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Embrace the suck

As the ball falls and the darkness of December fades into the light of January, a new year is born. With that comes a new found clarity, a rebirth and the opportunity to wipe the slate clean to start again. After 2020 isn’t that what we all want? Hope for better times ahead.

2020 began like any other year for me. When Covid-19 pulled the rug out from under us and excreted its venom upon the world, like everyone else, I found myself swimming in a sea of uncertainty. Would I get Covid? Would I lose someone to Covid? What is going to happen to my world as I know it?

I can’t look at 2020 as the year of suck. Instead, I choose to embrace it. There were plenty of things that sucked in 2020. 2020 taught me how to accept what is, let go of what isn’t and be grateful for what’s in front of me. On the home front, my husband and I quickly adopted that mantra as a coping mechanism, means of survival and a way to keep our young adult children physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. With each new issue or disappointment that arose in our daily lives, we were diligent with that mantra. The social isolation, the frustration, the hopelessness, the beginning of virtual high school and university education, my daughter’s lost senior prom, senior track season and high school commencement, my son’s lost December college commencement. The things that were not meant to be for us in 2020 only made us a stronger family unit and more grateful.

On the work front, I am an RN of twenty six years. For the past eight, I’ve been working in the pre-op unit of my hospital, preparing patients for surgery. Before that, I spent thirteen years as an emergency room RN. When the world shut down and my state’s governor cancelled elective surgeries, even though the only necessary surgeries were being done, the preoperative units were left scampering to find work so their employees didn’t have to go on unemployment or use all of their paid time off. They sent us to screen people as they entered the hospital and satellite locations. They sent us to classes. My boss told us if we had skills in other areas we could expect to be called to use them. Former ICU RNs were sent to the ICU. I was one of several veteran emergency nurses selected to be activated in the emergency department if the surge reached our hospital. On Nurses’s Day in May my father posted a picture on social media of me in my PPE, stating that I was on the front lines, “fighting Covid”. I was so embarrassed. From my Dad’s perspective, he was telling the world how proud he was of me. Deep down inside, it irked me for about six weeks that I didn’t feel like I was doing my part because I wasn’t on the front lines in the Emergency Room. Each of us in the group of ER RN veterans only worked one shift in the ER because our hospital didn’t get the surge some of the others in our city did. During my day in the ER, I took care of symptomatic Covid patients. I transported Covid patients to the ICU. The hospital was like Sombertown. The ICU looked like a war zone. I was as terrified as I was as a young nurse in the early 1990’s, taking care of full blown AIDS patients.

As time went on, my fears were replaced with caution and a new level of awareness. When elective surgeries returned and my department busted our asses everyday to get these patients into the OR, I realized that I am doing my part. All of us who work in healthcare are doing our part regardless if we are on the front lines or not. The custodial staff who clean and sanitize the hospital. The food service who feed us. The people who stock our supplies and take care of the equipment. The command center who direct us. The chaplains who pray for us.

I enjoy listening to XM Sirius Radio on my way in to work in the morning. One morning before Thanksgiving, there was a little greeting blurb from Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. He started out with some humor about how he was learning the ukulele and how he wasn’t very good at it. He said he missed making music with his friends. He wished the listeners a Happy Thanksgiving and not in so many words stated that now was the time to be grateful, to learn, to go within. I wish I could hear the blurb again because it did resonate with me.

It has been over a year since I have posted anything in this blog. In the midst of life I have somehow lost my writing voice. The words are swarming around in my head from time to time but can’t seem to make it to the tip of my fingers, the keyboard and this page. I am hoping to find my writing voice again this year.

Happy New Year

Choices that break Tradition

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

I wanted to write something here about my heritage, but I can’t. When I was growing up there were heritage traditions that we stopped practicing because we moved and our lives were never the same. To me this question has more to do with making different life choices than my parents.

My parents wanted something different for their lives and careers. Although my father had a decent career, they felt stagnant in the city of our birth so they chose to move. They wanted a new life, somewhere else. We had a nice life before this move. I still can’t figure out why it wasn’t good enough for my parents.

Our first move was from a northern state to a southern state when I was ten. This move was one of those experiences that just beats you down and pulls the rug right out from underneath you. Everyone and everything that made me feel secure was now a two day drive away. Family dynamics changed in ways I didn’t anticipate. My grandfather also died during that period. It had nothing to do with living in the south. The south is beautiful. I just didn’t want to live there because I didn’t want to move. I felt broken. I felt lost. I did not fit in at school. Ever. The schools sucked and my grades dropped. My teachers judged me as a child who was lazy. In reality, I was a child who was hurting. Too bad they didn’t bother to ask. Although I had some friends where we lived, our community felt like a collection of misfits similar to the Island of Misfit Toys on Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer; people in transition. Living in that southern state for seven years of my childhood was a slippery slope of disappointments, bad behaviors and insecurities that have continued to haunt me forty five years later.

