Vapors

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting,

for death is the destiny of every man;

the living should take this to heart."

Ecclesiastes 7:2

I've seen a lot of people die.  It's kind of part of the job.  A lot of times they are elderly, but often enough they aren't. There are certain things that unnerve me after someone has passed.  Things like the carefully applied eyeliner and eye shadow, or the trace of Cologne.  Things that say this person didn't expect to die today. They got up, they made their attempts to make themselves attractive to the world, because that still mattered, because they thought they had more time.  But they didn't.

We all know death is inevitable. That somehow, somewhere it will find us.  But it certainly doesn't feel that way.  The little inconveniences and frustrations of my day feel quite significant, because I feel like I will keep on going. But as one writer has said, "Men are like grass, and their glory like the flowers of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire."

Because we feel like death is far away and abstract, and that life will keep going as it has, we often put off things that really matter.  And put a lot of time and energy into things that don't matter at all.  I'm not one of the people that will tell you to have as much fun as you possibly can because tomorrow might be your last.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we are either here on purpose or on accident. If we are hear on purpose, the most important question we can ask is Who purposed us, and for what purpose?  Questions of this sort prick the back of our consciousness as we go about our daily business,  but often little real time or thought is put into the answer.  Because there will be plenty of time down the road to explore that question. Right?

Maybe we were raised in church and associate ourselves loosely with Christian faith, and intend to get back into it sometime. Later. When we've had some experiences and done what we wanted for a while, we'll start looking at that again.  But we are vapors.  Our physical lives are fragile and temporary.  If there is such a thing as spirit and eternity, we'd be wise not to neglect the part that will last while spending our time and gold on what will soon be dust.

In My Weakness

There are two jobs out there that require more from you than I'm willing to bet just about any other profession. That have the capability to be incredibly meaningful and rewarding, and incredibly draining and exhausting. That take from you mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  That inspire you with high ideals while simultaneously exposing all your weaknesses.  Two of what I would (personally) consider some of the toughest jobs on earth.

#1- Motherhood
#2- Nursing

In that order.  I work 12 hour shifts in the second busiest ER in Washington state, and I will readily testify that being a mom is definitely the harder of the two.  I consider my two shifts a week to be a moment of rest and respite from the hectic (yet fun) world of raising my two little toddlers.  At least at work no one follows me into the bathroom.

I've seen a lot of commonalities between these two worlds of mine in the last couple of years.  Things that move me and inspire me, things that test me and try me.  In both worlds there are people who are directly effected by my mood. By my level of patience, kindness, and gentleness.  I like to think that how I feel is about me and primarily effects me.  But this is not the case.  My short fuse directly effects my children and how they learn to respond to the world.  My laziness can keep me from giving my kids or my patients the best care I can give them.  The way I distance myself from emotions can keep me from being able to reach out to hurting people in a way that could be meaningful.

In both worlds there is a constant and steady stream of need.  From my little ones' hands constantly grabbing at me to the call lights that keep going off when you're busy.  There is a constant stream of emotion: fear, frustration, anger, sadness, all pulling from you and testing your ability to respond in ways that are gracious and helpful, not impatient or demeaning. And in both worlds, there is the constant opportunity to make a difference.  To bring or teach love and mercy, grace and compassion.  And in both, I too often get in the way of myself.  I get distracted by my own desires, however shallow, or my laziness, and I fail to do the good I could.

My worlds have both been tools of God's grace in my life for inspiration and exposure.  Calling to me to higher heights, while showing me that I can't make it there on my strength alone.  Showing me how truly weak I am, but also showing me how God can graciously use a weak, and earthen vessel to carry His precious treasures to a hurting world.  I'm constantly reminded how on my own I can get by. I can make it to the end of the shift, I can take decent care of my kids.  But to be the mom and the nurse that I really in my heart of hearts want to be, and to do it with energy and joy, I need more than just me.  I need a whole lot of the One who made me.

A Place on Earth

 These are not my words, but I feel like they could be. Just swap "man" for "mom".  The song is beautiful, if you want to hear it look for Fernando Ortega, "A Place on Earth".

