After an almost one year hiatus, I am back to bloggin'. Some of you know why I had to make my blog private for a while.. it seems as though the dust has cleared so I am peeking my head out from underneath my proverbial rock.
I am oddly comforted by looking at my day planner with all those perfect little folders and calendars filled with multi colored inks and highlighting.
Let's see, what's new.. still taking classes, started a new job with my hospital in which I split my time with bedside care and IT. I joined 4 committees and I am chairing one. I am enjoying my role in making a difference for my patients and colleagues and I definitely feel like I am growing cognitively and professionally.
I'm tired.
The kids are getting bigger and more independent each day and I am astonished at how quickly the time is passing. I'm turning 40 in less than a month and I don't understand how that's possible. 40 is how old my parents are NOT ME!
I don't sleep well.
My mind races with possibilities and programs and positive impacts I can have on patients.. on entire populations, really. I think about things I learned in class, a funny thing a patient said, the proud look on my kids' faces when they do something they are happy to have accomplished.
I hate decorating my house and spending money on furniture.
I realize with an odd mix of vulnerability and pride that when my teacher says the name of a disease, faces of people who have been diagnosed with said disease immediately pop into my head and their observations about what it's like having it also come to mind. It's a blessing and a curse to be a big picture thinker when dealing with life and death because it's never as simple as giving a pill or looking at trends in labs.. it's thinking about how a newly diagnosed diabetic is at the wedding of a niece and is suddenly scared of eating cake for the first time in his life. It's someone who is dealing with pain 24/7 and getting slapped with the label of "drug seeker" and begins mistrusting healthcare workers. It's a morbidly obese woman who is so big she can't even roll from side to side on her own to get cleaned up and who feels that she's less of a person because of years of insults and people looking down on her. It's a woman with end stage cancer too weak to even stand and pivot to use a commode and who's being pumped with diuretics that are not only draining her body of excess fluids but of rest when all her tired body wants to do is sleep but she doesn't want to sit in urine-- and the family in total denial who wants to send her to rehab to regain that strength when her weakness is from end stage disease.
Sounds horribly depressing, right? The kicker? I get involved in all of this.. with all of these patients and families and I think I get to do this!
I could live off cranberry orange scones from Wegman's and Sushi from my favorite place in town. And beer and wine.
Welcome back to my world! :)
