The girls helped make and then independently decorated my birthday cake
The decorating in progress
The other day Carly decided she wanted to be a vet and opened her room up for all of her sick animals (ok, so maybe they were stuffed) to come and be healed. This was the sign she hung on her door for her clinic.
"Is Your Dog Sick?"
Work was great today! Our census is down a bit so things are moving at a slower pace and that is fine with me. I like the fast pace of the ICU but every now and then it is nice to have a day to just breathe! I am hoping tomorrow will be more of the same. I have been the charge nurse most of my shifts lately and it is getting old. I am ready to go back to taking care of the patients. My new intern will be starting soon so that means no more charging for awhile and I am thankful for that. I think this new intern will be great. He did his last clinical rotation with us and seemed very bright and eager to learn. I am so glad to be working in a place that really fosters growth in new nurses instead of eating our young like most ICUs do.
I had the most incredible conversation yesterday with a woman who has come into my life through sort of a strange set of circumstances but the meeting itself was something only God could have orchestrated. She has had some terrible things happen in her life and she has been able to overcome and forgive and her testimony is awe inspiring! She was able to make me understand so many things and realize that I really have come so far on this journey and that I have to press on. She said that even years later she still has anger come up but she takes it all to God in prayer and he honors that. I was so glad to hear that my emotions are typical and that I am not alone in what happens with me. You may wonder why the subject of forgiveness comes up in my blog so much. It is because it is something I face everyday. If a friend hurts you then you likely don't see the friend anymore and so you can in essence ignore the pain. Every time I see Anna or hook up her feeding tube or cram her full of medicine, it hurts. I know the Lord has plans for her and they are far greater than I could ever imagine but having to do those things is a constant reminder of what happened. I cannot just block out what I am faced with on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of joyous times too but underneath it all, the pain is still there. I think God has great plans for Anna and that she will touch so many lives that her trials will pale in comparison and I cannot wait for that day! I know she has already blessed me with so much. God does not work on my time schedule though. His ways are higher than my ways and thank goodness because most of the time my ways are certainly not the best...
I know I have thought to mention this neurologist to you before, and for some reason I can't exactly verbalize, I really felt the need to bring her up after this post. Last fall, I found myself in a CEU class. I wouldn't have picked it on my own, but it was free for me because the hospital system I work for was putting it on, I wasn't scheduled to work that day, and neither was my husband. So I found myself sitting in a CEU class that was mainly about pediatric spasticity (there were some adult components, but mainly kids, and currently I work with adults). The key note speaker was Dr. Janice E. Brunstrom-Hernandez MD, Director of the Pediatric Neurology Cerebral Palsy Center at St. Louis' Children's Hospital. She was an excellent (abet nervous) speaker. I learned quite a bit from her speech, and really have looked at some things differently since then (which is a good thing). Even at the time I was listening, I thought of your Anna. If you ever have the chance to interact with her, or to go to somewhere she is speaking, I would highly recommend it. Here is a link to her profile (I hope it works, but you can just google her name).
ReplyDeletehttp://neuro.wustl.edu/aboutus/facultybiographies/brunstrom.htm
Oh yes, one important detail they leave out of her profile is that she has CP. Her mother had to fight to get her into school because the school considered her retarded. Listening to her speak, you wonder how on earth could anyone not see past her physical limitations and see the intelligence.
It was not only her as an example, but her explaining how brain damage can be an evolving event, even years later, and some of her ideas for treatments (and her underlying rule of you have to look at each patient as an individual) have really stayed with me. I wish you could have heard/could hear her speak. Or for Anna to meet such a physician.