Broken

Healthcare is all about fixing the "broken." When things don't work right doctors and nurses are there to help shed light on what is ailing our bodies, treat the problem, and ease our pain.

The only qualification is that we come.

When I'm at home I work at a doctor's office doing filing work and occasionally help the medical assistants. I have found over the last few words that there are 3 types of patients out there. There are those who call about every bump, bruise, or cough and want to be seen PRONTO. Then there are those who annually come for their check-up. And finally there are those who put off coming at all costs (some haven't been seen in decades!).

Lately I've been the third type of patient, not physically but spiritually. I hit a wall along the road of life and found myself in a hurt, let down, and angry place. I had been in the Word daily, seeking God's face, and praying diligently and yet I felt completely broken. I wasn't apathetic but I was weary and I knew where I needed to go. To the Great Physician. Up until a week ago I had spent my mornings in the minivan (the time I usually pray) in silence. I told God I no longer knew what to pray and so I was just going to sit in His presence. I couldn't see past the "wall" and I needed Him more than ever. Later that week while listening to a Podcast by Angela Thomas, who was speaking on the Sermon on the Mount, I realized one thing. God is truly the Great Physician and He can help shed light on what is ailing our spirit, treat the problem, and ease our pain.

The only qualification is that we come.

I think Angela did a great job with her interpretation (the one she whole heartily believes is from God) of the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5. She was explaining how most the times this passage is preached it is taught from the "you gotta be this" and "you gotta be that" for God to bless you. Well she believes the passage is more "if you are this" and "you are that" then God can bless you BUT you've got to be willing to come up the mountain to where He is with the truth of who we are and be willing to lay it at his feet. *I encourage you to take a moment and read the passage.* I couldn't be stubborn and put off going to the Physician anymore. I was "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3a) - completely broken and couldn't do it on my own anymore. Jesus, my personal Lord and Savior, the one who died for every human being was calling out to me and saying Come my child.

And so I came.

I had read in a blog (http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2008/05/past-and-pitcher.html) that throwing pottery could be a form of therapy. Angie Smith, the writer of this particular blog described how God had called her to smash a pitcher, symbolizing her life, and then spent time with God putting it back together. I knew after reading it that that is what God wanted me to do too. My roommates and I were having a "roomie night" and so I pitched the idea to them. They were totally on board (that's why I love them!).

I decided I was going to go up the mountain to my Lord with the truth of who I was. As I smashed the ceramic mug (Gotta love being a college student on a budget! We couldn't find pitchers for a decent price so we settled for a Dollar Store mug.) I yelled the things that were breaking me on the inside. I yelled about failing to get into nursing school the first time around which has put me on the 5-year-plan in college, not knowing what to do with my nursing degree, being single and feeling lonely, finding out that the guy I have had a crush on since I can remember and whom I thought had requited feelings recently started dating someone, my sister leaving in less than a month for a year, not being secure in myself, and overall being discontent with the way life was playing out.

As I smashed the mug I felt an immediate release (I'm pretty sure our neighbors wondered what the heck was going on on our porch). There my life was in a hundred pieces. I scooped up the pieces, grabbed a hot glue gun, and had at it.

Here I am putting the pieces back together.

Here is the finished piece. Not perfect but nontheless whole.

Sitting at the kitchen table that night as I was putting the mug (my life) back together God began to speak to me very clearly. Each piece of the shattered mug was a part of me, the real me (the person I can't hide from God). The process of putting the mug back together was not easy. Just when I thought I had it figured out a piece would come along that didn't quite fit and I would have to start all over again. My fingers got cut up and glue was everywhere. But that's how life isn't it? Just when we think we have it figured out something comes along and we find ourselves lost or in a mess. It's a rough road sometimes and we will forever wear the scars. BUT there is always someone we can turn to - the Great Physician.

I don't have all the answers and I still hurt but I woke up the next day and realized that this precious life I have been given is not about me (you know that wall I couldn't see past, yeah it was myself) it's about honoring the One who gave it to me. I "thirst for righteousness" (Matthew 5:6) so I will hold my mug (my life) up to the only One who can fill it. It may be broken but God has filled in those cracks with His love, grace, and forgiveness and I am WHOLE.

I don't know what life holds BUT God does. It may not be what I have planned but one thing I am learning every day is that His plan is far better than anything I could have ever dreamed. So for now I am resting at His feet and allowing Him to use my life to pour out onto others.

I'll leave you with these words from Jeremy Camp's song "Walk By Faith" that just so "happened" to be playing on the radio as I told God I was going to be silent in His presence until He showed me what to do...

