"I was born for a storm, and the calm does not suit me."

Andrew Jackson

Seven years ago, on August 14, 2014, I graduated from the accelerated nursing program at Mid-America Nazarene College in Olathe.  I thought I’d write an update about my nursing, and give those interested a synopsis of my comings and goings for the past seven years.  

Many of you may know that I was diagnosed with breast cancer during my final month of nursing school and had to begin chemo while still in school and completing my clinical practice.  I held fast to the declaration that “All things work together for good”, during six months of chemotherapy, then surgery and radiation. I came to realize that going through cancer treatment made me a kinder, more compassionate nurse. That experience gave me insight into the fear that patients feel when they are being tested and treated for cancer or other life-threatening illnesses, and helped me be more empathetic and caring with my patients.  Seven years later, my scans and tests continue to be completely clear, for which I am very grateful.

After the cancer treatment, I began my nursing career in 2015 on the cardiac unit at Rose Medical Center in Denver, where I was trained by some wonderful, brilliant nurses.  I began travel nursing one year later, in Ketchikan, Alaska, at PeaceHealth Medical Center, where I had unique experiences and met patients that I will never forget as long as I live.  The patient from Alaska that stays in my mind was a jovial guy who owned a charter fishing business, was suffering from COPD and heart failure, and was unable to sleep at night.  He would sit up on the side of his bed all night long and regale me with fishing tales of catching the largest King salmon during the fishing derby in a brand, new boat that he dubbed the 'Lucky Strike'.  I spent the end of that summer listening to his stories, teasing and joking with him, and was so sad to hear that he passed away that fall, surrounded by family in Arizona.  He made a huge impact on me.  I will never forget him.

This past year I was fortunate to take care of a sweet, 97-year old man in Kansas, who told me the story of his first love and how she sang, “You Belong to Me” in his ear on the dance floor.  I held his hands as a surgeon inserted a chest tube to drain the fluid from his failing lungs.  He thanked me later that afternoon, and told me he would never forget me.  And, I know I will never forget him.  He passed away a few weeks later, at his daughter’s home.

In the past seven years of travel nursing, I have worked at eight different hospitals, floated to at least twenty different nursing units at those hospitals, and met kind, caring, helpful, dedicated coworkers and managers.  I have had the privilege of spending some of the last moments of life with many patients and getting to know many, many others, some of which I am friends with to this day.

I have lived in fifteen different houses in the past seven years, some for as short as three months, others for much longer.  I have lived and worked in Alaska, Kansas, Colorado and Washington, including the cities of Ketchikan, Woodinville, Kirkland, Sammamish, Bellevue, Castle Rock, Centennial, Denver, Overland Park and Wichita. 

While working with my patients, I have been called an angel, a friend, a wonderful nurse - and also a useless bitch  - by people from all over the world.  I have taken care of - and held the hands of - patients that were having biopsies – waiting on a cancer diagnoses, post open-heart surgery, post cardiac stent placement, post every type of orthopedic surgery and general surgery, patients with kidney tubes, chest tubes, drains and ostomies and patients getting chemo and radiation placed within their livers, patients having tumors ablated in their kidneys and every other possible diagnosis you can name.

I have had the most heartfelt conversations with patients, who tell me their hopes, their regrets, their fears and their loves. I have held their hands, stroked their arms and hugged them and cried with them.  I have met WWII veterans, Korean war Veterans and Vietnam and Iraq war veterans.  I have loved many of my patients, fallen in love with a few, and prayed for ways to be kind to and tolerant of other more difficult patients. 

I even took care of a patient with the same name, Cathy Latta, and formed a wonderful friendship and bond with my name twin.

The experiences I have had on my days off during these travel nursing jobs are unparalleled, as I have been salmon fishing, mountain climbing, river rafting, hiking and camping, and flown in seaplanes, airplanes and helicopters, ridden in fishing boats, ferries, cruise ships, kayaks and dinghies in some of the most beautiful places in the USA.  I have made many, lifelong friends and been inspired by the dedication and brilliance of other healthcare workers across the western US.

