self care

i don't have a lot to say today. but i felt like writing. i'm home. sick. sitting on the couch. recuperating from four twelve hour shifts in a row. and mentally preparing for the three more that start on saturday. ugh.

i have one friend in the hospital at 26 weeks pregnant (who is being brave and calm and amazing). and cole's dad with sudden vision loss due to unknown causes. another friend has her TWO in-laws in the hospital due to two different issues that occurred at the same time. her mother-in-law had a stroke at home, did nothing about it, and then started having seizures. and a father-in-law who suffered a heart attack at the very same time. excuse my french, but WTF?

suffering is hard to witness sometimes. there is so much of it. and only so little space in your heart to carry it all. how do you support your friends and loved ones who are hurting? or feel stressed? what can you do as a nurse and as a friend? when are you over-stepping boundaries or simply going above and beyond? is there a difference?

i'm gonna vegetate today. and maybe buy vegetables at the grocery store. i need to eat better. and drink juice with vitamin C. i need to take good care of myself so that i can continue to take good care of others.

(over the last four days, i cared for a 23 year old gal. she's beautiful. and quiet. she's in pain. and getting REALLY sick from her chemotherapy. i gave her her stem cell transplant over the last two days (3 bags on tuesday and 2 bags yesterday). and i'm REALLY hoping it works. she wants to go to school to become a pharmacy tech. and one of my other 23 year old patients who i re-admitted on monday is one year post transplant and wants to be a doctor when he's finally healthy enough to go to school. how cool is that?).

some lessons i learned

i attended a palliative care class last friday and monday. for 16+ hours, i heard lectures on death and dying, pain management, how to communicate difficult news to mourning families, the stages of grief, etc. we shared devastating stories, some beautiful experiences with good deaths. and we even walked the journey of our own passing - imagining the losses experienced along the way: the loss of control, the inability to complete favorite tasks/hobbies/activities, the changes in our relationships, the weakening of our muscles and perhaps our spirit. and although i've heard these lectures before and completed these activities, although i constantly think of illness and dying, i learned NEW things. i appreciated the time to reflect on my job. and my life. to acknowledge the difficult work that i do. and the toll it takes on my heart.

here are a few things i learned.

first of all, i find it amazing that as a nurse, i have the opportunity to attend classes about death and dying. there are hours and hours of lessons to be learned. we just glossed over some subjects and we spent SIXTEEN hours learning. and in med school (or PA school, since i have "shared" cole's experience as a student), they spend maybe ONE hour learning these same subjects. no wonder some doctors have a difficult time with this process...

we discussed the importance of breath. scientifically, i get that we need to breathe. that there is oxygen exchange in our lungs. that every muscle in our body needs 02 to function. but what i never really think about or practice is the importance of deep breathing as a nurse, when i get anxious or have to do difficult things. one lecturer asked us what things makes us nervous as nurses. being sterile and placing foley catheters? placing IVs? walking into the room of a dying patient and talking to crying family members? when is it that we find our hearts racing, our minds whirring with fear and anxiety? when do we run on auto-pilot instead of acting as humans with caring and compassionate hearts? and what if we took intentional deep breaths during those moments to slow down our own heart rates and to allow our brain to receive the oxygen it needs to use our frontal lobe and actually THINK and ACT.

i was also reminded about attitude. they say "attitude is everything." and i actually believe that. but still, i start most of my days grumpy. not wanting to be at work. annoyed that i have a certain assignment with difficult patients, ones that call too much or are rude to staff. what if instead of starting out with a negative attitude, i spent just 60 seconds recalling why it is that i became a nurse? what if i remembered that my goal has always been to take care of vulnerable (sometimes grumpy) people and make a difference in their life? to help people along challenging illnesses that sometimes end in death and to make that road easier, to listen and share in intimate experiences? might my day be better? YES.

i'm gonna put these lessons into action!

birthday twin

yesterday, as i was preparing for my day, writing out lists of medications and times for blood draws, i noticed that my patient and i were the very same age and had the very same birthday. kind of creepy, huh? someone my age with my birthday has been battling cancer for years and now is 16 days post a transplant. am i lucky or what?!?

one flew over the cuckoo's nest

my patient called me nurse ratchet today.

i think that's an insult.