Find me a place on the Earth
Where a weary man can rest
And listen for Your voice in the turning seasons.
A quiet place in the world
Where I can bow and confess,
That I fear where you have brought me, Mysterious God.

All of my life
You have been with me,
My comfort in loneliness
My hope in the dark.
All of my life
Lord, please stay with me!
Be my sustaining breath,
Guardian of my heart. 


My days are passing by like falling stars
That blaze across the night sky
Then they are gone.
But Father, at Your side
I will never be afraid,
For You have held all my days
In the palm of Your hand.

All of my life
You have been with me,
My comfort in loneliness
My hope in the dark.
All of my life,
Lord please stay with me!
Be my sustaining breath,
Guardian of my heart.

Everyone Hates Needles

I think the one phrase I have probably heard almost every day of my nursing career is: "Just so you know...I really hate needles." Male, female, red, yellow, black or white, they all get that same expression. The one with poorly masked anxiety and just a little hint of hostility. Something there in the base of our instinctive nature has a hard time not feeling a smite bit hostile towards the person walking toward us with a sharp, pointy object that they intend to jab into your flesh.

IVs are definitely anxiety producing for patients, but little known to the common world is that they can be anxiety producing for the nurses too.  Every part of your interactions with your patient can approach flawless, but if you don't get that IV on the number one try and do it with a minimal amount of pain, you will probably be branded a semi sub par nurse in your patient's esteem.  Especially if you happen to be a new nurse. Because we all know practice makes perfect, and if you haven't had all the practice, it's not going to be so perfect.

Finally, years into my time as a nurse, I can say I can get 99.1% of my IVs on the first time.  Nothing beats the feeling when a person tells you, "I'm really hard to get IVs on. They never get it the first try" and then you do and they give you that sideways look and exclaim, "wow, you're really good at that!"  Suppressing the sudden desire to do a little curtsy and say, "yes, yes I am!" you instead humbly reply, "I'm glad you think so."  But on the flip side, nothing is more humiliating than the time you don't get that first IV and the person smuggly states, "They've never had trouble starting IVs on me before..."  Then you have to suppress the burning desire to explain your good record and justify your skill as a nurse, though really, it won't do any good.

For those of you non medical readers out there, there may come a day when you will also have to suffer under the point of a metal needle, and in that day, keep in mind a few tidbits of advice. 

1. Don't hover.  If your family member or child is getting an IV, standing closely to the nurse and watching their every move is only decreasing the odds that they'll succeed under your crushing psychological pressure
2.  Phrases like, "You better get this the first time" and "You're going to get this the first time, right?"  actually decrease the odds that the nurse will succeed the first time
3.Please resist the urge to sigh or groan if the nurse has to try again. Trust me, they already feel bad and it won't help them be successful the second time round.
4. Aggression does not bring out the best in anybody, if anything it makes them sloppy because they get nervous
5. Resist the instinct that tells you to pull your arm away with that first shock of pain.  Trust me, it only makes things worse.
6.  Little kids are excused for screaming. Adults, come on. It hurts, but don't scream.  It makes you look a wee bit pathetic.  Take the manly route, and just pass out instead.

So we all hate needles, even yours truly.  But I'm glad they exist, because they do help save a heck of a lot of lives.  So try to remember that the next time a nurse is walking towards you with the gleaming mini javalin of steel, and try to look at them as friend, not foe.

Hidden Killer

I think one of the freakiest ways people die is aneurisms.  Because there it is for years, a ticking time bomb you have no idea exists, until one day you get a horrible pain in your head and lose consciousness. Forever.

These are some of the hardest patients for me personally. Because often they are young and healthy, and if it weren't for the breathing tube in their mouth, they'd look like they were taking a pleasant nap.  And all the life sustaining measures you are taking you know is just delaying the inevitable.  At best, you are giving the family more time to realize that they are going to lose them.

It's the hope in the family's eyes that really gets me.  That stubborn hope that clings even while the doctor says as gently as possible that this is most likely fatal.  There is sorrow and fear and yet a resilient determination to believe that this case will be different.  That surely, in this age of medical miracles, someone has a trick up their sleeve that will result in them beating the odds. Beating physics.  But you've read the CT report, and you know that the only silver lining is the potential recipients of his organ donation.

