Lately...

Things have been so weird lately... so much has gone on... so many decisions have been made... so much confusion has been issued. I am ready to graduate and get settled in whatever I'm going to be doing for the next year/ couple of years, however long God is going to keep me in that place.

School hasn't been that bad this semester. I got my preceptorship in the open heart surgery unit at Shelby Baptist in Alabaster. It's not what I wanted... but I've actually ended up liking it. I had to move back home to Albertville in May, which I wasn't happy about, but God has used it to show me what amazing friends I have. Beth, Meghan, and Anna have allowed me to stay in their places multiple times this semester during the week, so I won't have to get up at 3:30 AM to get to clinical in time. I do love them for that reason!! I've also grown closer to some of my Albertville friends, since being home more.

Lately, I feel like I've been having to make way too many decisions!! Where do I want to live? Where do I want to work? What do I want to do with my life? To make it even harder, an opportunity came up a few weeks ago for me to spend a few months in Niger after graduating to live and work in a children's home. If you are like, "whaaaaat?" I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. I hardly told anyone. I wanted to do this SO badly. At first, I thought that I would actually be staying for more like a year and that maybe possibly the IMB would help with funding a little bit. Then I learned that I would have to raise the money and be there by August, so... hence we dropped to just a few months! lol. I talked to the girl in Africa who would be my teammate, and then took a week to pray about it. I wanted to go and do this so badly, but no matter how much faith I tried to have about raising the money or how excited I was, I could not feel peace in my heart about going. Which made me feel even worse. I emailed the missionaries today and told them that I had decided to not come. I will explain more of my reason for this later, but here are the four kids that live there. There are also about 10 kids that come there everyday. The orphanage is a project the church in Niamey is starting. They eventually want to have activities for the kids each week. They want to teach them French and teach them different skills. This way when they grow up, they will have a better chance at doing well in Niger. It is very hard to find a job in Niger, so if they grow up speaking French and having special skills, they will do great. The church also wants to teach the kids about Jesus, in hopes that as they grow physically, they'll also grow spiritually.

The two girls' names are Nadia and Rebecca and the boys' names are Abdulah and Ishmael. I hope when I go back to Niger in August, I'll maybe be able to go and meet these kids. They have a special place in my heart, even though I've never met them. Part of me wants to not go there in August though, I think it'll make me feel even worse about choosing to not go and work with them. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made... I'm still not okay with it... happy about it... settled. I know the decision is made, but I'm still trying to find a way to work around what I know God has told me. I don't understand God at all sometimes. I really don't, but something inside always tells me that he's trustworthy. He's been there for me in ridiculous times before, so I know this will work out right. They still need someone to work for these kids... so... if you want to go... let me know!

In the middle of all this, I'm still looking for a nursing job, trying to figure out where I'd like to work. I really want to work at Children's Hospital in Birmingham, but there are no openings right now. This past week, on Thursday and Friday, I got to shadow at Children's. On Thursday, I shadowed in the hematology/oncology unit and on Friday in bone marrow transplant. I had such an amazing 2 days, and want so badly to work with kids with cancer. A few highlights... on Thursday I learned early not to assume the gender of a younger bald kid. I called a 3 year old girl, a boy... lol! I learned that I'm not crazy for my obsession about kids with cancer. There was a baby on the unit that was just so adorable. One of the nurses said, "He's so cute now, just imagine how adorable he'll be bald!" :) Friday, on bone marrow transplant I got to shadow a nurse who was taking care of a 9 year old who had his transplant the day before. He got his transplant from his big sister.

He was SUCH a cute kid. Baseball and football stuff was ALL over his room. He was really sick and throwing up when I first got there, and that was hard to watch. I mean you know it happens with kids with cancer from the chemo, but it's different when it's a kid you know right in front of you. We got him some medicine and he got to feeling better though. The nurses were telling me some of the things he'd done since being on the unit. These kids that get transplanted usually stay on the unit for about a month. And they have no immune system eventually, so they CAN'T leave. They can't even go to fun events in the hospital like other kids can. Well, the nurse told me that one day he walked out of the room and said, "Jessica (one of the nurses) doesn't shave her arm pits." They were all like what? And about that time she walked out of the med room. He repeated it, and she said, "YES I DO!!" Then he said, "she bent over me and I SAW black dots!!" :D Then one time he was playing guitar hero in his room. One of the nurses was in there, and she bent over and a bit of her crack showed I guess. He started singing about blue moons to the song he was playing! :D Then while I was there, he took off his heart monitor leads and put them on his head. His dad said, "Take those off now... we don't know what's coming off of them... don't want a brain tumor" LOL!! I LOVE these kids and families.