Seven years into this first move, I finally started to come out of my shell as my junior year of high school was ending. I had a drivers license, a car, a really fun fast food job that included a social group and a nice boyfriend. It didn’t last long though. The bomb dropped at the dinner table at the beginning of that summer. My father announced, “I got a new job. It’s not in this city.” There it was. We were to move to the midwest at the end of the summer…. just before my senior year. Unbelievable.

My senior year of high school was our first year in the midwest. I continued to be a nobody at school but things were moving in a positive direction. Fortunately, my teachers and guidance counselor were kind to me and my grades improved. I immediately got another fast food job and slowly started to develop a social life outside of school. I met my husband. We didn’t start dating until after high school. After high school, my then boyfriend, now husband and I attended community college together. He transferred to a four year school and I went to nursing school. After graduation he moved to the east coast for his career job where he remains today. My move number three, to the east coast followed two years later right after we were married. I am at the same hospital.

People say everything happens for reason and you end up where you are meant to be. I believe that now. Looking back, move number two to the midwest was absolutely necessary. It helped me to rise above the ashes of the previous seven years. Each year I was there got better and better and that city will always hold a special place in my heart.

My husband also moved during his childhood. One of the best choices we have ever made together was to never put our family through an out of state move. We kept that promise and still live in the house we bought early in our marriage.

Raising our children in the only house we have ever owned allowed them to attend only one elementary school, one middle school and one high school. It gave them a foundation of of security and stability that enabled them to grow and succeed socially, academically, and extracurricular school activities that they pursued. They are amazing individuals.

My husband and I, with our different nationalities, have established our own traditions with our kids. Hopefully they will continue them.

Choices are like domino effects. One choice triggers so many events.

In the future 🔮

What are you most excited about for the future?

Hmm. Could it be that I look forward to a blizzard that forces my hospital’s chief of surgery to shut the ORs down for a week? That would be great if a miracle like that ever happened. Retirement? Hell to the yes! Donald Trump withdrawing from the presidential race and disappearing from the public eye all together? Ding ding ding ding ding!

Really though I have enjoyed each phase of my children’s lives. I most look forward to seeing my kids settling into their adult lives. Careers. Marriage and children.

When I Retire

How do you want to retire?

My mom always said, “It’s a work a day life honey.” I am still in the trenches of my work a day life here so it’s hard to imagine. I will say Sunday nights and getting up between 0330-0400 are getting harder and harder though.

I hope to be healthy when I retire. I hope to be able to watch my children raise their families. I hope to travel; Europe, Alaskan Cruise. I will read. I will be able to exercise every day instead of a few days a week. I will find a biblical study course and a craft to get into. I will do all the things I don’t have time to do now.

I will sip my coffee on a snowy morning at home and thank Jesus I don’t have to drive in it to go take care of patients anymore.

T-shirts

What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?

I have an old t-shirt from the hospital that I went to nursing school at. It is soft and cozy and has become my favorite shirt to wear to bed.

The irony of this is that I have only recently learned the hospital and school of nursing buildings that I attended nursing school at were demolished almost 10 years ago! When you are young, you think everything will remain the same after you leave a place but it never does. You think you can always go back, but you can’t. I knew that after graduation my school was to merge with a nursing school down the street to form a large college of nursing.

This May marked the 30th anniversary of my graduation from nursing school. Naturally when I received an email from the new school about their homecoming this fall I took a stroll down memory lane and started googling the buildings and that’s when I saw it. I found some nice pictures of the whole medical complex the way it was when I was there and even showed my kids.

The letters on my t-shirt are starting to fade but my memories of that time period of my life in that hospital and school of nursing never will.

❄️

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

I enjoy all of the seasons. They are a cycle. The shedding of winter coats and the blooming and rebirth of spring. Longer days, tank tops, shorts, flip flops and lemonade on a hot summer day. A lake. A beach. Falling leaves, the golden hour, autumn colors and hot apple cider as the weather gets cooler. Winter though is my favorite. It is the stillness that I appreciate. The silence of falling snow. Crisp, clean air. A time to hibernate, to go within and prepare for a new year and spring. I love the peaceful energy that Christmas lights and pine bring into my house during the holidays.

Brit Floyd

What was the last live performance you saw?

Last year, weeks before I sat for my Certified Ambulatory Perianesthesia Nurse (CAPA) exam, my husband approached me with free tickets to this Brit Floyd concert that was to be approximately 7 days before my exam in our city. I had no idea who they were or if I wanted to see some fake Pink Floyd a week before my exam. I learned that they are one of the top 10 Pink Floyd tribute bands. I decided to go because of music’s many benefits to the brain when studying AND because Pink Floyd is one of my favorites.

That concert was Dark Side of the Moon’s 50th Anniversary. They played songs from Dark Side of the Moon and some of my other favorites. They really do sound just like Pink Floyd. It was a spectacular show that moved my soul. It took me back to times in my life when some of those songs were playing in the background of my day to day existence. It made me smile for that whole last week before my exam. Needless to say I include that concert as a contributor to my exam success.

