work and play

I’m proud to say I’ve been diligently studying all morning, so I’ve decided to take a break for a a visit here over a bit of a late lunch. I’ve just come off of yet another delightful weekend (which, per usual, was less full of school work than intended), and now I’m heading back into a week of exams. I think I’ve fallen into a pretty good stride with school and work and play. Work tends to take my mind off of school, school takes my mind off of work, and piano focuses my mind in an entirely different direction. In addition (as I’ve said before), it really does help to take some serious time off in the midst of a hefty stack of responsibilities. Gardening and recreation have provided much needed mental breaks, as well as a little perspective on everything else.

Pretty much every time the weather is relatively nice, I bother Jeremy to take me somewhere on the motorcycle. Last week, he agreed to a mid-week, mid-work-day gelato run back to our old stomping grounds in Wicker Park. The place is called Caffe Gelato, and it totally beats the trendy neighborhood competitor, Black Dog, where you’ll get a hefty dose of ‘tude along with your generally mediocre gelato.

No gelato shop could ever truly fill the Scoops-filled hole in my heart since we left Los Angeles, but this place comes darn close. Probably because it’s run by Italians. Those Italians know gelato.

Friday I had my third agency shift at a hospital in Humboldt Park. I stepped in poop on my way there (which I didn’t notice until I tracked it into the hospital), admitted a patient who’d undergone emergency surgery whose blood pressure was 56/35 when I arrived at 7am, and wound up working thirteen hours without eating anything more than a strip of fruit leather. Surprisingly, it was not an awful day. For the first time since starting agency, I felt like I knew what I was doing again; like my real nurse self was back, despite having to navigate paper charting and an inability to remember where anything is located. I ended the day with two healthy patients, a poop-free shoe bottom, and a dinner date with my husband at my favorite Thai food place. I had prayed hard for peace in the midst of difficult circumstances on my way to work, and I think God seriously enabled me to make it through the day without falling apart. I left thankful and encouraged.

This weekend was freakishly hot (which felt amazing), and we spent a decent chunk of time working on our vegetable garden. We’re nearly done planting. So far we’ve got tomatoes, onions, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, brussels sprouts, green beans, romaine, butter crunch lettuce, bell peppers, hot peppers, and strawberries.

We had some scattered thundershowers last night, and I felt so happy for the plants! I can’t wait until things start growing large enough to eat!

Well, it’s been a lovely little break, but I better be going. I’m off to do a bit of practice before my lesson this afternoon! I’ve been working on a simplified version of this piece. Cheers!

someday I WILL be an NP

Whoever said grad school was easier than undergrad was not in NP school. My program is seriously kicking me in the pants.

I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting. Of course becoming a nurse practitioner would be difficult. It makes perfect sense. I suppose it’s mostly that I wasn’t expecting at all. I worked hard to apply to grad school and really hard to earn a hefty scholarship as well, but my actual coursework was apparently far from the front of my mind.

Now I’m up to my eyes in the most difficult exams of my life with far less time for school than I ever had as an undergrad. My professors give out A’s, B’s, and F’s, which means I’m doing all I can to keep my head above water, praying that somehow I will make passing grades in all my classes.

Although it’s difficult to shake the nagging feeling that failure is within the realm of real possibility, this weekend has been a bit of a breath of fresh air for me. I’m in New Orleans at a conference put on by the National Health Service Corps (those folks who gave me the hefty scholarship), an organization committed to bringing Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and other clinicians to areas where access to healthcare is extremely limited. The corps is made up of recent graduates of medical, dental, PA and NP schools who have committed to spending a minimum of two years serving in low-income, underserved communities in the US. Over the past forty years over 41,000 clinicians have served in the corps. Currently over 10,000 current NHSC members are providing healthcare to more than 10.5 million people in Health Professional Shortage Areas across the nation.

The weekend has been filled with stories of communities being transformed by committed, dynamic primary care practitioners who are passionate about the underserved. They serve as a powerful reminder that the work I do even now is not about me.

School is still hard and still will be hard for the next couple years. But for now I’m reminded why it’s so important to faithfully persevere. I only pray I can do as much.

hearts

A recent discovery I’m making about myself as I live through my early adulthood life: I love hearts.

