As I entered the room this awful, wretched, stench permeated my nostrils. I had simply come into my patients room to check his blood pressure and as my eyes searched the room for what was causing this deathly smell I was fixated on the emesis basin that was full of diarrhea. But it just wasn't in the emesis basin on the floor. Nope. It was splattered all around the floor. Just as I laid eyes on it (trying not to let my jaw drop) my patient looked over at me and said "sorry about the mess."
Excuse me?!? What?!?! Sorry about the mess! This fully functioning man was casually lying in his bed. Come to find out he had been laying in there for over an hour with this mess! Could he not smell it? Was he not embarrassed enough to try to clean it up?
Apparently not.
In my head I was thinking I just came in for your blood pressure, NOT to play maid and clean up your mess. AND in what universe would a person sit in a room with a nasty mess like this and not call the nurse's station? Sure we get paged twenty times an hour by his neighbor for silly little things but in this case no page. Makes complete sense.
I did what I had to and got out as soon as I could. As I recounted the story to my sister I was crying in laughter at what my life had become. Never in my life could I have pictured the things I would encounter in the real world of nursing as I was "livin' the dream."
I have a feeling a lot of the time people look at their life and realize it is not entirely what they had planned. I know I have been wrestling a lot with this lately. But when you're contemplating it I know I often feel alone in that feeling; like everyone else's life seems to be going great and I am the only one's whose is not right on tract. I recently decided to start reading through Matthew. As I looked at Jesus' genealogy (I know I usually skip these areas too because its just a bunch of names) but I realized there were five women named in this list. Obviously there is a purpose for these five women to be mentioned. While I am no scholar and cannot say for certain why these women specifically are listed I felt the Lord telling me to look into their stories and revealed this truth to me: life does not always work out the way we plan BUT He can and will use our lives, which are full of purpose, to accomplish great things.
Let me just break it down for you according to Emily's paraphrase real quick. Tamar lost her husband. As the law would have it a male in the husband's line would marry Tamar and have babies with her to carry on the name. Well lets just say her husband's brother wasn't feeling the have babies part so he used old school birth control methods and Tamar was never able to have children. Her life was not turning out the way she had planned so she posed as a prostitute, lured her father in law, and got pregnant. Talk about NOT the way you think your life will go as a little girl. Then we meet Rahab. A prostitute herself, again not what every girl dreams of becoming but what desperation drives you to. She laid her life on the line to house two Israelite spies in exchange for her family's lives being saved when her city was conquered. Then we have Bathsheba. I think most people are familiar with her story. While washing on her rooftop the King summons her. No one denied the King in those days so what was she to do? After a night with the King she got pregnant. Then King David, in a pickle, had her husband killed. Bet when she married Uriah she never thought she would end up in an affair that would lead to a love child and eventually lead to her betrothed's death. Ruth is next on the list. After loosing her husband, never a though in a girl's mind as ideal, she moves with her mother-in-law, again probably not ideal in a girl's mind, to an unfamiliar land. Eventually she meets her kinsman redeemer but the road was not easy. Then we have the famous young engaged Mary who is looking forward to life with her man. A little bump is thrown her way when she is impregnated by the Holy Spirit. She was almost let go by her man and had to say goodbye to the life she had envisioned because she was entrusted to raise our Saviour. Talk about crazy.
I bet those women had no idea in the middle of their crazy lives that they would be in the Messiah's lineage (well okay I suppose Mary knew once the Holy Spirit had visited her)! As I read about these women I realized I suppose at one time or another in our life we walk through a time where we are sarcastically "livin' the dream." Life is not exactly what we thought it would be. BUT I am holding on to the fact that God can take any circumstance and use it to accomplish great things. There is hope in the middle of chaos and uncertainty.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Let me be the doctor and you be the patient...
December 17th, 2010: graduated college with a BSN
January 29th, 2011: took the NCLEX
January 31st, 2011: found out I passed the NCLEX = officially an RN
February 14th, 2011: first day of orientation at local hospital
May 14th, 2011: end of 90 day orientation
May 15, 2011: waiting to bid for a position in the hospital that interests me
That's my last five months in a nutshell. Ok, so there's a lot more that has happened but that's the gist!
I was a bit too busy living life and navigating through this "new stage" in life to sit and process it on here. That is until the other day when a doctor said something, unbenounced to him, so profound that it was as if God was speaking right through him into my heart.
I was on day five of a six day stretch. My compassion was running low. My mind was exhausted. Down the hall in one of my rooms sat a woman who had been in the hospital for ten days. She wasn't in for anything life threatening or even anything that couldn't be treated from the outside. She was a nurse's worst nightmare, another RN. They say medical professionals make the worst patients and I can see why now!
This woman had been an RN for over twenty years but let her certification run out fourteen years ago. She's what I would classify a nomad, bouncing from one friend to another with no real place of her own to call home. She was quite disheveled in appearance and VERY set in her ways. She scrutinized and critiqued how every medication was administered. She suggested courses of action to the doctors. She even talked one of the more appeasing doctors into letting her stay for what she deemed a "full course" of IV antibiotics; ten days. Really she should have been there for at most three. She flat out refused A LOT of measures of care. She made things really difficult for all the staff members.
I am all for being an advocate for yourself and wanting to take an active role in your care. BUT there is a fine line between being a participant in your own care and being an obstacle. I'm not going to lie I tried to cluster my care so I only had to go in her room the bare minimum times in my shift.
