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For the sake of Harmony

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

I follow Jay Shetty on Instagram. Jay Shetty is a former monk who is now a podcaster, author and life coach. Last year he posted a video with a moving an affirmation: “I am exactly where I was meant to be. Not ahead. Not behind.” For the sake of creating harmony for myself, that affirmation has had a positive affect on how I evaluate where I am in my life when I feel stuck. Many times I have found myself comparing myself to others. Keeping up with the Joneses. Why can’t I have this? Why haven’t I experienced this in my life? Why aren’t I in this position in life? Why aren’t my kids in this position in their lives? I’m not there because this is where I was meant to be. I believe the reason why this is where I was meant to be is out there somewhere. I have faith that God and the Universe have great things in store for me and they will come to me when the time is right, not the time I want.

Sauce

Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

When I walk into my house for a few days after I have made sauce, I am transported back to my childhood and the comforting feeling of home associated with that smell. I am a third generation American born Sicilian. My great grandparents immigrated to America from Sicily in the early 1900’s. With that said, every Sunday during my childhood we had sauce. To us, sauce means a pot of tomato sauce simmered with spices for several hours with meatballs and the pasta of the cook’s choice. Sometimes it was spaghetti, sometimes rigatoni. On a special occasion it was ravioli or stuffed shells. So many of my cherished childhood memories are of watching my grandmothers make sauce. As an adult when I make sauce, in my heart I know my grandmothers are there with me.

Favorite Moment

Describe one of your favorite moments.

One of my all time favorite moments was the moment my children met each other for the first time. I was still in the hospital recovering from a repeat c-section to deliver my daughter only the day before. My husband brought our newly turned three year old son to the hospital meet his baby sister. I was sitting in a chair holding my daughter so that her head was resting on my knees and her feet were touching my belly. I told my son what my daughter’s name was as he approached me. When he greeted her with his little boy voice and called her by her name, she turned her head towards his voice. It was amazing. Their instant bonding was a foreshadowing of what was to come for them as siblings. Almost 22 years later they still have a bond that cannot be broken. They enjoy each other’s company. They always have each other’s backs. They each have the complete opposite personalities but that works to their advantage when one of them has an issue, the other one gives a fresh perspective. My son is the epitome of a good big brother. When my daughter fell and scraped her knee he’d ask for a bandage for her. When she was afraid of people in scary costumes as a child, he’d reassure her that she was safe. When she played her trumpet in her final concert of eighth grade, he had flowers for her. When she’d start a new school; middle school, high school and college, he’d take her on a tour before school started so she’d know her way around when school started. She attends the same university he graduated from because she liked what the school had to offer. He’s always been there for her and she for him. Sure they bicker and get on each other’s nerves plenty but they are still thick as thieves. I could go on all day about them but I’ll just leave you with the picture.

A Smashing Day-A notable event.

What notable things happened today?

Feeling vulnerable, I stood there in the diagnostic room in my scrub pants and a hospital gown open to the front. I left work early today to drive to this notable event and my scrub pants were the only part of this moment that made me feel normal. In mammograms they position the breast appropriately and then they crank that tit smasher machine tighter and tighter until you think your tit might actually pop. First they smashed my left breast from the mediolateral view (side view). Next, they smashed it from craniocaudal (top to bottom view). After that I’m escorted back to the dressing room with the rest of my belongings. “We’ll wait for the radiologist to read this”, they said. A few minutes later my left breast was back in the tit smasher for round two with the same views. Afterwards, I was back in my dressing room a second time. I pondered whether they would go for round three of a mammogram or do an ultrasound? Would my life change after today? I tried to imagine what some my patients with serious diagnoses go through when I prep them for surgery. They stare off into space. They act upbeat and ok but I know inside they are not ok. I try to distract them from their troubles with various conversation starters. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work I give them the space they need to process what is happening to them. The next diagnostic for me after the two mammograms was an ultrasound. I held my breath with every notation made, every measurement, every click of the keyboard, every facial expression of the ultrasound tech. The ultrasound tech gathered all of the views she needed and went to get the radiologist. The radiologist entered the room with a smile. “You have benign cysts right next to each other, let’s take another look”, she said as she ran the ultrasound over me one last time and told me there was no evidence of cancer. I was then escorted back to my dressing room so I could get dressed and leave. As a nurse, having had some of my own health scares has given me a fresh perspective on what patients need from us. With gratitude and relief, I got dressed and left there with a little more wisdom than I came in with.

Ida Candy

Daily writing prompt

Describe your dream chocolate bar.

