long had trouble with miscarriages before having their first child. Now, trying for their second, and as a complication of yet another miscarriage, she had developed a severe bleeding disorder. In the throes of her illness, she had managed to ask for Erin, her doctor best friend, who would help her.

Between calls Erin drove up to Michigan to see her friend. She said it was strange to see her friend in the ICU, surrounded by the old, sick and dying, with her toenails still painted pink. With no hope for any meaningful recovery, the family decided to withdraw care and let her pass away peacefully.

The Trauma service has its own share of patients on the edge. Stanford was one that was in the ICU even before my rotation started. Multiple gun shot wounds, injured organs all over the place, and most days, taking care of him was like treating a tangle of wires and tubes and bowel. A couple of days ago, I walked into his room, and he was sitting up, watching a DVD that his brother had brought him to celebrate his 24th birthday earlier in the week, and giving me a thumbs up. He was like a new man.

It never ceases to amaze me when patients recover from such devastating injuries. And I suppose it never really surprises me when patients succumb to them. We are such fragile things, bent by the wind, tossed by the waves, and yet, always dreaming of tomorrow as invincible youth.