work to live

do you work to live or live to work?

this week, the answer is simple. i am working to live. in fact, i am working A LOT so that i can live HARD! i'm working too many days and hours of overtime so that i can take off two weeks from work and see the world.

when people ask me if i like my job, i often have mixed emotions. my gut instinct is always to say, "i love nursing." i do. i love caring for people during their most vulnerable times. and i feel honored to be with people during cancer. but other times, i feel disenchanted with my job. we're often understaffed. sometimes i don't have the time to spend quality time with my patients. and sometimes i just get sick of caring for needy people.

but, one thing i ALWAYS love about my job is the schedule and the flexibility it allows in my life. i am blessed with opportunities to take weeks and months off of work to galavant the globe. last year it was iceland and nepal. the year before that, mozambique, south africa, and turkey. next week, i am off to paris, amsterdam, and prague. what a treat! what a rejuvenating adventure. i cannot wait to eat croissants in paris, to see anne frank's house in amsterdam, and to walk the charles bridge in prague (i will imagine my grandparents standing there decades before for their wedding photos).

four lives please...

if you think you're having a bad day, think about my sweet, brave, amazing patient...

at age 14, she had hodgkin's lymphoma.  her radiation treatment lead to...

breast cancer at the age of 38.  her chemotherapy for her breast cancer has now caused...

leukemia at age 49.

she's getting a transplant.  and she's stuck in the hospital this weekend as her son gets married in montana.

let's hope she has 4 lives...

goodbye chris

i climbed mount adams this weekend.  it's the second tallest mountain in washington.  i have now climbed washington's top three peaks - if you don't count mount tahoma, an off-shoot of mount rainier (most lists don't include it).  i suppose it was a good way to conclude my summer - to cross off one more mountain from the list, to spend time outdoors with a dear friend, and to recognize how fortunate i am to be healthy, to feel alive in the outdoors, challenging my body and mind, exerting every last muscle.

after getting home VERY late on sunday night/monday morning, i worked labor day.  typically weekends and holidays are low-key on my unit - less management, less scheduled admissions, and less stress.  but monday turned out to be a sad day...

the patient that i had been writing about - the hoarse gentleman who stole the motorized wheelchair and gave me the best compliment ever - lay intubated in the ICU monday morning when i arrived with three different medications infusing to attempt to keep a life-sustaining blood pressure circulating.  being curious, surprised, sad, and thoughtful, i asked his nurse what had happened.  and to everyone's surprise, chris coded sunday night after struggling to breathe all day.  it was sudden.  he had been doing fantastically, like i mentioned, zipping around, listening to metallica, beating the odds with a positive attitude and amazing outlook on life.

sudden deaths and disasters are not common on our unit.  we are most accustomed to slow, painful demises.  so this one took me by surprise.  but i was thankful that i had a chance to see chris, to hold his hand and tell him how amazing i think he is, to share with him that his spirit moved me and will be remembered.  i was not in the room when chris passed, but i did participate in his post mortem care.  i was able to clean his body with respect and kindness.

chris will never climb mount adams.  he had muscular dystrophy and likely never could have.  but his presence in my life and his wild spirit reminds me to be thankful that i have opportunities and successes, that i see mountains and get to climb them.