Spring Break here I come!

I just finished my last exam and am officially on SPRING BREAK! I leave Saturday to spend the majority of my time off hanging out here…

I plan to spend time here…

here…

here..

.

and I think I’ll finally go here!

I’m going to climb…

Eat this…
This…

And this…

 

And hopefully see…

well, way too many people than I can logically post pictures of right now (I promise some when I get back ok?):)

For now, I’m just going to take a shower, grab some lunch, and let myself get even more excited about SLO!

A day of doubt

Today was the first time I’ve really doubted my call to nursing. Emotionally strained and physically tired, I found myself questioning if this is really what God has for me. It was my very last day of my peds rotation and I spent it in the Emergency Department. It was actually a relatively uneventful morning. The ‘wintry mix’ last night kept many from venturing out, so I arrived to a number of empty rooms and a quiet waiting area. The nurse I was shadowing showed me around the department (can you even imagine a 72 bed ED?!) and I was of course impressed with at how gorgeous and pt/family/med staff friendly it was. She then led me into the trauma room and told me about some of the cases they have gotten there. It was there, in the stark white sterility of the trauma room that I had this moment of overwhelming emotion, realizing just what I am considering getting myself into. The worst of events that involve children in the Philadelphia area go into this room. And this is where I feel called to be?

I guess it would be more appropriate to say not that I’m so much doubting my love for nursing , but my own ability to really handle such a career. There are areas much less critical than the ED, but I’m only happy in critical care situations. And therein lies my struggle. Am I strong enough, smart enough, skilled enough? I certainly don’t feel like it.

I came home exhausted and recognized that a nap was needed first and foremost if I was going to approach this situation with something more than just tired emotion. I awoke less tired, but still feeling heart-wrenched.

It’s midterm time for me and I have tons of studying to do. Tonight my church Liberti was hosting a Doubt Night to talk about the things that we struggle to come to grips with within the Christian faith. With the amount of studying I have to do, I hardly felt it wise for me to go tonight. And yet with the weight on my mind, I hardly felt I could be anywhere but in communion with other believers seeking to understand God. So I went. And it was good. Steve Huber and Art Boulet led us in discussing the Problem of Evil and how it can be possible that God is both Loving and All Powerful. Brought up in the conversation was the suffering and injustice toward children in this world. I think that’s really what’s at the root of my struggle. How do I find the strength to surround myself with inexplicable tragedy? All day long the questions resonating in my head have been, “How can I handle seeing a child come in with a gunshot wound to the head?” and “How can I talk to that family?”

But above my fears my soul cries, “How can I not be there for that child and family?” It’s true that I don’t understand everything about evil and the violence it produces, but I do know that as a Christian I’m called to be a light in dark places. I do know that Christ overcame evil with love and self-sacrifice and that as his follower I’m called to do the same. If I really believe these things, then really it seems quite reasonable that I feel called to an area full of pain, suffering, and many marks of a fallen world. As Art put it tonight, “we’re called to be in the crap of this world.” God give me strength.

Currently topping my charts in no particular order…

1. Matthew Perryman Jones- Throwing Punches in the Dark
2. See’s Nuts and Chews
3. Sonship
4. My $40 steal of a suit
5. Knowing that I get to wear scrubs for the rest of my career
6. The term “wintry mix”
7. Awesome parallel park jobs
8. Questions that cause overwhelming emotional responses
9. The closeness I’ve recently had with my dad
10. Honey Vanilla Chamomile tea
11. Making footprints in the snow
12.  The click of my DSLR
13. Holding little ones that cling to me
14. My green Chuck Taylor’s
15. Bear Rock Café
16. Soft pretzels and honey mustard
17. The way I seem to run into Liberti folk all over the city

How eggs become chicks

I helped out with Children’s Church this morning, which was pretty much nonstop entertainment. I love the matter-of-factness of kids. Here’s one that made me smile:

Sarah: What would have to happen for this egg to grow into a baby chick?