All of this reminiscing from the last seven years is to sum up that I have never had a more difficult career, nor have I ever had a more gratifying job.  I cannot imagine my life without the experiences and privilege of being a nurse and have loved every minute of nursing – even the minutes that I have hated.  I pray that I stay healthy and strong enough to continue this highest of callings for as long as I possibly can.  I have no plans to retire, or even stop travel nursing, as I love the new adventure of learning a new place to live and work and meeting and being inspired by so many kind, caring and dedicated professionals in the healthcare field and having the honor of caring for patients from every walk of life. 

I want to say thank you to all of my friends and family, for your support and friendship and listening ears, when I have been afraid, stressed, overwhelmed and lonely during my travel nursing career.  I would not change a thing that has happened to me over the past eight years and am so grateful for the privilege of being a nurse. 

Traveling in the Light

Earlier this year, I was forced to leave my home in Wichita, Kansas and take a travel nurse position because of COVID-19.  Contrary to what anyone would have predicted during a global pandemic; contract nursing, per diem nursing and travel nursing contracts were terminated in central Kansas as all elective procedures, tests and surgeries were cancelled.  Contributing to the lack of need for contract nurses was that people feared going to the hospital this past spring, and being exposed to COVID-19.

Having travel nursed in the state of Washington the two previous years, I chose the Seattle area as my destination and was fortunate to find a cardiac telemetry contract in an excellent hospital, but for the first time I would be in the "float pool".   Float pool nurses agree to be sent to virtually any unit in the hospital, except for labor/delivery and pediatrics, which are units that require specific training and certification.

My 13 week travel contract was executed with a hospital east of Lake Washington which had 10 different units where I eventually "floated", sometimes three times during a 12 hour shift.  Adding to the stress of residing and navigating in a new city and hospital, was attempting to learn to work on 10 different units in the hospital, including units that cared for COVID-19 patients.  

Float pool nursing requires knowing specific protocols and procedures for each unit, such as the stroke protocols and requirements on the admitting stroke floor in the hospital.  In addition, floating requires learning where all equipment, medication and supplies are kept on each unit, along with the names and jobs of staff from housekeepers to patient care techs, fellow RNs and charge nurses, all whom you have never seen before, and are wearing masks continuously.  

Every morning, I would arrive at the hospital at 6:30 am, don mask and goggles in my car, enter the hospital, answer the obligatory covid questions and have my temperature taken before reporting to the staffing office, where the list of float pool nurses and their assignments was posted on the bulletin board, just like the list of homecoming candidates in high school.  As I walked down the hallway, I prayed for favor and grace in my assignment for the day.  The first days and weeks of this assignment were emphatically the most stressful of my nursing career.

Oftentimes, even though I was on the schedule for the day, my name wasn't on the list and I'd have to enter the staffing office and ask to be assigned for the day.  Frequently as well, I would walk to the unit assigned on the list only to be told I was floating to a different floor on the other side of the hospital.  This was a stressful and anxiety-inducing time because I knew noone on the floors and oftentimes was ignored by the charge nurses when I reported to the units.  I chalked their indifference to the pressures and tension created during the global health pandemic created by the coronavirus.

Many friends checked in with me during the first weeks of my relocation and new assignment and my kind, supportive brother lent a listening ear as I called him from the car every night after my 12 hour shift, processing the highs and lows of my days as a float pool nurse in a new hospital.  

My prayers for favor and grace were heard as I made friends on the various units of the patient care techs, nurses and other travelers who helped me find supplies, locate equipment, figure out how to contact doctors and most importantly deliver care and advocate for my patients.

The single common thread throughout this assignment, which I extended from 13 weeks to a total of 26, were the people who needed care during the tension and uncertainty of a global pandemic, during which visitors were not allowed in the hospital and many patients were afraid for their lives.  Many of my patients expressed their fears and needed a listening ear and comforting touch during their hospital stay.  I was blessed to happily provide these reassurances and thankful that I worked in an essential industry in a job that allowed me to interact freely and closely with others who needed my care.  