I heard about some hard stuff with the kid though. When they get transplants they have to get crazy doses of chemo for over a week. Most of the time they get 2 kinds of chemo on the same day. These doses are about 10x the level of what a normal kid gets just to treat cancer. The doses of chemo are lethal, so if for some reason the transplant doesn't work, then they will loose the kid. But they give the kids a calender that has what days they get chemo up until the transplant. The last day before the transplant, they usually don't get any chemo, and the calender says, "The day of rest." This poor 9 year old looked at that calender, and thought that the day of rest was the day he was going to die. Also, while I was there he had to get a really small dose of chemo. When the nurses give chemo they have to wear blue gloves and gown to protect them. When the nurse came in to give his chemo, he saw her, and said, "WHATS. THAT.?" We all had to just be like it's okay... this is such a small dose, and it's nothing compared to what you've had to do before." Yellow syringes and IV bags with yellow fluid are the worst thing for these kids to see.

I absolutely loved the past 2 days though. I want to work with kids with cancer so badly, but there are not openings at Children's right now... no openings in the entire hospital to be exact. I'm also thinking about where I want to live. I've thought about huntsville, albertville, birmingham, tuscaloosa, etc. Of course, some of these depending on where I get a job. I really wanted to save some money and move back to bham as soon as I could, but last night, God told me once again that he wants me to stay in Albertville for a bit. I have some good friends in Albertville, but it's not the same as my friends in Birmingham. Maybe part of it is because I haven't been around as much, maybe it will take time... I don't know. But last night I went to this event in Boaz - right beside albertville. I just went because 10th ave north was playing and because the youth group needed chaperones. But the event was called, "Recovery on the Mountain". I live on Sand Mountain, also known as "meth mountain." It's so bad here that A&E even did a special on our county. Last night, God showed me that he wanted me to stay in Albertville, instead of trying to move somewhere else. Not what I would have picked, but I'm excited to see what he has for me to do here. I don't really know why He wants me to stay. Luckily, continuing to live with my parents the entire time was not part of this revelation. So, Jennifer will soon be getting herself a little quaint home of her own. I love my parents, a lot, but living with them as a 22 year old who has lived on her own the past 4 years is not too much fun.

So... now I just have to find a job.

Matthew 6:5-8

Prayer... I need a lot of work on it. Really, I just need to learn everyday to make it a priority. Because I need to talk to God, and I need to sit at his feet and listen for his voice. It's great when I take the time, and really have communion with God. But most of the time I don't ever get to the secret place that Jesus describes in Matthew 6:5-8.

"Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. I assure you: The've got their reward! But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don't babble like the idolaters, since they imagine they'll be heard for their many words. Don't be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him."

It's shameful to say that sometimes when I pray, I'm just praying because I know it's what I'm supposed to do. I'm having a problem or someone else is hurting or I want something, and I've been taught since I was little to pray, so I pray. But a lot of times, I think the kind of praying I do is pretty close to the "babbling" and "standing in the synagogues and on the street corners" that Jesus talks about in Matthew. I just yearn for my prayers to be honest and true, and just plain pure time spent with God. I want my prayers to be about God and his glory, because that's when prayers will be answered. I want them to be full of faith.

Ephesians 6:18, "With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the spirit, and stay alert in this, with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints." Right before this verse, Paul is talking about the spiritual armor that we need to wear as followers of Christ. I am so tired of my prayers being about going down a list, or remembering that I meant to pray for this thing three days ago, and now I'm going to... a couple sentences. Prayer is talking to the God of the universe. It's about speaking up in the middle of a battle. That's what it is, and I often just treat it like a journal entry or something.