Child: We’d have to paint it brown, and give it to the Mama Chicken to keep it warm

Me: Paint it brown?

Child: (in whispered explanation) The eggs we eat are white and the eggs that become chickens are brown. (other kids nod)

Wonder what’s going to happen if someone gives these kids scrambled eggs and they catch a glimpse of brown eggshells on the counter…

Meg vs The Stain

About a month and a half ago my roommate Meg was walking from the kitchen to the living room carrying an open nalgene bottle filled with iced tea. She was juggling a few things in her hands along with the nalgene and as she walked through the hallway that attaches our dining and living rooms the bottle slipped and iced tea went EVERYWHERE. It splashed up the sides of the walls and sank down into the carpet. She was able to get most of the stains off the walls (and the rest we figure we’ll repaint when we’re changing all our rooms back to white before we move out). The carpet on the other hand, has been a different story. One tiny tea bag in her large water bottle has done some work to the carpet. For a month and a half Meg has battled the huge stain that fills the hallway. With the amount of time Meg and the stain spend together, I swear they could have a relationship. She has tried everything to get it out. Soaps, detergents, carpet cleaners, and most recently hydrogen peroxide. Rags, towels, scrub brushes to no avail. But I must say, with every new attempt, the entertainment value seems to rise. We laugh as she sets up the fan propped up on a phone book to dry the spot and try again. Every time, while the carpet is still wet, we exclaim, “I think it really worked this time! It definitely looks lighter,”… only to have it dry as dark as ever. Sigh. Anyone have any new ideas to try?

The World of Pediatrics

My clinical rotation in pediatrics draws to a close next week. While I’m looking forward to getting into my next rotation of mother/baby nursing, I’m admittedly a little sad to leave. I love the world of pediatrics. Kids are honest, funny, resilient, and affectionate. It was pretty awesome to do our clinicals at a world-renowed children’s hospital with it’s beautiful structure and incredible resources. But I’m okay with leaving, because I am hopeful that I will return to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a registered nurse after finishing school. If you know me at all, you probably already know this. As tends to occur when I get excited about things, I’ve talked a lot about it The two areas I’m looking to interview in, are the Emergency Dept. and Oncology. The more I talk to people about this, the more I realize just how rare it is to want to work with really sick kids. The response I usually get is, “I could never do that,” followed by one of the following three questions:

1. …how can you handle seeing all those kids sick/dying?

2. …how with you deal with all the abusive horrible parents?

3. …how can you handle watching the parents of sick and dying children?

I’ve thought a lot about these questions as I’ve looked at my desire to enter pediatric medicine. They are valid and challenging. So after consideration, here are my answers.

1. How can you handle seeing kids sick/dying?

I don’t want to downplay the gravity or the challenges of this field, because they are very real and very difficult. But I think if there is anyone in this world who deserves healing and restoration, it is our children. I know going into pediatrics means some pain and grief, especially because I enjoy critical care nursing situations. But I am also entering into an arena with a lot of joy. For all of those we lose, there are so many we can save. And when we save children, we a really giving the opportunity for life, not just a few extra years chalked onto the end. If you have the power to help save someone’s baby, whether 18 days, or 18 years, that is a pretty amazing experience. I find that I can handle the children themselves without difficulty, but children are only part of the equation in peds. With every child there is a family, or a place where a family should be.

2. How do you deal with all the abuse and ways parents mistreat their children?

The contrast seen in families here at CHOP can be striking.

With a large number of infants on the floor I’ve done my clinicals on, I’ve had the chance to see an abundance of brand new parents, who jump and run with every sound that escapes their little bundle of joy. They are at the bedside every moment, questioning every asessment and procedure.

