Thank God I Work In A Hospital!

Apparently...I'm severely (deathly) allergic to shellfish (i.e.shrimp).

I had just finished my third round of assessments on my babies for the night, and was getting really hungry. I had just received a complimentary meal ticket to the hospital's cafeteria, and had not had time to pack a lunch that night (I had sworn off eating from the cafeteria, but figured I'd make an exception so as not to waste money). I saw only 1 item that looked like food (shrimp pasta salad-including noodles, garlic, peas, tomatoes, pepper, and shrimp). I eat shrimp SO often, so I never would have thought to be careful around shrimp (shellfish). I was eating in the break room alone, and after only 5 minutes of eating, I thought, "Gosh, I can't swallow the rest of the food towards the back of my mouth! That's so weird." I took a drink, and realized as I palpated the inside of my mouth, that my lymph nodes were swollen so tightly all the way up both of my cheeks (like large alveolar sacs), and on both sides of the very back of my throat, the lymph nodes were also incredibly swollen. As I tried to swallow my milk, I had some difficulty. I left the break room and asked my charge nurse to get some benedryl from the supervisor. I barely got that tiny little pill down, as I could barely close my mouth. I was so embarrassed as the milk dribbled down my chin. I thought to myself, "I can shake this off." I walked out on the unit to get back to my babies, and the nurses began to stare at me and get really worried. I was talking funny. I could barely close my mouth, and my tongue was now very swollen. They each said my face looked swollen, and that I was talking funny. They said it looked like I had just gotten out of the dentist's office after major mouth surgery.
I walked back to my patients, but by the time I began my next task, my throat started to close up and tighten, and I was having trouble swallowing and started to experience shortness of breath, and was making small gasps. I told our charge nurse that I was pretty sure I needed something else. Everyone around us rushed around picking up my assignment and helping out in charting and the charge nurse quickly rushed me down to ER. As I walked in, I was put in triage while they asked me questions and such. My throat tightened a little more, and finally was put in a room, given the lovely open-backed gown, and into bed I went. I started to shake uncontrollably all over my body. I was embarrassed because I could not stop it myself. She brought in two heated blankets, and that helped. But you could still the blankets just vibrating and making small jumps from the shaking. She started an IV after she gave me an IM injection of Epinephrine (a major drug!-used in code situations). I had just finished asking her if it would make my heart race, knowing that it probably would. Within minutes, my heart rate skyrocketed. I was trying so hard to fall asleep, because I was so hyped up. I felt as though my body were running a marathon, but I wasn't going anywhere...and I couldn't calm myself down, or stop shaking. I could feel my heart beating wildly all over my body, in my legs, my stomach, my ears, my knees...I was mildly groaning as I tossed my head back and forth trying to calm down. As she started my IV and infused the solu-medrol (steriod), and the second dose of benedryl (25mg-meaning I had had a total of 50mg). Being a small-framed girl, this volume of medication into a girl who is not used to taking a lot of medication, I flushed white and was nauseous and then incredibly tired and groggy immediately, yet still in the fast-paced inside world of epinepherine. Finally, I fell asleep. I woke up what felt like a few minutes later, when in fact it had been 3 hours. Right before I fell asleep, I slurred a quick update to my mother (after 6 tries to the home phone before my charge nurse woke her up) and another quick call to Adam so that he could drive me home later). They kept me for 4 1/2 hours.
My co-workers were amazing! They took such great care of me. My charge nurse promised she would sit with me until I fell asleep. And she definitely kept her promise. She a really good friend, and a lot like an older sister, I would imagine. It was so great having her there! Then, my best friend at work Elizabeth stopped down to see me later, and even went to pick up Adam to get him to the hospital so he could drive me home.
I finally awoke to Adam's knock on the door. I was really ready to go home by this time. I had been at the hospital even over my 12 hour shift. And my body was so weak and shaky from all the medication. The doctor released me and I awaited the nurses to come in. I'm such a bad patient. I got up out of bed, folded all of the linen I had been laying on, including the blankets, changed into my clothes, disconnected myself from the monitor and all my leads, turned the monitor off, and began to tear the tape off of my reseal. I really can't remember the ride home, sweet gracious Adam....
So, I crashed into bed, and slept until 4pm. I still don't have much energy, and my heart still races when I was cleaning the house today (*smile* yes, I can't help but do that), but my throat isn't tight, no respiratory residual effects, no swollen lymph nodes anymore, and I'm well rested.
Well, it just goes to prove my motto: drama follows me everywhere.
New motto: no more seafood for a while....that freaked me out!

Themes in life...

