Some thoughts on making decisions

Since I'm in that stage of life where major decisions are being made, (and I'm sure most of you reading this are too) I thought I'd share some things I have been reading from Oswald Chamber's book My Utmost for His Highest. It's a great short daily devotional book with really meaty things to think about, so thoughtfully put.

"When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God's will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately."

"God has to hide from us what He does, until, due to the growth of our personal character, we get to the level where He is then able to reveal it."

"I know when the instructions have come from God because of their quiet persistence. But when I begin to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate enter into my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right."

All that glitters is not gold...

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside. You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Well, my fears about that education thing were well founded. I went in and had a meeting with the powers that be and they want to actually put a plan in place to launch a patient education program before we start bringing people into the position. So I'm back on the schedule normally but at least they know I'm interested in such a position and if one ever came available they might still want me to do it. I feel relieved. I also spent most of that day explaining what I did for four patients, basically so they could make sure that at least nursing did the right thing. I've been in between doctors who weren't doing the right things for their patients a bit in the last few days. At least two of the situations will probably go to big hospital committees and one is being looked at by risk management. One of the patients died the day after I had her which was very disconcerting. But I was told that I did the right thing in all situations, I learned how to chart a little better, this education thing has taught me about how to deal with hospital management and people skills in general.

Yesterday I did clinicals with an FNP friend of mine... Wow, is she smart! She knows so much. Do I really want to put my brain through that? So much of it is about experience, experience that I don't have. I feel so young and inadequate to be making primary care decisions. I still really feel like the educator track is where I'm supposed to be so we'll see what happens with the road I'm on. Maybe I'll do both but I really don't want to be in school forever.

Carrie comes home today, that's so exciting! I think today will be a good quiet day to just relax and be outside. I've done a lot this week and been through a lot of sorting through things. But I've come out on the other side feeling relatively content with the situation I find myself in and a little more settled about the life I lead.

A WHOLE weekend off!

It was so nice to get the entire weekend off while the gang gathered at Kari's house for Sabbath. Anthony drove up from Florida for the weekend. The picture is of all of us putting an after market spoiler on his new Acura. Apparently it takes about 6 people to put a spoiler on: 3 to hold it and 3 to give opinions. Weekends are so much more relaxing when you get to do something on Saturday night! The other two pictures are from the weekend. Carrie and I had fun playing around with the camera. Unfortunately my sister smashed Carrie's thumb in my car door so I'm not sure Carrie had as good a weekend as I did... :-( But now she's gone on her spring break to see Lindsey so hopefully it will get better.


I worked on Monday and a strange opportunity came my way. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to pan out but basically it could be the kind of job I wanted to do once I'm done with my master's in education. Amazingly, it's dropped in my lap in just about the perfect way. I will still be doing 1-2 12 hour shifts a week as a floor nurse but I'll make up the rest of my hours doing patient education for the 3 sister cardiac floors at our hospital. It sounds like it will mostly be dealing with smoking cessation, diabetes, and surgery education, but we'll see what happens. There isn't really a job description or a set agenda so I could potentially make it into whatever I see needs to be done. The parts of my schedule used for this job would be flexible and mainly up to me. And I'm only working ONE Sunday out of the next 5 weeks! AMAZING! I might be able to actually have a weekend life! Also, I could potentially use some of this for my thesis/master's project/research. Of course, the way things go in hospitals, this could all fizzle out in a few weeks, but at least I will have given it a go, and even if it lasts for 4 months, I can have the experience and the exposure. Because I'm still working some shifts I'd just transition back into 12 hour floor shifts all the time. It's nice when your peers and your leadership express a belief in your abilities and see something in you that makes them think you could be good at doing something you want to do. I'm a bit scared about making the transition and feeling a bit inadequate designing my own program at the age of 22 but hey... life is an adventure right? And realistically, I have more education than most of the nurses in the hospital. I DO know something. So pray for me as I see where the road will lead in the next few weeks. I certainly didn't think an opportunity would drop into my lap like this when I went to work yesterday. Maybe Jeremiah 29:11 should read "BEWARE of the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are completely on my own time table."

Long Weekend at Home

Well, I got to go home from Wed-Sunday. Was awfully nice. We went to see a brain exhibit at the NC Natural Science museum. It was probably more interesting to me and mom than my dad and sister. Now I'm back, I have my essays done, even though I spent 5 hours Monday at the car place getting brakes. I had 3 warped rotors. Needless to say, driving is a lot better now. I got a new monitor last night. So nice and bright... almost blinding. I can't believe I've been living in the dark for so long.

Here's some pictures from the weekend at home.