I know a few people, who are amazing prayerers. For them, their time in prayer is time spent in the middle of a battle zone. They are serious, they're for real. I want that. I want that everyday. Some examples?

1 Timothy 5:5 says, "The real widow, left all alone, has put her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers." James 5:16-18 says, "...The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit."

Sometimes I feel so far from God, but it's probably because I don't have a ton of times of pure communion with Jesus. Jesus just says in Matthew to get alone, throw off your selfishness, and just come to him. He even says that you don't have to know what to say. I think that's why messes me up sometimes. I'm so frustrated or so upset about something, and I've ran over it and over it in my head, and talked to other people about it, and by the time that I decide to talk to God about it, I'm so confused I don't even know what to pray for. But Jesus says, "your father knows the things you need before you ask him." That's awesome. Because most of the time I don't know what I want, much less what I need.

I also wanted to share something from a book I've been reading. It has nothing to do with prayer... sorry haha! I've been reading, "Crazy Love". It's an amazing book; I highly recommend it. I wanted to share some of the stories that are shared in the next to last chapter. I hope this isn't illegal... :-/ These stories are pretty much just about people who had/have crazy love for Jesus and for other people. The cool thing about reading these after reading Crazy Love, is that you don't really think these people are that crazy anymore. It's more like "man, what am I doing in my life?"

Nathan Barlow:
A medical doctor who chose to utilize his skills in Ethiopia for more than sixty years, Nathan dedicated his life to helping people with mossy foot. Mossy foot is a debilitating condition primarily found in rural districts, on people who work in soil of volcanic origin. It causes swelling and ulcers in the feet and lower legs. The subsequent deformity, swelling, repeated ulcerations, and secondary infections make people with mossy foot social outcasts eqivalent to lepers.
I met Nathan shortly before he died. His daughter, Sharon Daly, attends my church and brought him to her home from Ethiopia when his health started to fail. After only a few weks, he couldn't handle being in the states. The people he loved were still in Ethiopia, so his daughter flew him back home so he could spend his last days there.
Once, Nathan got a toothache, the pain of which was so intense that he had to fly away from the mission field to get medical attention. Nathan told the dentist that he didn't ever want to leave the mission field for the sake of his teeth again, so he had the dentist pull out all of his teeth and give him false ones so he wouldn't slow God's work in Ethiopia.

Jamie Lang:
When Jamie was twenty-three years old she flew from the US to Tanzania with $2000 from her savings account. She planned to stay until she ran out of money, at which point she would come home. Jamie was overwhelmed by all of the need that she encounteed, so she started praying that God would allow her to make a radical difference in one person's life. After about six months she met an 8 year old girl at church who was carrying a baby on her back. Jamie learned that the baby's mother was dying from AIDS and that she was too weak to care for him. Jamie began to buy formula for the little boy, Junio, to provide him with the nutrtion he desperately needed. At the time, he was half the size of a healthy baby.
Jamie fell in love with baby Junio. She wondered if she was being foolish, a barely twenty-four year old, single, white American, entertaining thoughts of adopting a baby. Besides, she didn't even know if Tanzania allowed internatonal adoptions. Eventually, she discovered that the country didn't, but however, because she had lived there for over 6 months, she could establish residency.
Before Junio's mom died from AIDS, she came to jamie and said, "I have heard how you are taking care of my son, and I have never known such a love. I want to be saved."
Junio is now 5 years old, totally healthy, and HIV negative. Since adopting Junio, Jamie has gotten married, had a little girl, and is moving back to Tanzania with her family to work with Wycliffe to translate the Bible for a group that has never heard it before.

The Robynson Family:
This family of five, with 3 kids under the age of 10, chooses to celebrate the birth of Christ in a unique way. On Christmas mornings, instead of focusing on the presents under the tree, they make pancakes, brew an urn of coffee, and head downtown. Once there, they load the coffee and food into the back of a red wagaon. Then, with the eager help of their three-year-old, they pull the wagon around the mostly empty streets in search of homeless foks to offer a warm and filling breakfast on Christmas morning. All three of the Robynson kids look forward to this time of giving a little bit of tangible love to people who otherwise would have been cold and probably without breakfast. Can you think of a better way to start the holiday that celebrates the God who is love?