Fast forward to this year. Brit Floyd returned to my city on their 2024 Pulse Tour celebrating the 30th Anniversary of their Division Bell album. We went and thoroughly enjoyed the concert again as the music had the same moving affect as it did in 2023.

For a day

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

This prompt is precisely why I ask my patients what they do for work. I ask them when I place their IV as a distraction but I really am curious. It’s always fun to imagine myself in someone else’s job. I have heard all kinds of jobs. Chef, teacher, veterinarian, funeral director, medical examiner, military, secret service, celebrity agent, lawyers, accountants, etc.

For just one day I would like to have a job where I can be creative. I can problem solve at work but I do not consider myself to be a creative person and I envy and admire people who are. Perhaps I could be chef who has to come up with a delicious dish for tonight’s special. Maybe I could be musician. An artist and a blank canvas. An Imagioneer at Disney World. An innovator instead of the good worker bee that I am.

5 Things

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

I like this prompt because it encourages is to focus on what we do have. These are the things everyday that make me happy.

My morning coffee. Whether I am enjoying it at work while I am organizing my patient assignment or waiting for the sun to rise on the weekends. It’s the first thing I look forward to when I wake up. On the weekends I treat myself to frothy coffee with heavy cream. Probably fattening, no F’s given.

Hugging my dog. Unconditional love at its best. He’s one of the great loves of my life. This dog completes me.

A hot shower. After work I use special shower gel for relaxation.

Music. A good song can certainly turn a frown upside down, energize, inspire and heal.

Books. You can enter another time period, be in another place or live vicariously through the characters vicariously with just a turn of a page.

What I learned in High School

What I learned from high school was not to let other people tell you that you cannot achieve what you want to in your life. Listen to people who are going to encourage you, not beat you down.

I spent seven years of my childhood, ages 10-17 living in a place that I absolutely hated. It was a geographical state that my family had no business moving to. I attended two different high schools. The first three years of high school were spent living in this horrible state. I never felt like I fit in. Ever. My grades were mediocre. On the outside I looked like a girl that didn’t care about her academic career. On the inside I was a girl who was hurting. When I was 15 years and nine months old, I asked my guidance counselor for a work permit so I could work at McDonalds and she told me that working at McDonalds was all I was going to accomplish in my life. That guidance counselor’s words were amongst the meanest words spoken to me up to that point and I had never felt so worthless and insecure.

A year later we moved to a different geographical state and I spent my senior year at a new high school. My new guidance counselor asked me what I wanted out of my life and helped me to develop an education plan to get there. I followed the plan according to his suggestions and I became a nurse.

Two different guidance counselors, two different approaches. The mean guidance counselor could have destroyed me had I chose to listen to her or stayed at that school. I do not credit her for my success.

On a lighter note, the most useful skill and my favorite thing I learned in high school was how to type. Unforeseen circumstances led me into two typing courses. Do you have a paper to write Jen? No problem because you know how to type. Did knowing how to type help you on busy days when you were assigned to triage when you worked in the emergency department? It sure did. Do you smile when you type, because you know how to type? Yes!

Daily writing prompt

Describe something you learned in high school.

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My Preceptor

Each time a nurse starts a job in a new setting or transfers from one department in the hospital to another, they have to be in an orientation period with a preceptor. In my hospital for experienced nurses it’s four to six weeks. For new grads it’s up to 12 weeks.

Rewind to shortly after I had transferred from telemetry to the Emergency Department. I was five years out of nursing school at this point. My preceptor was a baby boomer nurse with 31 years of experience and kids my age. One morning, I approached the nurses station at 0700 and my preceptor was already there. She pointed to a room with a patient on a ventilator with all kinds of tubes and wires connected. She said, “that’s your patient, call report to the ICU.” I started to panic. I told her I didn’t know anything about that patient. She pushed the thick chart across the desk at me and firmly said, “Call report.” I had about 30 seconds to figure out what was going on with that patient but I did figure it out and I called report to the ICU. I made it out of orientation unscathed.

Flash forward to 13 years after that day. My preceptor had since moved on the become a nursing supervisor. I was by that point 18 years out of nursing school. The Emergency Department and its current leadership had burned me out and jaded me. I had already accepted a transfer to my current department and was working my last few weeks as an ER nurse. I remember one day shortly before my departure, my preceptor while on duty as a nursing supervisor made her morning rounds to the Emergency Department. I told her, “I am transferring out of here.” She said she knew. I asked how she knew and she said, “Word travels fast around here.” After that she looked at me and said, “this move will be good for you, you’ve earned it.”

That compliment meant so much to me coming from my preceptor. It validated all the blood, sweat and tears I had put in working there. I had come full circle.

Daily writing prompt

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

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