But I’ve also seen a lot of patients who come in because they haven’t been properly cared for at home. Last week I cared for a patient who came in to the hospital with bronchiolitis (airway inflammation) secondary to RSV (a super common respiratory virus that mainly affects infants). This is actually a somewhat boring diagnosis. The patients admitted with bronchiolitis require suctioning and chest PT, but it usually resolves within a few days and the patients don’t tend to require much in the way of medication, or intense levels of care. But my patient had been born at 31 weeks to a cocaine using mother and was just 6 weeks old when he came to me. He had just left the NICU a week before and was having frequent periods of apnea where he would just forget to breathe on his own. He came in with signs of neglect and social work was being consulted to determine the aqequacy of his care. During my entire shift, no one was there with him.

I sometimes marvel that you need a license to catch a fish, shoot a deer, give an injection, or drive a car, but anyone can have a child. As I cradled this 6 lb miracle, I wondered at the responsibility of the act. What gravity to have the life of another person completely in your hands. No wonder new parents freak out. And the truth of the matter is, some people really can’t handle it.

And yet even with the significant amounts of abuse and neglect I’ve encountered during my time in peds (and there has been much more than I had prepared myself for), I’ve also come to recognize that most parents really do love their children. This is how I start to deal with situations of abuse. I NEED to believe that parents love their kids. They may not understand how to fully care for them, and they may resort to violent tactics, but even abusive parents love their kids. Yes, there are some people who are definitely better at the job than others, but I think if we recognize that most parents want to do right by their children, we can begin a family-centered process to recovery.  I don’t want to sound naive here or say we can turn everyone into a good parent.  We can’t and more often than not find myself wanting to take the abused and neglected children home.  But I’ve seen families listen to nurses in ways they would never listen to anyone else.  Studies have ranked nurses consisently (alternating with firefighters) as the most trusted professionals.  That gives us the ability to speak into people’s lives and educate them in ways that can help them better care for their children.  We also have the opportunity to be advocates for children and help those who need it to get out of abusive situations. Seeing widespread abuse and neglect will undoubtedly be difficult, but that’s hardly been a reason for me to avoid circumstances thus far in my life.

3. How can you handle watching the parents of sick and dying children?

Honestly, I’m not really sure how I will handle it. This is the area that I think will challenge me most. I can only hope that I will have the strength to help these families through their grief….and then I’ll probably go home and crumble.

Ultimately, God has placed this desire in me and I know he will guide me through it….And let’s be real, I never do anything the easy way.

Musical Memories

Today as I sat down to write my care plan I turned on my music to make the unpleasant task a little less laborious. I’ve been listening to a number of the same artists pretty consistently these days, and felt ready for a little change so I hit my shuffle button on my whole music library and just let it go. As the first song came on my breath caught in my throat as emotion overwhelmed me at the very first chord. It threw me back into the past so vividly that, for a moment, I felt as if I was back experiencing the day all over again. This particular song was one that carried a significant amount of grief and the memory of it spread through my unprotected self before I even had a chance to process what I was hearing. I recovered quickly, but that moment was indeed so overwhelming that I had to just sit there for a moment and take it all in. This happens to me all the time. The best and worst days of my life seem to be tied to songs. I love this fact. It seems weird to think that I enjoy songs that evoke intense negative emotion, but imagine that I get to experience the highs all over again as well. Music takes me back in a way that is so much more real than any other memories. It gives me not just bits and pieces but vivid pictures and even more vivid feelings. And with those feelings I get to recognize how much work God has done in me and my life in the time since “Down on Bended Knee” or “Ants Marching” or “Better Together”.

I had to take a learning style assessment at the beginning of school this year and it said I had a musical memory. The recommendation was to listen to music while studying, or place the things I need to memorize to some sort of musical tone. But I wonder if it might be a little bit closer to the truth to say I have an emotional memory and music just tends to catch that better than highlighters or colored tabs. I can’t say I know for sure as far as the whole learning stlye is concerned but I do know that the very nature of music is emotional and the moments that have shaped me most have always been matters of not just the mind, but also of the heart. To me it makes sense that something beyond words would be necessary to capture them so fully. Maybe someday I’ll put together the soundtrack of my life….what songs would be on yours?