I’m not talking paper hearts for Valentines Day or knitted hearts all over my sweater or sterling silver hearts hanging from my earrings (although I loves me some of these). I’m talking real live hearts, people. That fistish-sized muscular organ generally responsible for keeping the rest of your body in working order.

 

I didn’t have to spend much time at my first job to discover I loved taking care of cardiac patients. I loved it. They were challenging, complex, interesting and rewarding. I fell in love with cardiac surgery and discovered cardiactransplant, an even more unbelievable feat of modern medicine.

The more I spend time with these and other patients, the more I love being a cardiac nurse. I love my job, and I feel so lucky to be doing something I love.

Northwestern is an incredible place to be a nurse, and an incredibly unique feature of our ICU is our procurement team of nurses–yes nurses–who play a major role in bringing donor hearts to sick patients awaiting cardiac transplant. These nurses work with others to coordinate transplant AND they get to go with the team who physically goes to procure the donor heart. So. Awesome. I was talking to a nurse today who told me she just flew in to get a new heart to the patient she was currently taking care of.

I would LOVE to do this someday. What an exciting way to see the organ donation and transplant process come full circle. Here’s to hoping.

Study Time

It’s risky business blogging without a plan, but here I am. And here you are.

I’m sitting inside Letizia’s Bakery on Division PREPPING FOR THE GRE, of all things (!).

When I tell people I’m thinking about going back to school, I get this a lot: “You’re changing careers already? I thought you liked nursing.” Some of you may be thinking this very thing at this very moment. I’m not offended, but you should know there are many many post-baccalaureate Masters and even PhD programs for nurses.

I myself am looking into NP (Nurse Practitioner) programs. This means roughly three or four years getting a Masters or DNP (Doctorate of Nursing Practice). Programs start next fall, which means applications are due early next year. So here I am, studying for the GRE which I’ll take mid December.

I have to say, while taking the GRE seems a bit daunting, I found myself getting pretty excited about making color-coordinated flashcards for prefixes and suffixes. I guess that’s a good sign I really am getting ready to go back to school. Sure, I only have about a year of experience under my belt, but in the nursing world, one year can make a huge difference. And since being at Northwestern, I feel like I’m getting experience at turbo-speed.

Today I can honestly say I enjoy my job. I think I can even say I love it. I could not have said those things two and a half months ago. What an adjustment it’s been to move from UCLA to NMH. Who would have thought moving from one CTICU to another would bring so many new challenges and difficulties? It’s great to finally feel like I’m on the other side, once again enjoying being a nurse. I like my co-workers and really respect them. I’m being challenged and stretched as a nurse, and am beginning to have a confidence that I have learned some things and my experience is significant. I’m really thankful for this, and encouraged to feel like approaching grad school is actually a pretty good option for the next few years.

I’m still not sure which program or specialty is going to be best suited for my interests and goals, but I’m excited about moving ahead. I’ll keep you posted.

Real love for this city

Truth is, I’ve had a difficult relationship with the city of Chicago over the past few months. Objectively, it’s a great city; better than LA. It’s got a lot going for itself. Decent public transportation, incredible architecture and history, successful sports teams (for the most part), actual weather. People love Chicago. And I think that’s my problem.

I don’t know when or why, but somewhere in my growing up years I developed a value of loving the underdog. Loyalty to places, ugly animals, sports teams that no one wants to be loyal to. This has made it very difficult to love Chicago with my whole heart. PEOPLE GO CRAZY FOR THIS PLACE!

But what a silly reason not to love a place. It really is great, and–more importantly–it’s mine now. So let’s quick reveal to the world the things that are not peachy about Chicago, so that the world has the truth and I can get on with enjoying my new home city:

1. Nature is far from here. Yes, there are trees, but where is the hiking? Where is the camping? Not that close. (Side note: did I miss fall? I saw some yellow trees, but what about the reds and oranges? Was that it?)

2. The air is not that clean. I smell trash sometimes.

3. This place is seg-re-gated. I see one person in this coffee shop who isn’t white.

4. Watch out if you own a vehicle here. The City of Chicago is ALL about taking your money. 6 hours at an impound lot, an hour in court, and another impending court date and we still haven’t gotten our $170 back for parking in what was NOT a tow zone, thank you very much.