The last case like this left mental pictures burned in my mind that will probably stay with me for a long time, taking their place in the mental slide show that often keeps me awake at night.  A tearful wife laying across the lap of her unconscious husband, praying with all her might that he will wake up again.  The soccer ball stamp on his hand that tells the story of an involved dad who unknowingly spent his last moments at his young child's game. 

And his wife's eyes. So full of grief, so full of that stubborn hope. That will probably stay the longest.

Misfit

Sometimes I wonder just how exactly I got here.  No, I'm not saying I need a sex ed tutorial, I mean how I got "here" as in the ER.

Of course you can't generalize a whole group of people, but I see reoccurring themes among the personalities of my co workers in my age range.  A lot of them seem to like living life extreme.  Adrenaline junky, work-a-holic, partying crazies (and I mean that lovingly;) ).
 
And then there's me.  I like the kind of adrenaline that comes with a carefully examined, secure harness, not the kind that comes with free falling down the side of mountain.   I tend to be tentative.  I don't want to jump right in, I want to get a really good feel for the water and all it might contain.

When I was in nursing school the idea of working in the ER terrified me.  I imagined everyone running around yelling while people had heart attacks and bled out all over the place (maybe I watched too much tv...)  I couldn't imagine myself ever having the skill or stamina to survive there.  I'd probably just have an anxiety attack my first day and be have to be hauled off somewhere to get me out of the way.

So out of nursing school I spent my first painful year on a MedSurg floor. (I won't go back! You can't make me!!)  And then for some reason, despite my fear, I found myself applying for an ER job.  Maybe it was the same thing that drove me to do hurdles in high school track, even though I was sure I would trip and fall and probably need reconstructive surgery to my face.  Or that drove me to take up snowboarding with my college roommate even though I would have far rather stayed safe and secure (and out of a lot of people's way) in the lodge. Or that lead me to spend a summer in rural Egypt with a bunch of people I'd never met when I was 15, and let's face it, terrified of new people.  Either way, it was the best career decision I've ever made.  And while I sometimes find myself holding back where others dive in, I'm glad I'm in a place that challenges me (pretty much every shift) to face my fear instead of hiding from it.  Because if I gave in, I'm afraid I'd probably be rather dull.  And no one would read my blog.

A New Year and the Meaning of Life

I'm no old man on a mountaintop. I'm no great philosopher or scientist. I'm just a nurse and a mom. Yet despite my relatively poor qualifications, I'm going to muse a little bit on the point of all this. The meaning of life.

The country glowed with the splendor of fireworks as we celebrated the passing and coming of another year. The earth made it around the sun yet again and so we are rewarded with a day off work, some parties, and some fireworks. How many times has our little planet made that journey? And how many more will it still? All these cycles... from day to night and week to month and month to year and back again. Birth then death. Light then dark. Summer then winter. And as our rationally gifted species has cycled through the millennia, again the question surfaces and resurfaces.

Why are we here? What, if anything, is the point of our existence?

There are a lot of speculations out there of course. Filling books, blogs, sermons, lectures and conversations of far grander scope than my little blog. Yet as complicated a question as it can be, it seems to me to boil down to two very basic possibilities.

We are either here on accident, or we are here on purpose.

If the Naturalists are right, and we are here on accident, the question of the meaning of this ember of a life is a mute point. There is no meaning. It just is. At the very bottom of our existence lies only chance and chaos. Not purpose. Go no further, pull whatever you can from life, even though the vast majority of humanity will endure mostly suffering, those that can should eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

If we are here on purpose, however, than the most important question we can ever ask is Who exactly purposed us? And what was that purpose?

It seems to me that if we are here on accident the things that matter most to us are meaningless. What place do justice and mercy have in the survival of the fittest? Compassion is a silly. Beauty is an illusion. Love is chemicals. And the thing that we all need, the thing that we feel lost and hopeless without - meaning... purpose... do not in fact exist in any real way.

But if we are here on purpose, than even suffering has meaning. And everything that matters most to us, like beauty, love, justice, compassion, and purpose, are signposts pointing us to the One that set all the worlds to their turning... and perhaps the cycles of our lives and years are symbols, teaching us about a greater Reality...