Sunday, February 3, 2013
Super Bowl Sunday 2013
Well Super Bowl Sunday 2013 is over. Ravens barely beat the 49'rs 34-31. Wow. I have to be honest though and say that I did not watch. I did enjoy Souper Bowl Sunday at church though. We had an awesome sermon that truly spoke to my heart. Then went and ate at the Chili Cook off after. Great Chili. Then I got to hold and cuddle with Sarah Faith Martin. All in all a wonderful day. Then I came home and instead of crafting I laid down and went to sleep after taking Ibuprofen and hoping for relief. Sleep brought escape. Thank you Lord God. I find that I truly feel the need in my life to serve the Lord in a more inspirational fashion. I am praying that God will show me the way and how I can be of service to him. I truly want to find a service area for me. I truly feel called by the Lord to do more with my life than sit or lay around and hope for the best. I got to talk to Tammy tonight, that always make me happy and I should have not attempted to disuade her from a visit, once I was committed to the visit, I wanted it terribly bad but I had been afraid that my pain and the need for pain meds might make me sleepy. The pain meds did nothing to make me sleepy so I should have kept my mouth shut and enjoyed a visit.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
First Blog 02/29/2012
Check list for starting a blog:
1) Ask friend Tammy how does one create a blog?
2) Pick a blog name
3) Set up blog
4) Stumble through the blog set up process
5) Then wait diligently while the computer waits on me to understand that I had to use my MMS to send the code to the blog to set up the MMS device, ten minutes later, ask Tammy if that is what this means? LOL. Perhaps you are at this moment thinking that Tammy should have started this blog but I really did have a purpose in starting it. Finally, I am to the point of that process. Two hours later. Where do I start? Here is my story.
I was an unexpected second child for a mother who really only wanted one child and a father who loved me with all of his heart but who was 53 when I was born. My father had a few massive heart attacks when I was in Junior High School and was forced into retirement long before he was ready. He was so unhappy with retirement that the doctors let him go back to work part-time because he was sitting around waiting to die anyway. From then on, he was in and out of the hospital. He was legally blind from botched cataract surgeries long before I got my drivers license and when I did get my license, my mom quickly turned over ferrying him back and forth to work and to doctor visits to me because she hated doing anything for my dad or for me. I started working when I was fifteen and have never not worked until now. I went to work full time straight out of high school, I never thought college was an option. Nine years later, I learned of scholarships and decided to put myself through night nursing school, so what if I would be almost 30 when I graduated, I was going to be almost 30 in three years anyway. Exactly half-way through nursing school for beloved father passed away. By this time in life, I was also taking care of my ailing mother and both my niece and nephew whose parents had basically abandoned them. Caregiver to caregiver to caregiver. That was the one consistent in my life, I have always had someone who I was caring for other than myself (who to be honest I never really took care of because of a lifetime of feeling unworthy or undeserving of being cared for). My mother passed away when my dad had been gone thirteen years, but I still had my niece and nephew to finish rearing.
A little more background, because of my dad's history I was basically only interested in nursing babies until I met my main nursing instructor, Irma Aguilar (wish I knew where she is now). Irma had a deep and abiding love for hospice nursing and she inspired in many of my class a love of hospice nursing. Still, when I first graduated from nursing school, I went to work in the neonatal intensive care unit working nights and trying to finish rearing my niece and nephew as well as care for my mother. I quickly learned that hospital schedules didn't offer much flexibility to parents (even Aunt parents), so after a year of never being able to go to school events and trying to figure out the whole night nursing daytime parenting process, I decided something had to change and I applied at the only hospice in my town at that time. I got the job, yay and I began my almost ten year career as a hospice nurse. Loved caring for the dying. The autonomy, the appreciation, the way that being a hospice nurse fed my soul. Now some will say "Oh, hospice nursing? I could never do that." Others look somewhat shocked and ask "Aren't you sad all of the time?" I wasn't sad, I felt that being a hospice nurse answered a calling for me. Helping someone who is facing the end of their life was such a fulfilling job. I was very good at my job. I made sure that I learned everything I could about being a hospice nurse. I read about pain management, I took classes and seminars, I became a certified hospice and palliative nurse. My families and my patients loved having me for their nurse. My whole identity centered on being a hospice nurse, an aunt/parent to my niece and nephew, and my mothers caregiver. As soon as my niece and nephew were almost grown though I felt the calling to return to my original love of being a neonatal intensive care nurse. So in January 2003, I went back to work in a level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I brought all of my years as a hospice nurse with me and went back to working nights. In April 2003, my mother passed away and I continued my life as a NICU nurse. Until October 30, 2009 when my life began to change. I had finally moved out of my childhood home and into my own apartment. My niece and nephew had moved out and for the first time in my life, I only had me to worry about about myself. I tripped going down my stairs and twisted my foot. I went to the doctor and she told me I had only sprained not fractured my foot. Yay! At least I thought Yay. Three weeks later I