A Very Long Update

I'm so glad that I only have about 4 weeks left of this crazy semester!! I have learned a lot this semester, and I have really loved my clinicals. I only had four pediatric clinicals in cardiac surgery, and I really miss working with kids!! I really hope to get a preceptorship at Children's, because I am looking forward to working with sick kids again. It is so rewarding and so much fun!

I actually have really enjoyed the trauma/burn unit too. I had my first burn patient the second week of clinicals. The burn dressing team had just debrided and dressed him, and as I was going into his room for the first time, they asked me if I just wanted to hook him back up to everything. I said, "Sure!" because I've done it tons of times. But this poor guy was burned over his entire body. I didn't even know where to put his blood pressure cuff? Thankfully the nurse came in, and taught me where to put everything. Then I had to try to get used to the smell. It was terrible, and I kept smelling it all weekend long! Then after my dinner break, I went back in the room to check on him, and he was in so much pain. All he said was, "Help, I hurt." But I can't tell you in words how terrible it made me feel. Then later that night, the nurse and I had to do face care. He was burned on his face, but at UAB they don't put dressings on the face. You have to take gauze soaked in saline, and clean his poor raw little face. You also have to use the gauze to loosen up any dead tissue and pull it off. So... by the time I left that clinical, I had decided that I never wanted to work with a burn patient again, and that it was too traumatic and I just couldn't do it.

But I had more burn patients. And now... I would much rather have a burn patient then a trauma patient. I really enjoy working with them. But it is very sad. Many of them lay in the hospital for months and months in pain and end up dying anyway. In ICU last week, my patient had been burned on 78% of her body. Her house caught on fire, and her only way out was to run through the fire. It was terrible, every family member or friend that came to see her walked out of the room crying. They made the decision while I was there to change her to supportive care. Meaning they will keep her on the ventilator, they will do her dressing changes, give her her medications and fluids, but if her heart was to stop they wouldn't code her. I hope that soon they'll decide to take her off the ventilator and move her to palliative care.

I went to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital on Monday!! Of course, it is a hospital that only treats pediatric cancers, and it's in Memphis. I've always dreamed about working at this hospital, but the actual visit was kind of anti-climatic. The hospital is super nice, and all the employees are also very nice. There are so many play areas for the kids. There is also a room for teenagers where no one but teenagers and child life specialists can go in this room. No parents, doctors, or nurses. I thought that was cool. I also thought it was cool to see how many bald headed kids were just running around the hospital. They've definitely made themselves at home there! One thing that I'm not sure what I think about is how they get patients. Patients have to be referred by a doctor, but they will only take a patient if that patient qualifies and agrees to participate in one of their clinical trials.

But they are a research hospital, and they are looking for a cure. Their purpose isn't just to treat cancer. Plus, a lot of their patients have such complicated disease processes that they need these clinical trials for another chance. It might be their only option. I just don't know if it's the kind of environment that I would want to work in. Not that I would ever get a job there, it's super competitive.

So, the next few weeks are going to involve lots of studying and school work, lots of stress, and very little social time. I'm so ready for it to be over! I only have 2 clinicals left. Hopefully, we will get to have our lottery for preceptorships for next semester before this semester ends. There are only 10 spots at Children's Hospital. I really want one!!

Nursing School These Days...

I don't think anyone reads this... but it's a good break from clinical paperwork! Not that I have done enough to deserve a break, but I guess procrastination happens!! This semester I have two classes and two clinicals. We have our second adult class, which with the new curriculum is a mix of the old high acuity adult class and the 2nd med-surg class. So, they're teaching us a butt load of crap!! And my other lecture class is pediatrics... only happy words there!!

Then I have two clincals. My adult clinical is in the trauma/burn unit at UAB. I was really excited about this clinical, because I thought that I was interested in trauma and the ER. But now I'm rethinking that... not so much because I don't like it, but because I think I like something else better (I'll get to that later!) My clinical instructor for adult is Dorothea V. Poole... yep... The few times that we interacted with her before we picked our clinicals she seemed like a lot of fun and like she would be pretty laid back. Well, she is a completely different person in clinical. Totally serious and never cracks a joke... and the most intimidating person I have ever been around before in my life!

