I haven't posted in a few days.  Nothing new, I guess.  It's not because I don't want to.  It's because sometimes life feels too heavy.

I love my job.  I feel so blessed to get some sort of fulfillment out of work--I realize that's not always the norm.  The hardest part about my job, I've found, is having to be strong when I'm feeling very weak.
[But...In my weakness, He is strong.]

It was the end of my day and I was about to leave so I went into my 91 year-old-sharp-as-a-tack lady's room to give my goodbyes...we had shared many laughs throughout the day.

Me: "Okay, I am gone for the day. If you need anything, Louise will be your new nurse so just give her a call! She will be by in a little while..."
Patient: "Did you ask for my address?" *smiles*
Me: "Oh...no, do I need it for anything?"
Patient: "No, I just thought you were about to ask for it..."
Me: "Want to be penpals?"
Patient: "Yes, I can't write very well anymore, but I did win a penmanship contest when I was younger..."

So sweet...she got married at 17 and was married for 72 years! SEVENTY-TWO YEARS!!! What a treat to meet her.

In the workshop

Can I say something? Making letter stencils with freezer paper is no easy task. I would even call it a labor of love. This project I'm doing doesn't seem very difficult, and really it isn't, but it has taken alot of time! I am so excited to see the finished product. It's still gonna be a few days. Here's the inspiration:


[Posie Gets Cozy]

On a different note, I've been working [which has been SO busy!] and my allergies are bad. They are never bad, so I don't know what's happening to me. A bright side of my day was a conversation I had with an older patient...I'd heard he was really good at football back in the day but his playing days had been cut short, so I asked him, "Why'd you stop playing?" He replied, "I'm 98 years old!" haha! He was a hoot.

It's something we all [mildly] fear. And today was my day.

Well, it happened. I slept through all 3 of my alarms at 5am, only to be awakened by a phone call at 6:45. "Is Lauren there?" "Oh my gosh, I'll be right there! Oh crap, oh my gosh!" Up I spring, jump into my scrubs, hair untamed, speed to work. Yes, I am supposed to be there at 6:30, it takes 45 minutes to get there....I get there at 7:30. And so the day begins...

After a whirlw(h)ind of hospital events, 3:00pm comes and I am free; my heartrate is still >100bpm, I'm still clenching my teeth, and still feel like I need ALOT of coffee, but I'm free.

I am a firm believer of 'freedom moments.' Everyone's got them!
For some people, this could include driving a VW bus out of the jungle:


Or for some it could be jumping off the high dive:


For me, my freedom moments often come in the forms of playing soccer, or running, doing stuff with my family, or being out in God's creation. Tonight, it came in the form of playing soccer. Our team did so well and it felt so good to just...sweat (haha!) make plays, and see girls improving. And winning 7-1 kinda helped out the feel-good time, too ;)

Anyway, I woke up late today. And all is still well with the world :)

Rain and Rings [and no new things]

Last weekend I went to Austin to visit one of my old roomates from UMHB, Alicia:

(She had just eaten a bunch of Cherry Sours :D )
Anyway, she gave me a cute little bag of cute buttons. So today, being the rainy day that it was, I made these!


Does this warrant a post for the world wide web? Not really, but I am having a blogger's block and don't know what else to write about.

Let us close with a hospital encounter, shall we? [Because it's an easy thing to do!]
The other day I overheard a patient on the phone saying, "You know there's two things I love in this world: Animals and the Church!" It was memorable and really cute :)

Good evening, Doctor...

Yes, this is a post from work. Some nights are busy. Most aren't. Tonight [thankfully] has been the latter. Hence, posting from the workplace! :D

I got a new patient this evening who wanted more pain medicine and called his doctor...at home! The doctor then called me and said, "Tell him this--I am your doctor. I am your servant, you can fire me at any time. As we discussed, the goal is to get you off of ____. Do you still agree?" And the patient shook his head yes. "Never call me at home again. Ask the nurse to page me." :)

Are you not impressed? I may or may not have teared up a little...