went back to the doctor and she looked at my foot which was now at least doubled in size from edema and decided to recheck the foot with new, more extensive x-rays. She came back to the room and told me she had missed a fracture but the good news was that it was not displaced and here is a boot to wear for a month, I didn't have to miss work, and everything would be fine. I checked with the staffing person and my boss who said it was fine to work in the boot as long as I had a release allowing me to work without restrictions. I went to work and my co-workers had a fit about me working in a boot. The house supervisor was contacted and my boss was contacted and finally it was decided that I could work as long as I felt like working. I stayed at work but never wore the boot after that night until..... By December my foot was bigger and bigger and hurt terribly. I finally decided to go to an orthopedic specialist and got an appointment for January 7, 2010. I continued working 48-60 hours a week. I went to the orthopedic doctor after working with a terribly swollen foot. He told me that the bone in my foot was in pieces and displaced and I was going to be off work for at least one month and I needed a special boot made for my foot (and as I struggled to explain this could not be) he added or "you will lose your foot". That stopped those arguments cold turkey. So I got the boot made and went back to work but it began a downhill slide. The pain got worse and worse and worse. I ended up with a pain management doctor and finally changed jobs to a nurse educator position in October 2010. In September 2011, an on the job injury hurt my one decent foot and injured my wrist and back. All of the doctors I saw after the injury told me to apply for disability because I would no longer be able to work as a nurse. My last day to work was September 1, 2011. For several months, I have spent most of my time lying flat of my back because sitting up is painful. I was in school and almost finished with my MSNEd when I got injured., Since I was not able to sit for longer than 30 minutes to an hour at a time, I took a medical leave from nursing school as well. I watch TV, talk to friends on the phone, or text them by phone, surf the Internet at various intermittent times and am left with a great deal of time to wonder, thus the Bo Peep who has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. I miss being a caregiver. I miss being a nurse. I loved being both. My feelings of worth were all tied to my nursing career. I prided myself on taking excellent care of my patients and their families. I still keep up with my graduates and miss them too. Now instead of being the caregiver, I need help from others. That is even harder to take. I have never asked for or needed others to help me. Now, I am constantly having to beg others for help and that is oh so hard for me. Things have gotten harder and worse and there is not much hope of things really improving in the near future at least physically, however, my mind is still intact and I have to find a way to fulfill my need to help others. The awesome thing about this time in history is social media and our ability to connect with others far and wide so easily for instance with a blog. I know that while parts of my story are unique I am not the first or the last person to find their circumstances changed before one has decided to change them with a purpose. Surely others have found themselves in similar circumstances who are faced with grieving for the life they had and dealing with that sense of loss who need to connect with other people to share and find new ways to cope. If you are still reading at this point in time, I would love to hear from you. I will happily take the time to read your story and talk with you.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the energy to continue that counts" Winston Churchill.
1) Ask friend Tammy how does one create a blog?
2) Pick a blog name
3) Set up blog
4) Stumble through the blog set up process
5) Then wait diligently while the computer waits on me to understand that I had to use my MMS to send the code to the blog to set up the MMS device, ten minutes later, ask Tammy if that is what this means? LOL. Perhaps you are at this moment thinking that Tammy should have started this blog but I really did have a purpose in starting it. Finally, I am to the point of that process. Two hours later. Where do I start? Here is my story.
I was an unexpected second child for a mother who really only wanted one child and a father who loved me with all of his heart but who was 53 when I was born. My father had a few massive heart attacks when I was in Junior High School and was forced into retirement long before he was ready. He was so unhappy with retirement that the doctors let him go back to work part-time because he was sitting around waiting to die anyway. From then on, he was in and out of the hospital. He was legally blind from botched cataract surgeries long before I got my drivers license and when I did get my license, my mom quickly turned over ferrying him back and forth to work and to doctor visits to me because she hated doing anything for my dad or for me. I started working when I was fifteen and have never not worked until now. I went to work full time straight out of high school, I never thought college was an option. Nine years later, I learned of scholarships and decided to put myself through night nursing school, so what if I would be almost 30 when I graduated, I was going to be almost 30 in three years anyway. Exactly half-way through nursing school for beloved father passed away. By this time in life, I was also taking care of my ailing mother and both my niece and nephew whose parents had basically abandoned them. Caregiver to caregiver to caregiver. That was the one consistent in my life, I have always had someone who I was caring for other than myself (who to be honest I never really took care of because of a lifetime of feeling unworthy or undeserving of being cared for). My mother passed away when my dad had been gone thirteen years, but I still had my niece and nephew to finish rearing.