View all responses

Hands down my dream chocolate bar is Hershey’s milk chocolate. Answering this prompt was a perfect excuse for me to eat one today. I like Hershey’s milk chocolate because putting a piece of that chocolate on my tongue and tasting it as it dissolves into my watering mouth gives me a feeling of euphoria that turns my frown upside down. It is almost as if my body knows when it needs Hershey milk chocolate bar. There’s another reason Hershey’s milk chocolate is my favorite; because my Nana Ida always had them for us. My paternal grandmother, who we called Nana Ida always had a stash of candy in her china cabinet. She’d have hard candy, Brach’s Royals and a variety of Hershey’s. As a young child when I would spend the night with Nana Ida and Papa Charlie, it was a special treat when Nana Ida would break a Hershey bar up piece by piece and share it with me. After she died, the nine of us, all of her grandchildren nick named the candy she used to have as “Ida candy.” It goes without saying that I think of Nana Ida every time I bite into a Hershey’s because I know she’s smiling down on my enjoying one too.

One Simple Thing

Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.

The simple thing that I do that brings joy to my life is reading. When life gets crazy I can always rely on a good book to take me away. I read everyday. I enjoy reading because it takes my mind and my imagination to different times, places and experiences. It’s my favorite past time. I can easily spend hours in a bookstore or library. When I’m interested in a particular subject I read read read all about it until I’ve had my fill. There have been times when I’m so engrossed in a book, it consumes me to the point that I feel incapacitated until I finish it. I’ve been known to read a book in a day. I like that about me. I remember precisely when I declared myself a reader. I was in fourth grade. We were doing the end of the year standardized testing. My teacher permitted us to choose a book from the bookshelf in the classroom when we were finished with our test each day. Because I was in fourth grade, I chose Takes of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. Each day I looked forward to returning to that book until I finished it. There was no turning back after that book. I knew I would be a lifelong reader. When I was a junior in high school I was being punished one weekend and not allowed to go out with my friends. I had just started reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in my English class and I was enjoying it so I had no problem staying in my room. To this day I still laugh to myself that my parents gave me the wrong punishment. To punish me would have been to take the book away. The only time period in my life I didn’t read was when I was in college studying to become a nurse. There wasn’t enough time in a day or room in my head for anything else. After I graduated and passed my RN exam I returned to reading. For the past several years I’ve joined the yearly reading challenges on the Goodreads app. On Goodreads you can see what other people are reading and make lists of books you’ve read. I read the number of books per year that is equivalent to my age. I enjoy fiction, historical fiction, beach reads, autobiographies, daily devotionals, books about spirituality and Catholicism and most recently poetry. When I see a young child enjoying a book I’m excited that their lifetime of reading has junior begun. When I see someone reading a book in a public place, I’m happy for them. When someone tells me their love of reading began during their adulthood I’m proud of them. My favorite people to talk about books with are my patients. If I see a book amongst their possessions I ask them about it. It passes the time for them, distracts them from their troubles and I enjoy hearing about what people read. I could go on and on but my book is waiting. “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” Stephen King

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

Worries and Matthew 7:7-8

Do you believe in signs? I do. They are everywhere and in many different forms. You just have to open your mind and your heart to them and they will appear. When they do, say thank you.

I subscribe to multiple spirituality and religious pages on WordPress and Instagram. It is cheesy probably but I do go to Mass too. Every now and then I’ll see a post on one of my favorite sites and it speaks to me as if it’s telling me whatever is on my mind at the time is going to be ok. It could be biblical passage, a quote, a video, a poem. For example, this spring I was first introduced to Matthew 7:7-8. 7″Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door ill be opened.” I loved it immediately because it’s so simple and powerful and appears exactly when I need it; when I am feeling discouraged and alone and in need of a little voice to reassure me that God is working behind the scenes for me. It’s a reminder for me that God is indeed listening, to continue to pray, to believe in what I’m doing and to never give up.

Of course people pray for various reasons. One reason is worry. Sometimes our mind gets rolling on a certain concern and takes you on an upside down roller coaster of anxiety, fear, negative self talk and tries with all its might to drive you insane as you worry if the outcome of your worries doesn’t turn out in your favor.

That was me yesterday. In addition to the challenging group of patients I was assigned, my mind got started on something and wouldn’t quit, leaving me with a tension headache from hell. Throbbing pain that radiates from the back of your neck, over your scalp and makes your face and nose throb. Hours later after I’d calmed down I went on WordPress. What did I find? A sign in the form of a wonderful post by The Boring Bug entitled “Stop worry and start worrying” . It was exactly what I needed at that time to help me let go of the nonsense chatter in my head.