"well I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see, because this BROKEN road prepares Your will for me..."

Hospital and Hotel are NOT synonymous

I vividly remember one of the first things my clinical instructor said before my first hospital experience sophmore year. It was that we [the nursing students] "needed to realize that when patients are in the hospital they are there to get better, if they wanted to relax and rest they could go to a hotel." That struck me very odd because I thought that the point of hospitalization was to rest so that you could get better but in my inexperience I kept my mouth shut and went on my way. Fast forward to this year. As I sit at the end of my first semester junior year (I can't believe it's almost over!), having completed eleven eight hour and two twelve hour shifts I think I finally understand.

As nurses we make beds, fluff pillows, provide toiletries, and bring snacks and drinks to our "guest's" rooms, much like housekeepers at hotels, to make their stay that much nicer. BUT we are also the ones who enter our "guests" rooms before the crack of dawn to reposition them in their bed, much to their dismay. We rouse them every so often to assess their vital signs, take a glucose reading, or provide them with their scheduled medications. We are also the ones who make them get up out of their comfortable warm bed to sit up in the chair or take a stroll down the ever so beautifully decorate hospital hallway. Through the complaining, grinding of teeth, grimacing looks, and protests we do it because these measures are best for our patients. What they don't realize is that even though getting up and moving is painful and exhausting it will help them get better faster. More times than not our patients can't see the end when they are in midst of battling a disease so it's our job to come along side them. We push them to do things they don't want to do so they can heal. Don't get me wrong, nurses do provide periods of rest throughout the day but those are hardly ever protested :) The revelation that hospitals are not hotels came to me in the strangest yet most practical way...

Every morning on my way to where ever I am heading for that day I pray, it's a time I look forward to most in my day. It's just me and God in my minivan. These last few weeks have kind of been rough for me, I feel lost in life (I'll explain later). A time that is usually filled with words right up until I arrive at my destination has been replaced with silence. I told God that I did not know what to pray anymore and so I was just going to sit in His presence. One day recently as I was sitting at a red light I was thinking about what I had read in "Lady in Waiting" and all of a sudden it hit me. God, the ultimate caretaker, sometimes makes us do things we don't want to do in order to make us "better." Even when we cannot see the big picture He can. He will hold our hands through the tears, He will provide all our needs, and He will walk with us through the tough times to get us to where He wants us to be if we just let Him.

God has pulled me out of "my bed" and is asking me to walk through this part of my life and trust that He has my best interests at heart. I may not like it, and I don't but here I am God.

Mrs. Smith is a 94-year-old hard of hearing woman with an advanced case of Alzheimers. Here is what transpired in her room a few weeks ago as I prepared her for transport back to her assisted living home.

Me: "Mrs. Smith you're going home today."

Patient: "I'm going to see Jesus?"

Me (thinking): Oh my word it's true people do see Jesus before they leave this world.

I started checking her breathing pattern, skin color, and O2 sats like a paranoid nursing student thinking that my patient was on her way out when all of a sudden she asked me what I was doing and sat straight up. I then realized she had simply misunderstood me.

Each Friday I walk into the hospital dreading the day ahead but by the end of the shift my attitude has completely changed, I walk out excited for the next Friday. If I'm honest I am very fearful of the unknown and knowing someone's life is essentially in my hand is scary. I must be alert to all kinds of changes in the patient and be ready to care for all kinds of needs. It's scary. I am terrified of failure and not doing my job correctly. But what I have come to realize is that I want to be the best nurse. I want to be exceptionally knowledgeable, attuned to my patient so I catch problems early/as soon as they present, and loving beyond compare. I want all of this not to be "the best" but THE BEST FOR MY PATIENT's SAKE. If someone had to take care of my family members I would want that for them.

I still have a lot to learn and experience and I will never know everything. What I do know is from now on I am going to seek out new experiences and try my hand at new skills even if they are terrifying.

Here are some various stories/lessons from the last few weeks in the hospital...

