All Quiet on the Western Front

Hooray! It is Saturday, and I only worked until 2am yesterday, so I got what could considered a "normal" amount of sleep, IN THE DARK. Which is much better than full-night shift sleep that happens when the sun is out. I'm probably one of the only people in the Northwest who is actually relieved when I get off work at 7:30am and it is raining. Because there really is nothing worse than wasting a sunny day sleeping!

 I'm drinking my coffee, glancing at sweet, old Dog (who is waiting for me to get off my arse and go for a run, or at least a walk), and feeling very contented with my life. I wanted to post about how content I am on Facebook, but that just seemed smug. So instead, I'll write a whole blog entry here about it. :)

 I should really get moving. I need to do my shoulder exercises prescribed by my PT, then take Dog outside, then hang out with Boyfriend and some of our friends tonight. Ah, I love weekends off! 

(Yet Another) Post on Running

Last night, I was charge RN, and worked with a rockstar team of nurses, as well as an awesome attending and some great residents and a fun flow supervisor. It is wonderful when you get to be your best self at work- I knew all the patients were in smart, caring, competent hands. We communicated really well, and that allowed me to be check in on patients and staff and have time to demonstrate caring and leadership (at least, that's how I felt :). It was a great night. I slept really well today and then had a great run with the Dog.

 We went to the local dog park, which is a fenced-in area bounded on one side by a huge lake, and on the other by a restored wetlands and park. Dog, who can be moody (much like her owner), today was enjoying the brisk weather and was in a sociable mood, running and sniffing every other dog in attendance. She even played in a water a little bit, which is rare unless the water is calm. Then we left the dogpark and entered the park/wetlands. We ran off leash through a park empty of other visitors, except a few other rebellious dog owners whose dogs were also off-leash. Then I releashed Dog at the wetlands and we ran through a marvelous world full of freshwater ponds, a congress of crows, a raft of ducks, beautiful stands of red alder, cottonwood and marshes. I ran without listening to ipod music, and instead listened to the music of the world around me- twittering birds, the wind whispering through the trees and brush, the sound of Dog's jangling tags and my own footsteps. 

 It wasn't my longest run, or my best athletic effort, but it was soothing to my soul and so sweet to be healthy enough to treat my body well, when I see those who cannot so often at work.

Slogging Through Molasses

No lie, the new j-o-b has been stressful. It isn't so much that now I'm middle management, and people think I have more power than I do, or that people I used to giggle with look nervous when I'm around, or that I am working- in the same week- days, evenings and nights-, or that I'm unsure of what I'm impacting, when I know that having an impact means so much to me...no, it's all of those things. And more. It's coupled with the fact that I'm taking a grad class, and trying to have a healthy, good relationship with Mr. Wonderful, and stay healthy physically, mentally and spiritually, and keep in touch with friends, and relax and go grocery shopping and remember to fill up the gas and vacuum and do bills and laundry (laundry! Biggest mistake of last year was thinking that saving 100 bucks on rent would be worth trooping to the in complex laundry facility. Note: it is worth the convenience of having your own W/D!)...it's all of these things, and more.

 I think I've done a pretty good job, though, to be honest. When things are getting to much, there is nothing wrong with a call to Mom and a good cry. Or a glass of wine, or a pedicure. And Mr. Wonderful is really wonderful. In my (not very extensive) understanding of relationships, there is a time when you either start laughing together more, or less, as the newness wears off. Luckily, we're laughing more, and that is a great thing.

 The Dog is doing well, too, and, as dogs are wont to do, provides a source of comfort and love on days when it is all too much. She's getting older, she can't run as far or as fast, but is a study in how to age gracefully and maintain your spirit. She does what she wants, and can, and sleeps when she's tired. It's very honest.

 But here is what I've decided. I'm at one of those points in life where you can either step up and things are hard, but you move towards something new and better, or you coast. I don't think coasting is always wrong, but for me, this is the time to move, and I believe that when you put effort in, you get positive results out, and it is for that reason I'm willing to endure some tiredness.

 That, and the fact that I"m going on a tropical vacation in two days. Aloha! :)

Snapshots

I got a new job, and as with most new things, I've been more tired than usual. But I'm starting to regain my normally high level of energy, so I'm trying to get back into making activity (running, biking, etc) my default, as opposed to inactivity (sitting in the bath and reading- which I still do, just not til I've done something active).

 I biked to work yesterday. I left at 6:20am, when it was pitch black outside. I'd forgotten how much more I feel a part of my surroundings when I'm biking or running, and how much more I notice of my environment, when I'm not tuning in to a phone call or the radio. I noticed the coldness in the air, and how the lights on other biker's bikes and helmets, passing me in the blackout, looked kind of like alien landing ships from ET. I noticed the jingle of a dog's collar (replete with flashing light) as it passed with it's owner.

 On the way home as night fell, I road more slowly. I was tired from a long day at work, and it was pleasant to zone out and look at the leaves, trees and darkening skies. Normally I despise being passed by other cyclists, but this time, it was pleasant for me to meander my 8 miles home. My favorite part of the ride was being startled by a long-haired orange cat perched on a mile marker at a crossing of the trail and a street.

 Today, The Dog and I did a recovery run in the cool Seattle day. A priest (Catholic? Episcopal?) sailed by on his commuter bike, still dressed in robes for services, and a wooden rosary hanging from his left side. Later down the trail, The Dog and I made friends with an old Bernese mountain dog, who initially barked up a storm, but didn't protest when The Dog sniffed and I pet her. I led her back to her house (I'd seen her on other runs and knew where she lived) and we carried on.