But then, she is always talking about Jesus! She told us one night after making one girl in my clinical group cry... that the reason she is so hard on us is because this "nursing mission" is a call that God has put on her life, and that she has to answer to God about it, not to us. So... that's cool, but I think she could go about it in a better way. If Jesus was my clinical instructor, I don't think he'd act like she does... Of course, maybe he would just heal everyone and we could go home early!! haha :D

My other clinical is in the pediatric cardiac and thoracic surgery unit at UAB. The more I go to peds clinical the more I love it, and the more I go to peds clinical the more I dislike adult clincal!! For peds clinical I have a R.N. partner instead of a clinical instructor and group. I really like that because I get to care for 3 or 4 patients instead of just one. Most of our heart patients are either babies or toddlers or teenagers. And most of them have some type of congenital heart defect and have to have their first few surgeries very early in life. Then the teens come back for heart transplants because their hearts have started to fail. I haven't gotten to care for a teen yet that was in the hospital to get his or her heart transplant, just those that were back for complications like kidney failure or something like that. I am learning that I really enjoy working with kids that are in the hospital a lot. Like heart kids, or cancer or cystic fibrosis. But... heart stuff is really really complicated! I don't think I have enough of a passion for it to be a pediatric cardiac nurse!

Also this semester I have been volunteering with Relay for Life. I am the survivorship chair for UAB's Relay. So, I am working on getting cancer patients and cancer survivors from UAB and Children's Hospital involved in our Relay. The more I learn about pediatric cancer and talk to peds oncology nurse practitioners and nurses, the more I want to do pediatric oncology. It is kind of what led me to nursing in the first place... I just really think that it is one of my callings in life, and I am excited about getting to the point in my life when God will allow me to help kick some childhood cancer butt!!

A Fun Day at the Fire Station!!

I've noticed lately, that nursing school gives me so many opportunities to do things, that I would never get to experience otherwise. For example, on Tuesday night I got to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Never thought I'd go to one of those. It was just like I thought it would be though! haha, "Hi, I'm Jane, I'm an alcoholic." everyone:"Hi Jane". It was a very interesting experience, but I'm not sure what I think about it. It does help a lot of alcoholics, and it's cool that it's spiritually based, but... I think that they think that their "Big Book" is the bible... but it was a good experience none the less.

Then yesterday, I had my most favorite clinical yet! I got to hang out all day at the fire station and go with the paramedics and firemen on their calls!! It was kind of akward when I first got there, but I ended up having a really fun day. All of the guys were hilarious, and it was just funny watching them interact with each other! I got to go on four calls while I was there. The first was what they call a "BS call". A man called and said that he felt weak because of bee stings that he got 3 days ago... He was actually sitting in a car in his drive way when we picked him up, but his daughter couldn't manage to drive him on to the hospital? One thing I learned yesterday was that a lot of people use the paramedics as a glorified taxi service. I got to do a glucose stick on him though, and I had never gotten to do that before! Simple... I know.

Not long after we got back to the station, the paramedics found out that they were going to get inspected today by the state... surprise! So we went over to Station 1 so the rescue truck could be inspected to make sure that they had everything in the right place. We failed the first time because we didn't have pillows... haha. So, Chris just grabbed some and put them on the truck. So, if you ever are in Bham and find yourself in an emergency situation... while Chris and Vince are trying to get you to stop bleeding, and starting an IV, and putting you on oxygen, you can now rest your head on one of our pillows... but don't get any blood on it, because we're only allowed to have 2!!

We headed back and ate lunch and had some down time. We ate fried bologna sandwiches for lunch!! They asked me before they cooked it if I was a fried bologna girl, and I said sure, but I hadn't had it since I was like 8... I think I hurt their feelings! After lunch, we got a second call that a woman was unresponsive at a nursing home. So, we headed over there and when we pulled up in the rescue truck the firemen there told us to just go back to the station. Chris didn't feel comfortable leaving though without talking to the woman, so we went inside. But then on the way to the room, one of the nurses insisted that we take the woman to the hospital. Though she was alert and oriented x 3 and said that she didn't think she needed to go to the hospital. The nurse had called the woman's daughter though, and told her that her mother was unconcious and that they had called the paramedics, so we had to go ahead and take her to the hospital. It was funny because on the nursing home paperwork, they had written that she went into a full code... but they said that she was only unconcious, but was still breathing...? haha