A little more background, because of my dad's history I was basically only interested in nursing babies until I met my main nursing instructor, Irma Aguilar (wish I knew where she is now). Irma had a deep and abiding love for hospice nursing and she inspired in many of my class a love of hospice nursing. Still, when I first graduated from nursing school, I went to work in the neonatal intensive care unit working nights and trying to finish rearing my niece and nephew as well as care for my mother. I quickly learned that hospital schedules didn't offer much flexibility to parents (even Aunt parents), so after a year of never being able to go to school events and trying to figure out the whole night nursing daytime parenting process, I decided something had to change and I applied at the only hospice in my town at that time. I got the job, yay and I began my almost ten year career as a hospice nurse. Loved caring for the dying. The autonomy, the appreciation, the way that being a hospice nurse fed my soul. Now some will say "Oh, hospice nursing? I could never do that." Others look somewhat shocked and ask "Aren't you sad all of the time?" I wasn't sad, I felt that being a hospice nurse answered a calling for me. Helping someone who is facing the end of their life was such a fulfilling job. I was very good at my job. I made sure that I learned everything I could about being a hospice nurse. I read about pain management, I took classes and seminars, I became a certified hospice and palliative nurse. My families and my patients loved having me for their nurse. My whole identity centered on being a hospice nurse, an aunt/parent to my niece and nephew, and my mothers caregiver. As soon as my niece and nephew were almost grown though I felt the calling to return to my original love of being a neonatal intensive care nurse. So in January 2003, I went back to work in a level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I brought all of my years as a hospice nurse with me and went back to working nights. In April 2003, my mother passed away and I continued my life as a NICU nurse. Until October 30, 2009 when my life began to change. I had finally moved out of my childhood home and into my own apartment. My niece and nephew had moved out and for the first time in my life, I only had me to worry about about myself. I tripped going down my stairs and twisted my foot. I went to the doctor and she told me I had only sprained not fractured my foot. Yay! At least I thought Yay. Three weeks later I went back to the doctor and she looked at my foot which was now at least doubled in size from edema and decided to recheck the foot with new, more extensive x-rays. She came back to the room and told me she had missed a fracture but the good news was that it was not displaced and here is a boot to wear for a month, I didn't have to miss work, and everything would be fine. I checked with the staffing person and my boss who said it was fine to work in the boot as long as I had a release allowing me to work without restrictions. I went to work and my co-workers had a fit about me working in a boot. The house supervisor was contacted and my boss was contacted and finally it was decided that I could work as long as I felt like working. I stayed at work but never wore the boot after that night until..... By December my foot was bigger and bigger and hurt terribly. I finally decided to go to an orthopedic specialist and got an appointment for January 7, 2010. I continued working 48-60 hours a week. I went to the orthopedic doctor after working with a terribly swollen foot. He told me that the bone in my foot was in pieces and displaced and I was going to be off work for at least one month and I needed a special boot made for my foot (and as I struggled to explain this could not be) he added or "you will lose your foot". That stopped those arguments cold turkey. So I got the boot made and went back to work but it began a downhill slide. The pain got worse and worse and worse. I ended up with a pain management doctor and finally changed jobs to a nurse educator position in October 2010. In September 2011, an on the job injury hurt my one decent foot and injured my wrist and back. All of the doctors I saw after the injury told me to apply for disability because I would no longer be able to work as a nurse. My last day to work was September 1, 2011. For several months, I have spent most of my time lying flat of my back because sitting up is painful. I was in school and almost finished with my MSNEd when I got injured., Since I was not able to sit for longer than 30 minutes to an hour at a time, I took a medical leave from nursing school as well. I watch TV, talk to friends on the phone, or text them by phone, surf the Internet at various intermittent times and am left with a great deal of time to wonder, thus the Bo Peep who has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. I miss being a caregiver. I miss being a nurse. I loved being both. My feelings of worth were all tied to my nursing career. I prided myself on taking excellent care of my patients and their families. I still keep up with my graduates and miss them too. Now instead of being the caregiver, I need help from others. That is even harder to take. I have never asked for or needed others to help me. Now, I am constantly having to beg others for help and that is oh so hard for me. Things have gotten harder and worse and there is not much hope of things really improving in the near future at least physically, however, my mind is still intact and I have to find a way to fulfill my need to help others. The awesome thing about this time in history is social media and our ability to connect with others far and wide so easily for instance with a blog. I know that while parts of my story are unique I am not the first or the last person to find their circumstances changed before one has decided to change them with a purpose. Surely others have found themselves in similar circumstances who are faced with grieving for the life they had and dealing with that sense of loss who need to connect with other people to share and find new ways to cope. If you are still reading at this point in time, I would love to hear from you. I will happily take the time to read your story and talk with you.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the energy to continue that counts" Winston Churchill.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)