What I've been waiting for.

Last week I started my job on the ninth floor as an Oncology nurse. I could not be happier with where I am blessed to be. From the moment I walked onto the unit I felt calm, confident, welcomed, loved, supported, and I knew that this is where I belonged. I cannot imagine doing anything other than being an Oncology nurse. After only three shifts, I feel connected to the people I cared for, I actually miss them while I'm at home.
Everyday that I left work, I felt appreciated, I felt I had done the best possible job that I could, and that I got to know my four patients deeply, as well as their families. Caring for people who have cancer is completely different than caring for people with any other disease process. To me, they are not just cancer patients, they are amazing, wonderful people with lives outside of the hospital, lives to return to, dreams, and they just happen to have cancer. I was touched by them every moment that I got to spend with them, which was much more than I ever did with my patients on the med/surg floor. They were thankful for my care, grateful, appreciative, loving, curious about my life, and most importantly, they did not sweat the small stuff. If their meal was late or wrong, no big deal, if they felt nauseated, no big deal, if their medicine was a little late, no big deal. I have never met such patient, kind people in all my life.
The feeling of unity on the floor is amazing. Between the nurses, doctors, patients, families, it is known and felt that we are all a team working towards a goal, ultimately to cure the disease that plagues their loved ones, but for now, it is to care for them the best ways we possibly can. The doctors value the nurses input, and act swiftly when something is wrong with a patient, or if the nurse is just concerned. Cancer is serious, and a lot can go wrong, and we all see it as such. Anybody can get cancer, and this is what is so scary about the disease. One day you're fine, the next day you have cancer. Somehow these amazing people learn to deal with the horrific treatments, the hair loss, the nausea, the weight loss, and they do it over and over again, in the hopes that this disease will finally leave their bodies. I feel honored to care for such powerful individuals.
I now look forward to everyday that I get to go to work, and I get to meet these people and their families. Most people come in for 3-4 days of treatment, leave, and come back a couple weeks later for more treatments, so it is definitely a family unit. There's pet therapy every Tuesday and Thursday, bake sales, holiday parties, super bowl parties, and birthday parties. Even when it did get busy during a shift, it was still a great day, I must have looked like such a goof walking around the unit smiling all day and saying "I am so happy to be here!" I must have told every nurse and doctor that, and I meant it. The experienced nurses made it clear that they will support me and help me with anything, and they trust me. I immediately felt that I belonged, and they wanted me there. I even had some people asking me gen. med. questions since I had experience on the general medicine floor. One nurse thanked me for joining their team. Another nurse made me my own folder to keep my medical records in.
I know this is where I belong. I can see myself working in Oncology for the rest of my life. I can only imagine all that I have to gain, all the lives that will touch me, and I am anxious for the future. I never thought I would get to look forward to work everyday, so now more than ever, I believe that impossible is nothing.

Hidden Fears

The reason for the long absence is this: I have been precepting a new nurse (by new I mean super new, just graduated and knows very little about being an excellent nurse, new). She is with me for a total of eight weeks, she started out with one patient the first week, and we have added one patient per week so now she takes the 4-6 patients we have per shift.

It's really neat to have watched her grow over the past six weeks that I've been teaching her, and learning some things along the way. She made me remember what it's like to be new at this, how hard it can be, how you constantly doubt yourself and feel inadequate, how you cry a lot from the stress, how you have hundreds of questions to ask. Her confidence has definitely grown over the last six weeks, and I do see some ways that we alike. She's compassionate, passive, sweet, and she makes a great RN because she genuinely cares for her patients. It is not just a job, this was a dream come true, and though it may not be the specialty she wants for later in life, for now, this will due.

I love precepting, and it's pretty nice to get to sit back and relax more at work since she has all our patients, but I miss getting close with my patients. I do still interact with her patient load because she is still learning and has a lot of questions and new experiences, but I haven't had that closeness with a patient in quite awhile. I really look forward to having that back when I start work on the oncology floor next month. Less than four weeks left! Wow, how exciting.

Having free time at work has allowed me to read more, and I bring my books with me to each shift. While reading the last book, the author was speaking about his own life when I realized why I sometimes feel anxious when I think about the future: I fear stasis. I don't want to live in the same house in the same town or state for the rest of my life, I don't want to be stagnant, I don't want to work in the same specialty for my whole life, or stay in the same role. I want to experience so much of life, I want to travel the world, I want to live in different places through the years, I want to accomplish goals that I didn't think were possible, I want to join the Peace Corps with Tim someday, and I want to advance in my career. I also have the dream of going back to school for my Bachelors of Zoology degree.

As much as I fear aspects of my life never changing, there are certainly aspects that I never want to change. I would never want to change the man I am going to marry, I want to be married for the next sixty-seventy years, I always want my family to be living, I want to have the same three of four best friends, and I want to have the same dog. I realize not all these are plausible, but it is comforting to me that I do not fear these things staying the same for the rest of my time on earth.

Impossible is Nothing

Wow, been awhile since the last blog. I've had 10 days off of work, and it's been wonderful to see family, friends, and rest. It's nice to just stop and enjoy life, and it's so important to my spirit. I need time to stop, think, breathe, experience new places and people.

My prayers were answered last week! I had an interview on the solid tumor oncology unit, and it went wonderfully. The nurse manager and I got along beautifully, the unit felt right, it was calm, peaceful, filled with nurses who love coming to work everyday. I was offered the job and immediately accepted, no questions asked. I have never been more excited! Tomorrow I return from my break to the med/surg unit and will tell my current manager that I'm transfering, then I'll be up on the oncology floor hopefully by the end of October!