Not long after getting back to the fire station, we got called on a third call. This one was an automobile accident. At the beginning of the day I told Chris that I hadn't ever gotten to start an IV, so our goal for the day was for me to get to start an IV on someone. So, it was sad because every time a call came in, it was like yay or nay, whether or not they would need an IV haha. We thought that this might be a possible IV, so we headed over there. One of the cool things about the paramedics, is that they really have no idea what they're heading to... all they know is the very basics of what happened. We got to the scene, and the girl wasn't hurt bad. She had just hit her head on the "oh crap" handle. She was alert and oriented x 3 and wasn't sleepy, but she felt dizzy, so we went ahead and took her to the hospital. We just did vitals on her on the way, and watched for any neurological changes.

We went back to the station after that and started watching "I am Legend". Or me and the leutenant watched I am Legend while the guys washed the trucks and cleaned the kitchen, haha. Most of the guys were married, and so they told me about all of their wives. Half of their wives are nurses, so they were like you know you're going to marry a paramedic or a fireman! haha. One of the guys, Jason, his wife works nights and so she always wants him to call her and wake her up. Before calling he was complaining and talking it up about how all he is is an alarm clock and a snooze button, and how he wasn't going to keep doing this, and they were all talking it up, blah, blah, blah. So then he calls her. "Hey sweetie, it's time to get up. You want 10 more minutes... okay honey, I'll call you back in 10 minutes." HAHA! Talk about some funny stuff.

I was about to leave when we got another call. Vince was reading the sheet while it was printing and was like, "All right J. Green! You'll definitely get to do an IV on this one!!" I asked him what it was and he told me a suicide attempt with a knife. We were all complaining all day that we weren't seeing any blood or guts, but now I wasn't sure... So we headed to the lady's house, and my heart broke when we got there. There were kids everywhere! So we walked inside and found the lady in her wheelchair, totally okay! There was a mixup... she was having suicidal ideations to kill herself with a knife, and hadn't actually done it. So, we went ahead and put her in the ambulance to go to the hospital. Chris was like, well, we can tell her that she needs an IV and see if she believes us! haha.

Then we had the problem of figuring out what hospital to take her to. She said she wanted to go to UAB, but UAB and every other hospital were on diversion for psych patients. The only hospital accepting psych patients was Brookwood. Chris said that it's always like this, that hospitals never want psych patients. She still wanted to go to UAB though, so it's considered kidnapping if you take them to another hospital, so we went ahead to UAB. And just to mention, UAB has the largest ED I have ever seen... it was crazy!! But since they were on diversion for psych patients, we had to wait until they would take her. Chris and Vince said that they have had to wait for 2 hours before with a psych patient. I think that's terrible and one reason that psych patients keep coming to the hospital. It's almost like everyone is constantly trying to tell them that they don't care... We didn't have to wait long until we got an assignment for her. When we got to that area of the hospital though, one of the nurses over there didn't want her to be there.

The lady has a degenerative disease, and was having some tremors. There wasn't a doctor over there, so she didn't feel comfortable with her being there. So, she called the charge nurse to see if we could move her somewhere else. They couldn't decide what they wanted to do, and were actually really rude to the paramedics, who were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. They had taken a history, found out that she had a degenerative disease... she didn't know the name of it, but she said that she has tremors all the time. So, Chris tells the nurse this, but she still keeps trying to move the patient some where else. She even called Chris an "ambulance driver"... yeah. Anyways, they finally decided to keep her there, and hopefully the lady got to see a doctor soon, and is feeling better today.

After that call, I decided to give up on getting to start an IV and go home. Earlier that day, Chris was even going to let me start an IV on him... haha. He even got all the stuff out and everything, but I thought that might be a little torturous! But I really really loved yesterday. Even though, I never saw a "typical" true emergency, it was a really great experience. I definitely am intersted in ER nursing now, and hope to get to do a clinical either at children's ER or UAB ER. We don't have an ER class or clinical, so we have to try to work it into our peds or high acuity adult if we're interested in the ER. But I have so much more respect for firemen and paramedics now. They do some amazing things, and are some really cool guys!