As life ever changes, there are always new transitions, and they normally don't happen in the order you expect they would. The picture above is of a friend. I was curious if you could catch the "pregnancy glow" in a picture. I'm not so sure if depends on the person interpreting the picture, but I think she's "glowing". This picture depicts one theme in my life that I am transitioning into now. I will be an aunt a little over a week after my 24th birthday. My little sister is due on March 28th. I am very excited. Funny, but it's kind of hard to watch all of the "firsts" for our family and for my parents, happen for Bethany, instead of me....well, I guess the second child needs her time too *smile*!














I went home for a few days last week to help out with a family garage sale. When I was there, I had an overwhelming batch of childhood memories flood my head. With each memory, there was a picture of a place that triggered my memory. This picture is a neighbor's house down the road. If I had taken a picture of myself next to it every year, you would be able to see the aging of this fence. I used to go on bike rides by myself, and lean up against this wooden fence with whatever book I was reading at the time. I remember reading "Wuthering Heights" here...and while reading, inevitably their horse would wander out into the yard near the fence where I sat, and play with my hair. The horse has passed since then, and I haven't frequented the fence in a while, but when I passed by it on the weekend, I stopped on the side of the road and got out to take the picture. As the theme of new life and childhood in my life recently, the childhood memories continued...















I used to love watching the shifting shade under that tree by the fence...no shade is the same it seems, but this one seemed to trigger my memory.















This field is filled with soybeans, but every other year, it is filled with corn. I used to walk down the aisles with my eyes closed and walk just a little faster and faster, and then run with my arms stretched out, so they brushed the edges of the corn stalks and tickled the tips of my fingers. I always wanted a picture of that memory...too bad I cannot paint myself in. I have never been much of a painter...oh, how I wish I could.















These tracks are an inseperable part of my memory. It is just down the road from my house. When I had had a bad day, as a young girl, I would call up my best friend who lived on the next street over. She and I knew of a secret creek under the tracks just down the way. It was halfway between my road and hers. We would make plans to meet each other there. I would skip down the tracks, stepping only on the boards, or balancing on the steel. And then we would meet and jump down below. We would roll up our pants and take off our shoes, and wade in the creek looking for treasures...and when we would hear a train coming, we would run to sit on the rocks under the tracks, and then we would cover our ears and look at each other and laugh. One day, Erin wasn't at home. I had a really bad day. I ran down the tracks, and jumped down to those rocks and cried...just when I was about to leave, I heard a train coming...I remember I didn't even cover my ears. I smiled and watched the underbody of each of the boxcars pass and it calmed me. I loved it there.

This is a road over from ours. I think after I left for China, I came back, not with a hate for the United States, but with a eye for the beauty I grew up around. I didn't have the perfect childhood, but I think it has been beautiful.

The Lament of the figment of a friend...

Oh, halfway and half-hearted are thee, my friend.
Ears clap closed as soon as I might have needed you,
Crying muted through my teeth,
You shunned all the hope I could keep.
When I learned how to love,
You broke, and you tore, and you ripped away at any joy
I could feel...
Till I fell,
To the floor of the dreams I had stored....
Waiting to share them with a friend,
Only to find a bitter heart refusing to mend,
And so I reveled, cried, and learned on my own.

And NOW you say you want to share...
Over your stale coffeehouse stare,
With your unlistening ears.
All I serve is to hear your empty joy,
To cheer and to support all the same things I was dying to tell.
Do I play the dutiful friend,
To bend to your needs and tend to your heart?
Or do I freeze and push away...
Because I question whether you ever cared at all.
It's overwhelming to find...
That I've only just realized;
I can't remember when I ever had a friend.

It's amazing to me how transparent people can be with their false concern. I've never really had many friends...growing up...when I was in high school or college...because all I thought was real of friendship, spit in my face...I guess I'm partly to blame, because I close off too soon, as soon as I've been hurt. Oh well...off to bed for me after the 7th day in a row of working...with a lot of drama between coworkers and a few new employees they have been trying to put through orientation, and a sad night last night to end on. The baby that I am the primary nurse for is getting sick...my gut tells me she's not going to do well today. Oh...and to add to my morning:

I'm an aunt!

So, goodnight and good day...I hope it rains...rainy days are my favorite days to sleep on!

A reading from White Nights, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

" For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And meanwhile your soul is all the time craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!...Do you know that I'm forced now to celebrate the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was once so dear to me, but which never really existed? For I keep this anniversary in memory of those empty, foolish dreams! I keep it because even those foolish dreams are no longer there, because I have nothing left with which to replace them, for even dreams, Nastenka, have to be replaced by something! Do you know that I love to call to mind and revisit at certain dates the places where in my own fashion I was once so happy? I love to build up my present in harmony with my irrevocably lost past; and I often wander about like a shadow, aimlessly and without purpose...And you ask yourself-where are your dreams? And you shake your head and murmur: how quickly time flies! And you ask yourself again-what have you done with your time, where have you buried the best years of your life? Have you lived or not? Look, you say to yourself, look how everything in the world is growing cold. Some more years will pass, and they will be followed by cheerless solitude, and then will come tottering old age, with its crutch, and after it despair and desolation. Your fantastic world will fade away, your dreams will wilt and die, scattering like little yellow leaves from the trees. Oh, Nastenka, what can be more heartbreaking than to be left alone, all alone, and not have anything to regret even-nothing, absolutely nothing, because all you've lost was nothing, nothing but a silly round zero, nothing but an empty dream!"
" 'Don't ', said Nastenka, wiping a tear which rolled down her cheek, 'please don't! You'll make me cry if you go on like that. All that is finished! From now on we shall be together. We'll never part, whatever happens to me now.' "

I love rainy days...





