I've only had one other encounter with this doctor and it was last February--he has his own clinic and doesn't see many of these hospital peeps. There should be more like him.

On a different but not entirely unrelated note, I read this simple prayer in an Elisabeth Elliot devotional and I'm going to try to make it a regular for when I don't know what to pray. It seems to be a good posture for prayer in general... Plus, it's short enough so I can remember :)

Lord Christ Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us.
(Please, please do.)

I say tomato, she says 番茄

There was the most talkative (and tiny) Vietnamese woman in the hospital the other night. Her bed alarm was on to let us know when she'd get up. She got up ALL night. So when I'd hear the alarm and her nurse wasn't around I'd go turn it off. And then she would talk.

This woman spoke only Vietnamese and to her it did not matter that I didn't speak a lick of it. I'm sure she was telling me about her children and their families, and maybe some of the gossip with her neighbors in the building where she lived. Or maybe she was telling me about her husband who worked hard all day and would bring her home bread and a kiss on the cheek every evening.

I really have no idea. All I know is that I speak English, she doesn't, and it didn't even matter! I would say, "Yeah?" To which she would respond, "Yeah! *babble babble babble*" And she went on and on and on, encouraged by my nodding head. :) I love my job.

Good times on the Urology floor. :)

The Graveyard

I finished my first night shift and didn't have a wreck on the way home!! A big plate of Cracker Barrel pancakes sure can perk a person up. *Big smiles!*

I only had two patients the whole night and they actually slept. So, while they were tempting me to join them in their melodious snoozing, I read all the doctor's notes 50,000 times, started an IV for someone, drank lots of coffee, raided the patient fridge (they keep chocolate milk on this floor--YES!)and read up on stroke patients. I won't lie, it was kind of hard to pass the time but on Friday night I will have 4 or 5 patients...so that should make time tick a little faster.

No matter how populated or nice the hospital, when the sun goes down the creepy factor rises. It is weird to walk around such a big place and see hardly anyone. My imagination is way too active sometimes. No exciting stories yet, though :) To be continued...

For a few creepy hospital stories, click here. Most of them are dumb.

Three hours later

Lately I have had a few discouraging days at work; made a few scary (and thankfully not harmful) mistakes to which all the nurses who heard told me, "We've all done it before, and now you'll never do it again..." I am definitely having to learn the hard way in alot of areas, and boy, it's not fun.

*ahem* That aside...Today I had a 52 year old patient that was an IV drug abuser at home. Gray hair, very few wrinkles, dark blue eyes. She had 12 (or so) deep abcesses all over her body; the back of her thighs, her butt, her back, her arms, all over. Yesterday she had them all drained and today the wound care nurses came to clean them all out again. I loaded her up on pain drugs...and they hardly touched her. She yelled and cried the whole time, crying out, "God! God! Jesus!" while another nurse held her hands. It took nearly 3 hours.

Even though all of this was self-inflicted, it was terribly sad (as you might expect) and it made me wonder, how does a person end up like this? What happens in their life to make this acceptable and even desireable to them? When I heard more of her history it became clear--it happened one day at a time. She didn't start shooting up all day every day out of the blue one time. It started gradually when she was in her 20s. She stopped when she got married. She started again when her husband died...and it escalated quickly; to the point that her skin is dusky, bruised, and decaying, her heart is beating, but she's not living.

In a spiritual sense, we make the decision every day--will we choose to draw near to God, and to honor and seek and glorify him in all things? Or will we choose in to nourish our flesh in vain? Will we harden our hearts towards God or people who have hurt us? Or will we strive for peace and community? Will we live in self-inflicted bondage or live in complete freedom?

I think taking care of this woman has changed my perspective forever. Her battle wasn't only physical.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Bleh

Warning: This will be a post full of random things.