A Very Interesting Day in the Psych Unit!

I had my third psych clinical Tuesday. I really had not been liking psych clinicals so far, but Tuesday was a lot better! Probably because my very odd instructor actually let us talk to the patients for more then 30 minutes at a time. I talked to three patients yesterday.

First, I talked to a woman who was in the unit because she attempted suicide, and she was depressed. She told me that in 1991 her daughter had a baby, left the baby with her, and then ran away and she's never seen her daughter again. In 2001 she was in an accident and paralyzed from the waste down. One of her children and two of her grandchildren live with her and are financially dependent on her. She said that all of the stress got to be too much, and she didn't want to deal with it anymore. She's doing a lot better though, except for the fact that a nurse the night before had given her another patient's medication with a high level antipsycotic which caused her to sleep most of the day! I won't get in to the very poor nursing care on this unit, maybe another time! It was hard to assess her futhur then what I mentioned before, because she was so sleepy. I did ask her how she was going to deal with the stress when she returned home. She said that she was kicking everyone out of her house except for her 17 year old grandson. Psych is so hard, because even though we are doing everything for her in the hospital: giving her a stable environment, working on her meds, allowing her to express her feelings, we can't control what will happen when she returns home...

Next I talked to another woman who is schizophrenic. She was so sweet and hilarious! First, after group therapy she came up to me and said, "You're Irish aren't you?"
Me: "Am I?!"
Her: "Yes, I can see it in your face, your hair, and especially your aura!"
Me: "Really?"
Her: "Yeah, what's your name?"
Me: "Jennifer Green"
Her: "Green! See, you are Irish!"
Then she just left the room. Later that afternoon during recreational therapy, she came up to me again and said I've seen you somewhere before.
Me: "Yeah, you saw me this morning in group therapy."
Her: "No, before that.... I think that you used to be married to my son."
Me: "No mam, I've never been married before."
Her: "Oh, well... maybe it was my other son!"
You have no idea how hard it is to have conversations like this with people and keep a straight face. You understand that it's because they're sick, but they can be so funny sometimes.

Lastly, I talked to a man who I had met during group therapy that morning. He told everyone in group that he was in the hospital because he's schizophrenic and had been hearing voices telling him to kill his sister, his nease, and himself. He had stopped taking his medicine, and he was hearing the voices enough that he really begin wanting to kill them and even had a plan. By the grace of God, he knew well enough that he needed to be in the hospital, so he had one of his friends from church take him to Carraway. It's a little scary to sit in a room with someone who was planning to commit murder, even if it is because they're sick. Later in the afternoon, I was sitting in the dayroom talking to someone else and he came up and sat beside me. I saw like, oh man... haha! I said hey to him and asked him how he was. The lady I was talking to started talking again, but then the nurse came and got her for meds.

So, I turned around to the guy to talk to him some. He asked me a lot about school and nursing first. Then he said that he was waiting for one of his friends from church to bring him something to eat. I asked him where he went to church, and he started talking about God and his church some. Not very soon he asked me, "Are you a Christian?" so we talked about different ways that God helps us in our everyday lives for a while. Then he started talking about schizophrenia and about the voices that he heard telling him to kill his sister and her daughter. I have never felt this type of sadness for a person before.

He told me that the voices he heard were so strong and so real, and they never went away. He said, it's not just someone talking to you, they're a part of you and a part of your mind. He said that they change your mind, and they really made him want to commit murder. He said that he wanted to kill them so they could all be close together in a pit... But he knew that Jesus didn't die on the cross for him and make him free, so he could go and kill someone and then kill himself. He told me that he still hears those voices some, but his mind is clearer now.

I do not understand hardly anything about psychiatric illness, and especially about schizophrenia. It is amazing to me, to have a conversation with someone about Christ, such a deep conversation, and then hear them talk about how they have voices in their head that almost made them kill someone that they loved. I both hate psych nursing and love it. It makes me so sad, but so happy at the same time. I love talking so openly with people, being a listening ear, and maybe saying something to make them feel better, but I also hate hearing about the chains that their mind have over their lives.