I have been thankful each and every day, no matter how trying the assignment I had, for being able to continue to work closely with others and care for the most vulnerable and at-risk people this year.  I am ever grateful to be a nurse and so very humbled to be a part of the force of healthcare providers and essential workers each year, but especially during the challenges and uncertainty of 2020.  

God Moves in Mysterious Ways

God Moves in Mysterious Ways

“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.”

This is just three verses of this beautiful profound hymn that God placed on my heart this week. 

I am a cardiology nurse on a floor where we monitor our patients’ hearts with a wireless telemetry “box” attached to 5 leads on their chest.  We are a cardiac floor, but occasionally cancer patients are admitted to my floor.

I almost always am assigned the cancer patients by chance……   God moves in a mysterious way.  

By God's grace, a beautiful woman was admitted to my floor who had breast cancer 19 years ago and just during the past year, the cancer metastasized to her liver, lungs and brain.  Her comment to me, over and over, as I admitted her last Monday night was, “I can’t do this anymore”.  She was weak, in pain, couldn’t breathe without supplemental oxygen and had a horrible headache that would not go away… most likely from the lesions in her brain.

As I admitted her to the floor, I did everything that I could to make her comfortable.  Earlier this fall, she had agreed to a clinical trial of a new drug for breast cancer metastases, which she believed made her worse.  She was done.   I told her that I had been through treatment for cancer and that I knew a little about the way she was feeling

I got her heated blankets, because when you are on chemo, you are freezing all the time.  I got her extra pillows for her arms, back and bottom, because when you have lost so much weight during chemo, there is no fat on your butt or bones for padding and it literally hurts to sit in a chair or bed or a bathtub.   I got her crackers and mashed potatoes, because those were the only things that she could stand to eat. 

I did everything that I could possibly think of to make her comfortable, and I called the doctor and got her the strongest pain meds possible for her excruciating headache.   She confided to me that she has an adult handicapped daughter at home.  I cannot begin to explain why God would allow this woman to have cancer.

But I can, just for one shift, empathize with her, listen to her, and try to do the simplest of things to make her more comfortable.

Thank you, dear Lord for placing me in the most humbling, gratifying position of being a nurse to the sick, the poor, the elderly and the homeless.   I am truly blessed beyond all possible measure.   And every day, I am grateful.

 

William Cowper was a British poet and hymnist. He struggled throughout his life with depression, doubts, and fears.

Make me a blessing!

Today, our pastor spoke about “living by faith in future grace”.   “Jesus will supply us with everything we need to remain faithful to God.”  

Living by faith is the most fulfilling, blessed way to live.   I am so grateful that God has provided me with a wonderful job and place to live, friends and family.   I have everything that I need to remain faithful to God.   God shows me every day why he brought me through the trials in my past and I am eternally humbled and blessed to be used by God to help those less fortunate, the sick and the helpless.   

Every day that I go to work as a nurse, I am humbled by the pain and suffering of others.   I am not always patient or kind.   I am not always perfect in the care that I give to others.  Sometimes, I am not even nice to a patient who is being very difficult in the depths of their illness.  For that, I am ashamed.

But every single day, God gives me the honor of being a blessing to someone by kindly and compassionately caring for them.   I cannot thank Him enough for supplying me with everything that I need and for choosing me to work in the most trusted profession in the world, as a nurse.

There are times at work, when I am so imperfect that I question being trusted with the task of caring for others.   But I remain strong in my faith, even when fears and doubts creep in, I stand on the promises that God has given to me, because I know that He who promised me is ever faithful.   I would be absolutely nothing without the Grace of God.  

There are also times, because of fatigue and soreness, I am not grateful.   I pray that God will continue to remind me of all that I have to be grateful for, and all the blessings that are mine through Christ Jesus.  

Today, I thought about this hymn, and I try to make it my prayer every day, “Make me a blessing, make me a blessing.   Out of my life, let Jesus shine.   Make me a blessing, Oh, Lord, my God.   Make me a blessing, to someone today.”