 Sometimes, it is easier to just be tired. But every time I've put the effort in to get out and be active, I've been rewarded with the little glimpses of life that it are sometimes all too easy to miss. I'm getting "better-stronger-fitter-faster," my mantra when it is rough going, but more than that, I feel at peace and connected to my world. Life is good. 

Rain on a Thursday evening

So one of the lovely things about Seattle people is that rather than run inside from the rain, many people run into the rain. I went for a run and the rain started near the end, and I stopped and walked and felt the cool raindrops splash my face. It was such a great feeling, and one I've never gotten during a sunny run. Just now, I'm sitting in my sweet little apartment, listening to a dad exclaim about the rain, and stomping in puddles with his daughter, who is cooing and exclaiming enthusiastically back to him. That's the gift of the Northwest- a love of weather most people dread in other parts of the country. There is nothing like the sound of the rain on a roof or windows to make me feel cozy and cocooned in warmth!

 In other news, my stress level has dropped, for now, with the news that I got the position that I've been working towards in my ED. And the reaction from my fellow staff nurses has been really great so far, which is really heartwarming. I'm now in that lovely place between the achievement of a title and actually having to work and having increased responsibilities. :) So I'm going to enjoy this, because in 3 weeks I'll start grad school AND a new job, and life may not be quite so relaxed. But I'll be ready for it!

The sweetness of friendship

Wow, my last post was in May. It has been such a busy and lovely summer!

 It has been a little difficult at work. I'm up for a promotion against someone who is so very unlike me, but qualified for the role in a different way. What makes it so hard is that everyone KNOWS we're going against each other, and it is a very public and long and drawn out interview process....closing in on two months, maybe one more to go. Huzzah for a state position, I guess!

 Anyway, I had a really come-to-Jesus interview in which I felt incredibly vulnerable and not understood, and it really shook my confidence in myself as a professional. That faith in myself and my ability has never been a question for me, and I work really hard to maintain my expertise and excellence with patients and family.

 That said, what has come out of this experience is that I have some really great friends. And to top off this professional razing of my esteem, I've moved and have been working a bunch of shifts in a row.

 Grump alert:
 Today, I was exhausted and got home from work around 4am. One of my dearest friends requested a ride to the airport at 9:30am. To you, dear reader, who may work a "normal" job, this doesn't sound unreasonable. But when you get off at 4am, 9:30am, which necessitates an 8:30am wakeup, is something more akin to a normal person's 2:30am. Needless to say, as much as I love my friend like a sister, I was NOT kindly disposed to the ride. She's saved my rear any number of times though, so I woke up and drove her to the airport. Doesn't mean I was a particularly pleasant morning person, though. ;)

 Anyway, after that, I did some errands and chores, and then my friend from work came over and saw my new, beautiful apartment, and then we went to the pool and laughed and chatted and giggled and gossiped and had meaningful talks and all the things that you do with a good friend on a warm summer's day. And it was good! And I feel rejuvenated!

 Hooray for friends!! Life continues to be good!

Bitter and Sweet

Sometimes in my job..no, actually, it happens every day I'm there. Anway, sometimes you see that life is so much harder than you could have imagined.

. Today I saw a man dying of liver cancer, who lived in another state and came to Seattle for a second (maybe third or fourth?) opinion. He was cachectic, which means he was experiencing the extreme weakness, fatigue and muscle wasting that comes with advanced and incurable cancer, but he had a distended abdomen full of third-spacing fluid. He stooped and scooted, slowly, to the ED stretcher. His heart rate was in the 130s, and he was tachypneic (breathing fast) from the effort of a 2 foot transfer from wheelchair to stretcher. Yet he did it. And when I misspoke his name, he corrected me and made a joke about it. Here was this man, who looks barely human, and he still had his humanity. But what he didn't have, and what is so painful to see in the ED that I work in, which is part of a hospital famous for transplants and cancer treatment, is that he hadn't accepted that he was dying. And it was so painfully obvious to us, his caregivers, because we see it every day. In each doctor or nurse's eye who saw him, you could see the truth. But he couldn't. And I wonder: if I am diagnosed with cancer with a low survival rate, like liver cancer stage IV skin cancer, or any of the numerous kinds of cancer that until I started working here I truly hadn't even HEARD of, will I be able to look down the road and see death, and welcome him gracefully, or will I fight and fight, until I have expended every ounce of my strength, of my family's strength, and of my healthcare options, before I yield? When I saw this man, I hoped that I could yield, but I also recognized his fight, his humanity, and mourned that the care we give him will lengthen his life, but won't increase his number of "good" days. But that decision, to fight or yield, isn't up to me, and it is up to him and his God, if he believes. But when I saw the pain in his aunt's eyes, I wondered what is the better part of valor. She quit her job in the other state to come care for him in his last chance at a "second opinion," and you could see that she knew, even if he didn't. She had to leave the room a few times, but she was there for ten hours, a watchful, loving sentinel and witness to his pain and suffering.

 I've been that sentinel, in some form, for my grandfather, and I know what it can take out of a person to be that. My grandpa had had a full life, and I do believe that he chose to leave our world when he saw that the pain of his family watching and caring for him was greater than the last bits of life he was living. I will always be grateful for that.

 But my grandpa was an old man, and could yield after a long life. This was a young man in his forties. Not only is he fighting cancer, but he is fighting the unfairness of a diagnosis that happened in the prime of his life, when his entire being is screaming to LIVE and grow and feel and love and not to die. He's fighting life itself, as his own body turns against him, and I can't imagine the struggle.

 So I watch, and I medicate for pain, and I offer what small consolation I can in the form of responding to his soul, and not the body wasting away from the inside. And I am grateful that I get to do this, and that I work with people who feel the same, and do the same, and still can laugh and lean on each other and go into the room of the next person who comes into our ED, and provide that care. There is no greater honor, and I am so grateful to be a part of it.