Coming Home is Wonderful! & The Curse of Money

I'm at home for a few days, what I'll call my "spring break" I guess. I still haven't written my essays for my midterm exam in healthcare policy class but who cares. I haven't felt like it. It's nice to finally be away from school with my parents. I think the older you get the more you appreciate them; their wisdom, their love, their home, their advice. I've got a really good set.

If somebody actually did take the responsibility of being my financial respresentative, here's something else for you to keep track of. Would you like to take on the federal government? I just found out yesterday that I owe the IRS $492. Maybe I should have recovered a little more from my $500 car repair before I let myself find out how much I owed the government. Thank goodness this is the last year I'll be filing as a dependent making an adult wage...

7 Days + 56 hours (at least) + 11 patients (at least) = TIRED

No, that's not overtime, it's technically over two weeks, but it sure feels like it... It's a good thing I have off for a week cause I don't think I could stand to go in to work again anytime soon. I've had some really bad days at work this week. Sunday I took a break for 17 minutes all day long to wolf down my food (which is highly unusual). Yesterday I went in to pick up the patients of the RN that leaves at 3 (just to be NICE to the other nurses I work with and make a few exra $$'s) and walked into a confused combative nursing home patient with a kink in his intestines causing everything you think that might cause. By the time I'd left at 8:30 last night we'd put tubes in both ends trying to relieve pressure and I'd almost gotten punched in the head 5 times trying to do it. Another patient I've had all week has multiple personality disorder and wants her morphine and has been very difficult with all the nurses and doctors. Refusing medication, everything. I think her husband gave me a bag of candy because he felt sorry for me. He was calling me the "quarter back." You know something's wrong when the doctors come out of the room, look at you and go "I'm sorry, she's psycho" while they twirl a finger around by their head. In the words of Lauren Clifton (the night shift nurse) "I'm over it!" We decided both of us had had enough of her and I think we both told her straight, albeit nicely. I've had a retarded Orange Grove patient and admitted 2 hospice patients this week. One day I sent 4 people out to various places in one day, 3 in the span of 2 hours. This week has been an exercise in extreme patience for me. I suppose this week has made me a better nurse and nurses say that these things come in cycles, in other words, I shouldn't have another week from purgatory for awhile.

If every week was like this week, I don't think I could stay at this job or in nursing for that matter. But fortunately there are windows of hope in all this running my head off and difficult patients. No matter how you are feeling you put on a smile and are pleasant when you walk into the "good" patients rooms and they help to give you the boost you need to make it through the other rooms. It makes me feel badly though when I don't get to give the good patients the time they deserve because "I want my morphine shot" lady is hounding me every 5 minutes.

So now I finally get to go home. How wonderful... Mom sent me on a $75 shopping trip to the VM yesterday. I'm sure a bunch of kids do that before spring break. I haven't gotten any of my midterm for Health Care Policy written. How can you write when you're tired and come home totally wound up every night? I'm taking it home with me. I think one of the greatest things about today is that I get to be OUTSIDE in the SUNLIGHT all day. When you work 12 hours you don't get to see the sun for days at a time. Funny how little things like that become so amazing to you.

In other news, Carrie's digital camera has been the bright spot in both our weeks I think. She's making me want one, but I have to get a newer computer first so I'll have somewhere to store the pictures. And that computer is coming next week! Anthony's building it for me. So that's something to look forward to.

Sabbath again...

This week has been very busy. I worked a full time week (Sunday-Wednesday-Thursday) and was busy doing homework the other days I was off. I still need to actually write my research paper/essays for my midterm in HealthCare Policy. I was just too tired to do it yesterday. I sat here and stared at the screen most of the day in between talking to 5 people online and doing housework. Now I work Sunday Monday, spend Tuesday doing homework and possibly working another 4 hours and then go home on Wednesday.

Tuesday we surprised Carrie with a surprise dinner with the Heilmans at Olive Garden. She knew we were going to Olive Garden but didn't know they would be there. On the way into the parking lot she spotted Ryan's car in the adjoining Toys-R-Us parking lot and said "Isn't that Ryan's car?" and then proceeded to call him on her cell phone. Ryan was already inside sitting at a table. Fortunately Ryan was able to play it off all the way until she sat down at the table and realized they were there too and she was still on the phone with Ryan. It was fun. Last night we went to the Heilmans house for waffles before they head to Colorado for ski trip.

Today it's early church (Hollie is singing) and maybe Sabbath School then coming back to make something with potatoes since the ones we have need to be used. We're so used to going to the Heilman's on Sabbath this is totally out of sinc. We'll probably go do something with Hollie tonight.