First of all, I finished my 1st week without a preceptor!! The first two days I think I did pretty good; I still asked quite a few questions, but I felt pretty autonomous. Today however, was a different story. I was running around the WHOLE, ENTIRE day. Didn't have breakfast, didn't have lunch until 3, didn't leave until 7:45 (when I should leave at 7). Luckily the Charge Nurse caught a few things I had missed, and she taught me alot along the way. Without her...I don't know what would have happened. I don't know if she's a Christian or not, but God really used her in my life today!

When I got back from work I took a walk with Mulder. I know it's not the best to walk alone at night, but I really think alot of the world's problems could be solved if people would do it.

I don't know if this is weird, but I think about death alot. And I've been thinking alot about my death and life...I will blame this on the fact that I work in a hospital. :) I fall into this routine of living that I hate; I live like I simply have forever to do whatever. Every believer deals with this struggle and different distractions, I realize this. But I want it to stop. I want to live in such a way that the Kingdom is benefited and God is glorified and I want to be more intentional about the steps that it takes to get there. God, forgive me for believing that my life is my own! Sometimes I wonder, where is He taking me?

In other news, I've been reading alot and embroidering some :)
And I'm so ready for the parentals to come home!!


I can't believe it's been one year. This is the VERY first picture I took in Yosemite last summer (don't you just love the orange construction barriers?). What an incredible experience. One that I wish I could do again and again!

Brutally handsome

This semester we have a HUGE group project in nursing--it's called the Capstone project, and I'm on a team with 4 other girls who I love. Our project is to put on a Stroke Seminar for stroke victims and caretakers. Today we all met at Starbucks to talk to one of our speakers, Walter. We told Walter on the phone that we would be the 5 girls sitting around, and he replied, "Well, I'll be the brutally handsome one, more brutal than handsome." We were excited about our little date. : )

His story is inspiring. He talked about his 'unexpected challenge' in life like it was the same as any other. You have to take things as they come and rise above your circumstances. God has a purpose for your life and everything that happens in it. He wants you to draw near to him. Walter also talked so lovingly about his wife who pushed and supported him. It was sweet.

One thing he said was, "You have to laugh at yourself. Either laugh or cry...and why cry?"

On Tuesday I got a new used book, "Knowledge of the Holy," by Tozer, and it came just in time to remind me of God and his ineffableness. It has helped me to remember how fleeting my daily 'troubles' are...and how they really aren't troubles at all. Yes, sometimes life temporarily stinks but that doesn't mean it's completely bad. God IS SO GOOD! Praise him for his faithfulness to us. He knows what's best for us--not only that, but he *wants* what's best for us.

"Babies Everywhere!!"

I thought I would like them alot, but I wasn't expecting to love them so much. Babies--they're cute, cuddly, soft, intriguing, and poopy.

This semester in clinicals we are doing a Pedi and OB rotation. In OB we've been talking about the monstrous event of giving birth. (We've been watching videos, and I think "labor" is a gross understatement!) I never knew that so many things depended on one single breath. With one breath, pressure changes occur in the baby to allow blood to flow to the heart and lungs which previously housed fluids. With inflated lungs, the baby is ready to breath and (just about) sustain life on its own. With one breath there is *life,* a life full of potential and worth.

I've always thought it would be fun to be a janitor at an airport, for people-watching purposes only. It would be neat to sit on a bench and watch the reuniting of couples, friends, siblings, etc. all day long. I imagine the labor and delivery unit serving the same purpose...except I'd get to be an active participant! In one of the videos we watched, the woman was in obvious pain (er, agony?), but when the baby arrived, she exclaimed, "I love you!" That's what it's all about. : )

In other news, we are moving into our now-not-so-flea-infested-house tomorrow. Krista and I are really, *really* excited. I continue to have class from 8-12 and 1-4, it is tiresome but definitely interesting. I've been enjoying riding my bike to and from class. It's a simple joy, I guess. Even just sitting in the library is fun. We'll see how long that lasts :D I've been having fun semi-cooking as well. I discovered this great vegetable mix in the frozen food section that has asparagus, so this semester is already a success. I guess that's it for the random news.

Until next time, love babies.