Settling In

Welcome to my new blog home!  While I was reluctant for awhile, I’ve finally made the switch to WordPress and am quite glad I did.  It’s kind of like moving from your ISP’s email server to Gmail; the old one did the job, but the new one is so much better!  That said, I’m still settling in and learning the cool tricks I can do, so this blog may have some changes on it in the next few days.  I must say though, I’m already impressed with the ease of operating and the fun stuff I can do with the click of a button!

Snow Day!!!

I had my first Snow Day since first grade today. They are really beautiful things, especially when you think you’re getting up at 5 for clinical and get sleep in til 9:30. I lounged around the house in the morning, reading my Bible and drinking coffee and taking care of some things that have been on the “to do” list for some time. I then got the call from that my nanny services were needed for a bored little girl, stuck at home while Dad did work. So I braved the roads to venture out and save the day. My roommates gave me lots of tips on handling snow and they watched on amused as I attempted to clean my car off with a teeny tiny ice scraper. After a few minutes one of them offered up a more appropriate tool After my car was de-iced and defrosted, I threw my snow gear in the passenger sear and headed out to play! And man, was it a blast. Olivia’s friend Hayden came to join us and there’s nothing quite like enchanted kids to make playing in the snow even better. We sledded, made snow angels, built forts and had snowball fights. And when our faces were frozen and our legs were too tired to keep going we went inside to eat homemade chocolate chip cookies and hot cocoa with marshmallows. After our cozy snack we snuggled on the couch and played charades. All in all a very good day. Here are some pics so you can see some of our fun (taken with my new incredibly awesome camera!) Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Cold "Snap"

I’m starting to learn about REAL cold weather. As the weather folks say, “we’re experiencing a cold snap.” I always thought of a snap as something quick. This is a biting, painful windy chill that came suddenly and seems to be hanging around. For those of you who blame this on my weak California constitution, I’d like to point out that all the born and raised East Coasters around me are at least as freezing as me. I have been the warmest of my roommates for the past week (albeit the one carrying the most body fat) and the only one not to complain about our apartment’s lack of ability to heat itself. With 11-feels-like -10-with-windchill type temperatures, this doesn’t seem surprising to me. I’m learning the value of appropriate dress and am starting to feel like Randy from “A Christmas Story” every time I leave the house. Today I actually screamed out, “I can’t put my arms dowwwwwn!” as we walked to the exit of St. Mary’s. But it works and even though we resemble puffy marshmallows at least I don’t have to worry about losing my fingers, toes, ears, and nose.
But really, the persistent thoughts that have been on my mind for the past few days haven’t been about my own chilliness. My heart is burdened for the homeless of this city, and really those without shelter in any of the places hit by the ’snap’. For me the cold is merely something to endure until I walk into the next heated building. I can fill my body with hot drinks, soups, chicken pot pie, and snuggle under warm blankets. But there are so many here who have much less appropriate dress than me that are bearing these cold days and even colder nights outdoors. Please join me in prayer for them. And if anyone knows of any ways I can help, or wants to join me in finding something, please let me know.

Dear God,
A lot of your children are cold tonight. My heart breaks for them, and yet Lord, I am not sure where to even begin to help. So I’m pleading for you God to deliver them. Help those who are outside to find comfort and warmth. Fill them from the inside out, taking care of not such their physiological needs, but their spiritual needs as well. Warm their bodies and their hearts. God I admit that I struggle to understand why such suffering still exists; why there are people out in the cold, harsh streets in a land of such wealth. Forgive me for not doing all I can to look out for my brothers and sisters Lord. Forgive me that even amidst all that you have given me in the world, I am not satisfied. I have done nothing to deserve the life of privilege you have given me. I so often look at the blessings in my life as things I have worked for and earned. But God, all of it is from you. Lord, help me to use all that you’ve given me to serve those in times of need. Guide my heart and show me how to love the world as you do. Amen