Community Nursing: Faith-based organizations

I had to go to a Faith-based organizations and healthcare seminar on Wednesday for my community nursing class. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say, to see the differences between the different churches, and to see my classmates' responses.

The first person to speak was the Minister of Health and Wellness at Dawson Baptist Church in Birmingham. So, yes... this church actually hired a nurse to provide healthcare to their community. Which is essentially what faith-based community nursing is, faith organizations allowing themselves to be used as a resource and a headquarters for providing healthcare and health education to their church body as well as their surrounding community. Most of what this nurse does at Dawson centers around their church body, which is huge, but mostly your middle-class Christians. Her duties include organizing education classes on health topics from diabetes to depression to prostate cancer. She organizes some some of their human needs ministries, like a food bank, disaster shelter, and other supplies for needy families. She also heads up a emergency response team, so if an emergency was to occur during one of their services or activities. She even runs a dog and cat kennel for when different groups of the church go on retreats... I thought that was weird... haha!

The second group represented was the Congregations for Public Health. They are a group of six African American churches that find themselves in the middle of very poor communites that have little access to healthcare. So, they started this organization, and have partnerships with UAB Public Health and the School of Nursing. Public Health provides them with what they call Community Specialists who assess the community and meet as many health education and treatment needs as they can. The School of Nursing provides students each semester (me!) to go out into the community to do the educating and treating. Then, they have members of their churches, who they call Natural Leaders. Natural Leaders work with the Community Specialists and kind of tie the love of Jesus Christ to the healthcare that is being provided. The way that this organization is set up just seems to work really well, and I'm excited that I'm going to get to be a part of it this semester.

The last person to speak was a former pastor of the Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham. He opened up his presentation talking a lot about social justice. Church of the Reconciler was founded during the civil rights movement, and social justice has always been the heart of this church. Now, they focus on ministering to the homeless, which is perfect since they sit in the middle of five points, where you can always find a group of homeless by the fountain! They have a day program for the homeless where they provide them with a hot meal. But their church staff works one on one with the homeless. They help them with their addictions, getting them into rehabilitation. They take them to the hospital if they have a health problem. They take those with mental illness who are having an active episode to the emergency room, so they can be admitted and treated.

They are working on raising funds to build supportive housing for the homeless which will eventually lead to them conquering their addictions if it applies, and getting a job. He showed a lot of statistics about homelessness. For example, did you know that it would be cheaper for the government to provide supportive housing for the homeless then paying for them to live on the streets. Also, many people stereotype the homeless as those with addictions or mental illness. But a growing number of homeless are familes with children. His church staff had come up with a budget that explained how much money a person in Birmingham would have to have to leave homelessness. It's $3500 cash... I can't remember what all was included in it, but it really did make sense when he explained it. He also made a point that I had never thought about before. Mountain Brook is one of the most wealthy cities in America, and it is right beside some of the poorest areas of the black belt of Alabama. How terribly sad...

He was very open to questions and comments during his presentation. Comments from my classmates included, "I'm not going to help someone who's lying on their butt." to "It's their own fault for starting the addiction in the first place." to "We need to join hands with these people, and see them as that, people." to my instructor saying, "Some of you will embrace this and learn from it, and some of you will put up a wall. And one day when you get that homeless or addicted patient in your hospital bed, you won't understand."

And I agree with her. There are so many complicated reasons for homelessness... and it's so hard to get out of it. My classmates kept saying that all the homeless have to do is get a job or that it's their own fault for being an addict. First of all, you can't get a job if you stink because you have no where to take a shower, or if you don't have a phone number or address, or if you have no transportation. Secondly, how can we judge someone who's life has been taken over by addiction. Obviously, there is some reason that they turned to drugs or alcohol in the first place.

I am deeply saddened that some people in my nursing class feel this way. All they have to do is think about, "What if I was homeless? What if I was addicted to meth? What if I felt like I had no hope?" If they would have stopped and done that, I don't think that such comments would have been made to a man who has devoted the past 30 years of his life to reaching out to the homeless of Birmingham. I don't know how they expect to be able to be caring and compassionate nurses, understanding nurses, if they cannot put themselves into someone else's shoes, and treat every human being with dignity and like a person.