I love the willow tree outside of my bedroom window...





















I love that he loves my family...




















I love old fences...




















I used the hood on my camera for this shot...















I love the ivy climbing this building...















I love this picture of my sister, Emily....also used the hood on this shot. She's so beautiful.

What defines a mother? The things she does, or simply the role she plays...what if both do not match up?

Tonight, I had to tell a mother that she would not be taking her daughter home with her. I might as well have been CPS.

On one hand, I've seen the way she has ruined her chance of keeping her baby...a sixteeen year old mother...the drugs she did while pregnant, the way she was careless in whom she chose to conceive with (a man who is in jail for abuse and drug addiction- approximately 30 years old)...the unkempt appearance and disregard for safety...and the few and far between days she visited her daughter...the days and days that went by that she was in my arms, looking toward the door, for the woman who held her in the womb. Who never showed up...so she resigned herself to my arms, I thought...the days the chair beside her crib or isolette remained empty; alone.

But no matter how much my mind agrees that this is the best, and she needs better care... I cannot detach completely from the agony of a mother losing her child...more painful, I believe....is watching another mother take your place...take your child...erase the memory of you....

As she walked in, she saw the bags of her clothes packed up, sitting in the carseat she had brought in for her daughter...the picture of her and the father missing at the bedside, also packed up with her things....a teddy bear from the foster mother in it's place. She wept and looked painfully at me. I winced and said helplessly, "I'm so sorry...this must be so hard." And then proceeded to explain to her what was happening. She left with her carseat in hand....empty....she was so hopeful that she would have her daughter returned to her....and yet, again, I was hesitant....

Oh, how painful...at least she is this: always her mother, always a mother!

And like my job isn't enough...what am I doing? I am watching Discovery Health...Trauma in the ER...Mystery Diagnosis...and various medical tragedy shows. Is it the insatiable drive in me to FIX, FIX, FIX everything around me...to help, to remedy, to heal? Or do I thrive on pain and affliction because I watch the unexplainable happen in the midst...I love what I do...I live for what I do...I was made for what I do!

To be a part of the unexplained beauty of things that can only be called divine...

The other day, as I was driving frantically home to Indiana through the beautiful hills of West Virginia....(after a long-overdue vacation with the family in North Carolina)...I made a phone call to the man who suffered a heart attack on my flight to Beijing. I called to see how he was doing. It was a long overdue phone call and I felt guilty for even calling...I really did care and think of him often.

The response startled me...Edward sighed and sounding full of emotion, he said, "Thank you so much! You saved my life!" He thanked me over and over again, as if each exclamation wasn't adequate enough. No self-abasement would have deterred his whirlwind of praise and thanksgiving. He begged me for my address, so that he could send me flowers...and then he told me of all the tests he had undergone since our fated meeting on the plane. The same tests I had carefully explained to him that he should request. He had followed every word from my mouth as if it were the map for his life. He did, in fact, go straight to the hospital when we landed in China, and he had several tests conducted on his heart since then, including a regular cardiologist who now follows his heart condition very closely.

Edward spoke of how he had just returned from China, and that his wife wanted so badly to talk with me and thank me. Just then, I heard commotion in the backgroundand he said he wanted to hand the phone to his wife and other relatives. Voices clamoured over the phone, shouting excited "thank-you"s and "you saved his life" and other sweet combinations of thankfulness. Again, overwhelmed, I muttered "you're welcome" with a smile hanging on my voice. His wife's lovely, thickly-accented voice begged me to come and visit and stay with them in Washington, asking me to keep in touch, and hopfully to connect in China someday. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest for the excitement of hearing that Chinese slur and the familiar open arms of Chinese hospitality...welcoming me...I stranger to them....

And as I sat there, denying that it was all my doing...I thought...you know, if I saw nothing divine, nothing beautiful, nothing redeeming, nothing miraculous and beyond explanation in this world, then I would never have had the inclination or the desire to do anything good...I think I would have then given up on the world.

...But I do! I do see those things, and it's the spark of awe I retreive from those experiences which cause my soul to want to reply in like fashion...to join...to be a part of that! No, no, I am not divine...but oh, to be a small part of the divine that happens under our hands...under our hearts, covered only by our "reason"; sensibility...