• Who would have ever guessed that I would give a patient marijuana? Apparently it is balled up in pill form as an appetite stimulator. Ha, go figure that the "munchies" could come in handy...nutrition is vital to a patient's recovery!
• Two things that I have a hard time stomaching - wads of hair (you know like the kind you find in the bathtub drain) and saliva/mucous. I don't know what it is about those things but I instantly want to gag. My more recent patient, Mr. Hill, had a tracheostomy. Naturally they tend to have a lot of secretions that come either out of the trach tube OR if they are fortunate enough they can cough up. The Lord must have really wanted to desensitize me to saliva/mucous because my patient spent the whole shift coughing it up into a mouth basin that I had to hold. Don't get me wrong I felt for this 85-year-old man that could not breathe adequately but when he coughed up phlegm on my arm because he didn't turn his head fast enough for the basin I almost lost my lunch. Being professional of course I just smiled and asked him if he felt better now that his mucous was cleared!
• A sick adult is never to old for a hot compress to make an irritated eye better, a straw for their drink, or a back massage to help their back pain disappear. I often think of the things my mom did for me as a child to make me feel better and apply them to my nursing practice. It's the simple things that make all the difference!
• A confused essentially wheelchair bound patient will try and make a run for it if given the chance. Mrs. Oliver is a 90-year-old woman whose legs cannot move as quickly as her brain anymore but that did not stop her from trying to get out of her wheelchair. Good thing she was sitting on a saddle like contraption that did not allow her to slip/move out of the wheelchair because twice I came back to check on her and she was tapping her feet and leaning forward. As soon as I stepped in the door she would grin and sit back up. She wanted badly to get back in bed - can't say I blame her but she needed the "up in the chair" therapy.
• Getting the hang of diapering an adult is difficult. I still seem to put them on backwards or rip them when trying to situate them under one's hiney. I feel terrible because the patient has to roll back and forth multiple times all exposed before I get it right - they must think I'm an idiot. I'm determined to perfect the diapering process before the end of the semester.

Nursing = team sport

"NO MAN IS AN ISLAND"

This is what our instructors told us during our pre-clinical meeting and it's been playing in my head ever since. I was very hesitant to go into junior year because of all the hype of what you had to do, how little time you had to do it in, and all that you have to know. Three weeks in and you know what I've learned, no man is an island. I don't have to do this on my own. Not only is God holding my hand through this (yes I honestly believe He is holding my hand - leading me to the finish line otherwise I'd be a big baby running in the other direction) but I have my classmates to bounce ideas off of, ask questions, and talk through situations that arise. God didn't design us to be "islands," He gave us each other and I constantly have to remind myself that.

Even though I'm heading into week four I have only had one patient. Mr. Mason cannot talk, is contractured (which means his muscles are stiff so he doesn't move), and is completely reliant on nursing staff to take care of all his needs. It kind of broke my heart to know that when he left the hospital and headed back to his nursing home that he wouldn't be taken care of spectacularly. Because he can't talk or move he is the prime candidate to be over looked. What a humbling experience to bathe another grown human being, to change their soiled diaper, to feed them through a PEG tube (this tube goes directly from outside the abdomen into the stomach), and to physically position him until he is comfortable (guessing of course since he can't really communicate). I often wondered as I was talking to him what he thought of this student nurse that kept waking him up to move him around!

It's hard sometimes as you are smelling the foulest of smells to thank God for the opportunity to be His hands and feet but in the end I know that this is what I'm suppose to be doing.

I have learned that if you want to be a good nurse you will also have to be a bath giver, diaper changer, hair dresser, masseuse, call bell answer, linen changer, dental assistant, counselor, drug dispenser, case breaker, feeder, ear to listen, hand to hold, news breaker, life saver... I never gave nurses the credit they deserve BUT I will from here on out.

*The CNA on our floor just loved on us students all day long. She jumped at any opportunity to share/show us anything "cool." Most of all she loves her patients and is very attentive to their needs (CNA's are also under appreciated especially by the RN's a lot of the time. I hope I will always appreciate my CNA's because they do a lot of the dirty work. AND I MEAN DIRTY!) Well her thing is to take new students down to the morgue. Yes, that is kind of morbid but I hopped right into line to follow her downstairs. When we walked into the morgue I felt like I was in a TV set. I'm not going to lie it was pretty sweet down there. However, the awe of being down there quickly came to a halt when she opened the door to the freezer to show us where we would place our dead patients and we saw a body bag. This wasn't your typical body bag it was one of a child. I know as a nurse we will be faced with death quite often but I was not ready for that. We looked at the record book and sure enough it was a 6 month old baby boy. I could not even begin to process that and wanted to leave to get back to the floor pronto. My heart broke (still breaks) for the family that had to say goodbye to their precious baby. They say you get more accustomed/almost numb to death the more you are around it but at this point in my life (and in experience) I'm just not sure I will ever be numb to death nor do I want to. Death means that someone's somebody is gone from this earth and I want to be sensitive to their grief, not just treat it like another notch on a stick.