I will miss the nurses I work with, but I am so ready to move on, to learn more, to grow, and have new experiences with new people. I know that I will love it. Already I love it, my heart and head are already there. Cancer is probably the most devastating disease to have, the treatments are worse, and there are so many different types to be afraid of. You can be carrying out your life one day, then the next you're diagnosed with cancer, and don't know what the future holds. I cannot wait to be the person there for the family and patient who are having a difficult time, that is what I live for. I want to be their comfort, ears, knowledge, confidence.

The nurses are all very involved in fundraisers, walks, rides for cancer research funds, and I am looking forward to becoming involved in making a bigger difference. They do pet therapy twice a week with a golden retriever and a little beagle, which is amazing. I have decided to enroll my lab in a program to get him certified to become a pet therapy dog, he would be wonderful, and bring such joy to people in one of their darkest and most difficult times.

Getting this job has strengthened my belief that anything is achievable if we are patient, work as hard as we can to make our dreams come true, and ask for help along the way. This past weekend my fiance and I did a 76 mile charity bike ride benefitting Easter Seals of NC, a group who assists people with CP. It was an event and experience I will never forget, and I will always cherist. One of my favorite quotes from the weekend was this said by Christopher Reeve, "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING.

Life is beautiful

Oddly enough, the day that I wrote the previous post, one of our long time patients on the unit had passed away, and another one of my patients crashed. I couldn't help but think I had sensed it, felt it coming. I hadn't felt right all day. I wasn't necessarily in a bad mood, just down, and very tired. Not just tired, drained. Hind sight is 20/20, but this seemed more than coincidence.
I knew one of our patients we had cared for for over a month on our floor was in the ICU for liver failure. He had his transplant a couple years back, but the new liver was being rejected by his own body. While on our unit the doctors tried several procedures to save the liver, but nothing took. We all knew the day would come when we would have to call a "rapid response" and get him moved to the ICU. I knew he had been in the ICU for about a week or so, and I could not stop thinking about him the night before work. I thought about how much he and his wife loved one another. They were both in their 50's with two grown children. I would often hear them from the other side of the unit laughing and giving each other grief when they lost a card game. I was moved by their love for one another. His wife was there everyday, we had to beg her to leave and get some rest. She was in it for better or worse.
I came to work Thursday planning to buy him and his wife a card to have the nurses sign to know we were praying for them, and admired their love for each other. I asked our secretary to see which room he was in in the ICU next door so I could go visit him. When his name came up on the screen, a number "3" was next to it. He had passed away on Wednesday afternoon. I was heartbroken for his family, namely his wife who had seen him cured of alcoholism, get a liver transplant, and then saw him through the liver failure. I felt helpless because I knew I couldn't do anything to help her through her grief. Sometimes all we have is prayer.

For Better or For Worse

As my wedding date approaches, and as I have new experiences at the hospital, I can't help but think more and more about what being married really means. None of the superficial, all that we spend months planning, matters after the wedding. What matters are the promises, the vows, the oaths, that you will love this one person, care for this one person, and stand beside and behind this person for the rest of your lives, however long or short that may be.

Nothing about life is certain. I see this everytime I come to work. You graduate college, get a job, get married, and expect it all to go as planned. The truth is, life is extremely fragile. Life is not something to be played with, not something to be wasted. You get one body, one soul, one life, and one chance to make it count.

Inspired

This is my third night shift this week, and may I remind you that I don't usually work these. I am, by trade, a day shift RN, but decided to help out my fellow nurses. It really is a whole different world. The care is the same, the acuity doesn't change, but fewer people are around to crowd the halls.

I am fortunate enough to work somewhere where each person helps the next. You will never here "That's not MY patient!" Each person on the unit is everyone's responsibility, and we treat it as such. There is no time to decide whether or not to help, we just do it, and I would like to think that is due to our compassion, not just our instinct.

Being night shift, I had some free time to finish my most recent book "A Big Little Life; A Memoir of a Joyful Dog" written by Dean Koontz. On the last page of the book, in the last chapter, there is a statement that sent shivers down my spine. I find it to be true, and wanted to share it. Don't over analyze it, just think about it a few seconds, and realize the magnitude of our responsibility to one another. By caring, we change lives everyday.

" ...because the only significant measure of your life is the positive effect you have on others, either by conscious acts of will or by unconscious example. Every smallest act of kindness- even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, the compliment that engenders a smile- has the potential to change the recipient's life."

I could not agree more.

Back from the wild

I just returned from a week long vacation to Lake Tahoe, California where we stayed in a condo for two nights, and from there camped in Yosemite National Park, California for three nights. It was amazing. Everything was beautiful, and it was wonderful to get away. While there I discovered something about myself: I think a lot. Sounds weird, right? I found myself starring off into space or at the awesome scenery more than I was having conversations with the four other people I was with.

I do this because I feel peaceful. I am happy with my life, where I am, who I'm with, and where I hope to go. I am blessed with more love in my life than I thought any person could be, and I realized that even more this week. Something being a nurse has taught me is it is far better to listen than to speak. Just by being silent, watching, laying a hand on your patient, you learn so much more than my speaking. Daily I apply what I learned at the hospital to my life at home, and it goes both ways. By listening to what is not being said, by reading a person's expressions, by looking in their eyes to see if the light is present, you learn much more than by having a casual conversation.

When people come to the hospital they become so vulnerable. They are in a new surrounding with people and machines they are unfamiliar with. We bust into their rooms, expect them to undress in front of us, and forget they have insecurities and deserve privacy. I use the term "we" loosely because I try my best to offer as much privacy as possible. I knock and wait before I enter a room, peak around the corner and ask "Are you decent?". As nurses we forget that we are familiar with the surroundings of the hospital, it becomes like a second home to us where we know the location of important items, and we know what each piece of machinery and what each beep and light means. Remember to speak softly, explain each step of each procedure or medication, make sure all questions are addressed and answered, and listen ten times more than you speak.