Be sure to click and check it out. It’s well written and worth your time. Stop worrying!!

May Books

I am six books behind my coworker/reader buddy on the Goodreads 2018 reading challenge, but she’s retired and I’m not so I guess I’d better read a little faster. I still have time to get my 55 books in. I love historical fiction. I guess you can say I’ve been on a bit of a WWII kick lately.

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan– NYC pre WWII a young girl’s father disappears secondary to questionable mob activity. Fast forward to this young woman’s adulthood during WWII and her efforts to help the war, she discovers what happened to her father. I discovered this from Goodreads and thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s a must read.

The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard-1944 the lives of an 18 year old country girl, a Jewish physicist, a poor sharecropper girl, a wealthy army officer and an African American man intertwine as they work on the Manhattan Project. This was a good book but not one of my favorites.

That Month in Tuscany by Inglath Cooper. I saw this on Barnes and Noble’s recommendations and wanted to be in Italy in my head for a spell so I went for this book. A little predictable story about a woman married to a man that’s always disappointing her. She decided to go to Tuscany for their anniversary vacation by herself after he told her he can’t miss work. The book takes the woman on a journey of self discovery when she faces unexpected surprises. Meh it was ok. Nice to read about Italian culture and food.

Stay tuned for June and July.

April Books

Here I am on July 17 writing about the books I read in April. Lol oh well. It’s never too late to find a good book.

Hikertrash: Life on the Pacific Crest Trail by Erin Miller. It took me a few months to read this book. This is a personal account of a married couple who thru hiked the 2659mi Pacific Crest Trail 5 years ago. It was interesting but it was more like journal entries instead of actual chapters. When I started getting tired of it, I read other books and came back to it when I wanted an escape in my head.

Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland. This book is a true story and details the experience of the nine years Dr Julie Holland, a board-certified psychiatrist spent working in the psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. If you are not medical and easily offended, don’t read this book. This is this woman’s personal EXPERIENCE. It is not to be judged or psychoanalyzed. I was extremely angered to read the very first review from 4 years ago listed on Goodreads and the several reviews that follow. The first review was written by a “psychology major and a human being”. All I can say is Bitch, don’t judge until you’ve walked in that person’s shoes.

I’m sorry but I have to stand on my soap box for a moment. I am a Board Certified Emergency Nurse with 13 years of Emergency Nursing under my belt. The general public has no idea of the experiences at work that we have on a daily basis that either harden our hearts, break our hearts or both. They have no idea how each one of us has experienced burn out at some point in our careers. Burnout that makes us feel like we are in an uncontrollable downward spiral as our own sanity circles the drain. Sure, burnout heals and can lay dormant for a spell until we have another experience that triggers it and then we pray that we don’t snap and circle the drain again. Burnout was one of the reasons I left the Emergency Room. The Emergency Room that I was able to refine my knowledge and skills as a registered nurse. The Emergency Room where my intuition came alive and I could tell someone was going bad by looking at them. The Emergency Room where I saw lives begin and end. The Emergency Room where I saw people bleed out and swallow their brains. The Emergency Room where I cleaned up more shit, piss, blood, snot and puke than I care to recall. The Emergency Room where I used to puke in the sink if the stench got to me too much. The Emergency Room where I was threatened with physical violence and sexually harassed on multiple occasions. The Emergency Room where hospital security frequently had to physically protect us when there were dangerous patients that we had to sedate and restrain. The Emergency Room where I took care of murderers and rapists. The Emergency Room where I made lifelong friends. The Emergency Room that I shared weekends, holidays, and snowstorms with my ER family. The Emergency Room where we as staff shared each other’s triumphs and defeats. The Emergency Room that built a foundation for the rest of my career and gave me the confidence to try any other nursing afterwards. The Emergency Room that I was proud to work at. I remember shortly before I transferred out of the Emergency Room, one of the ER Attending Physicians said to me, “Nurses are lucky, they can leave when they want to and when they need to. Physicians have to stay.”

So I say, thank you Dr Julie Holland for sharing your experience.

The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve. I started reading this book years ago and returned it to the library unfinished because I wasn’t feeling it. Shortly before I read this book in April, I’d read Anita Shreve’s latest book and decided to give it another go. This book is about the after effects of the death of a Pilot who perished in a plane crash. The Pilot’s wife uncovers his secret life. It was good.