As the doctor this particular day conversed about the patient's plan of care with me at the nurse's station I informed him that now that she had had her full ten days of antibiotics she had informed me she would not be discharged because she now had to finish her IV diuretic (she thought the pharmacy on the outside had given her placebo pills because they "weren't working" so she needed to stay for the IV diuretic...did I mention she maybe had some psych issues?) In frustration he threw his hands up and marched into her room. When he came out he looked me in the eye and said "I just told her that I value her opinion as a professional but there comes a time where she has to let me be the doctor and she has to be the patient. She needs to trust me and follow my instructions otherwise she will never get better."
How profound.
You're probably thinking ok Emily maybe a little of her psychosis rubbed off on you, what is so profound about that? Bare with me and I'll tell you.
As I stood there it dawned on me. A lot of changes have been going on in my life. Some are wonderful and some I struggle against, questioning A LOT, and in the midst of it all I have been trying to deal with it all by myself. It was as though God was saying "Emily you need to let me be God and you be 'the patient.' Trust me, follow my instructions otherwise you will not get better."
Sometimes More times than not I want to dictate how my life goes. I have this idea of how it should be and when things don't match up I get discouraged and start trying to control things. THIS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.
What the Lord has been showing me over the last five months, specifically these last two, is that I need to surrender that control. He doesn't want me to sit back and dictate everything so that I feel controlled and helpless. No, he wants me to be an active participant in this life He has given me but I must surrender CONTROLLING it otherwise I will never be able to enjoy life to its fullest. As I have said many times its hard to give up that control for the fear of the unknown. Foolishly I think if I control things then I will get what I want.
I desperately wish I could see the big picture like He can. Unfortunately I can't. Much like that patient in the bed I have to trust the (Great) Physician's plan in order to get to the place where I want to be but don't necessarily see myself going at this current time.
What I will say is as I have relinquished that control, which by no means is an easy thing (it takes a lot of prayer) I have seen more of His presence in my life lately. And I can honestly say I am content where I am even if things at this very moment aren't how I would have them.
Each time I see my patient fighting for the last bit of control I can't help but smile. It's as if God is reminding me "ok Emily did you lay it down today?"
January 29th, 2011: took the NCLEX
January 31st, 2011: found out I passed the NCLEX = officially an RN
February 14th, 2011: first day of orientation at local hospital
May 14th, 2011: end of 90 day orientation
May 15, 2011: waiting to bid for a position in the hospital that interests me
That's my last five months in a nutshell. Ok, so there's a lot more that has happened but that's the gist!
I was a bit too busy living life and navigating through this "new stage" in life to sit and process it on here. That is until the other day when a doctor said something, unbenounced to him, so profound that it was as if God was speaking right through him into my heart.
I was on day five of a six day stretch. My compassion was running low. My mind was exhausted. Down the hall in one of my rooms sat a woman who had been in the hospital for ten days. She wasn't in for anything life threatening or even anything that couldn't be treated from the outside. She was a nurse's worst nightmare, another RN. They say medical professionals make the worst patients and I can see why now!
This woman had been an RN for over twenty years but let her certification run out fourteen years ago. She's what I would classify a nomad, bouncing from one friend to another with no real place of her own to call home. She was quite disheveled in appearance and VERY set in her ways. She scrutinized and critiqued how every medication was administered. She suggested courses of action to the doctors. She even talked one of the more appeasing doctors into letting her stay for what she deemed a "full course" of IV antibiotics; ten days. Really she should have been there for at most three. She flat out refused A LOT of measures of care. She made things really difficult for all the staff members.
I am all for being an advocate for yourself and wanting to take an active role in your care. BUT there is a fine line between being a participant in your own care and being an obstacle. I'm not going to lie I tried to cluster my care so I only had to go in her room the bare minimum times in my shift.
As the doctor this particular day conversed about the patient's plan of care with me at the nurse's station I informed him that now that she had had her full ten days of antibiotics she had informed me she would not be discharged because she now had to finish her IV diuretic (she thought the pharmacy on the outside had given her placebo pills because they "weren't working" so she needed to stay for the IV diuretic...did I mention she maybe had some psych issues?) In frustration he threw his hands up and marched into her room. When he came out he looked me in the eye and said "I just told her that I value her opinion as a professional but there comes a time where she has to let me be the doctor and she has to be the patient. She needs to trust me and follow my instructions otherwise she will never get better."
How profound.
You're probably thinking ok Emily maybe a little of her psychosis rubbed off on you, what is so profound about that? Bare with me and I'll tell you.
As I stood there it dawned on me. A lot of changes have been going on in my life. Some are wonderful and some I struggle against, questioning A LOT, and in the midst of it all I have been trying to deal with it all by myself. It was as though God was saying "Emily you need to let me be God and you be 'the patient.' Trust me, follow my instructions otherwise you will not get better."
Sometimes More times than not I want to dictate how my life goes. I have this idea of how it should be and when things don't match up I get discouraged and start trying to control things. THIS IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.
What the Lord has been showing me over the last five months, specifically these last two, is that I need to surrender that control. He doesn't want me to sit back and dictate everything so that I feel controlled and helpless. No, he wants me to be an active participant in this life He has given me but I must surrender CONTROLLING it otherwise I will never be able to enjoy life to its fullest. As I have said many times its hard to give up that control for the fear of the unknown. Foolishly I think if I control things then I will get what I want.
I desperately wish I could see the big picture like He can. Unfortunately I can't. Much like that patient in the bed I have to trust the (Great) Physician's plan in order to get to the place where I want to be but don't necessarily see myself going at this current time.
What I will say is as I have relinquished that control, which by no means is an easy thing (it takes a lot of prayer) I have seen more of His presence in my life lately. And I can honestly say I am content where I am even if things at this very moment aren't how I would have them.
Each time I see my patient fighting for the last bit of control I can't help but smile. It's as if God is reminding me "ok Emily did you lay it down today?"
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