5. People are way too into sports. (We’ve only been here four months and I know the mascots for all of Chicago’s sports teams.) I am skeptical all the people who claim to LOVE the Bears, the Blackhawks, the Cubs *or* White Sox, AND the Bulls are real sports fans. (Can you seriously be THAT into EVERY sport?)

Ok. You’re informed. Now we can all love Chicago with a real love!!!

Recently we saw this guy (Sufjan Stevens!) at the historic Chicago Theater. Boy what a great concert to see IN CHICAGO. Great great great times. That’s three greats. Props to my husband for suggesting attending this concert AND for laying down the cash to do so. Something else great about the concert was that we got to have drinks with the Van Elswyks beforehand AND we convinced them to stay the night at our place (instead of making the long trek back to theirs late in the night). It was a wonderful evening and we got to enjoy a delightful morning with them as well. Win.

Something else recent and completely unrelated: my friend Emily Schmunk is engaged to her boyfriend Kyle!!! Emily is this wonderful girl I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know since moving to Chicago. Turns out we went to Biola together. Also turns out she’s one of my favorite people to spend time with. I feel like we see the world through similar eyes, and she’s just great to be around. What a blessing to have found such a friend so quickly in a new and unfamiliar city. Her and her boyfriend have been dating longer than Jeremy and I ever did, which gives you an idea of what a neat thing it is to see them engaged. Jeremy and I are going to an engagement party for them tomorrow night. FUN.

Also fun: I’m really starting to feel at home in my job. I like the people I work with and I’m learning so much. I spent the past three days taking care of one of the sickest patients in our ICU. I made it through intubating her, bronching her, scoping her, placing central lines, starting her on continuous dialysis, giving her 15 rounds of various blood products, keeping her blood pressure stable, fighting to control all her bleeding, and talking her family through everything. The first day I had her she didn’t start out crazy sick. I was with her when she went downhill and after my first day with her I figured they’d pass her off to someone more experienced. To my surprise, I had her for two more days. It was sort of a wake up call: I’m not so inexperienced anymore. What an encouragement it was to see that my superiors and co-workers allowed me to take on so much responsibility. I had a lot of help from them those three days, and they were three difficult, long shifts that undoubtedly made me a better nurse. This is the kind of job I’ve been hoping for.

God has been so good to us in Chicago. William is behaving much better. Ma and Pa come next weekend. My husband is doing great at his new job AND is making our closet/dog room/book-stashing room into a lovely, cozy little office. It’s chilly outside. It’s November. Life is so good. It’s incredible how many things I get to enjoy. It has to be true that I take far too much for granted.

hello again, everyone.

It’s not officially autumn, but the most pleasant fall breeze is blowing in the window next to my desk. It’s my day off. My favorite music is playing, I’m drinking coffee out of my favorite mug, and the dog is close by. It’s times like these I’m convinced life is significant, and short, and that I might be the most fortunate person in the world.

Jeremy is in New York City for the day. Teach For America sent him on a 24-hour-trip for some training to prepare for the rapidly approaching selection season for new TFA applicants. It’s incredible how quickly we’ve settled into our lives here. It feels like we’ve been in Chicago far more than just half a summer.

Both of us are back to working full time. My new job is a handful, to say the least. I’m finding it far more difficult than my previous job. I was oriented to the hospital, NMH (Northwestern Memorial Hospital) nursing, and my unit (the CTICU) in five weeks. My second day on my own I admitted a patient with open heart surgery straight from the OR (in all the months I worked at UCLA off orientation, I never did this). My third day, I pulled a patient’s chest tubes (something only doctors and nurse practitioners can do at UCLA). My fourth day I extubated a patient (which I also never did on my own at UCLA). Never a dull moment. Never a slow day.

All that being said, I’m really enjoying how I’m being challenged at this new job. Every day I’m being pushed to be a better nurse (and human being, for that matter) whether I feel like it or not. The transition from UCLA to NMH has been just the thing that I needed at this point in my nursing career (and life), and also probably the very thing I would not have chosen, had I known all it was going to involve. For this reason, I’m so thankful God drew our hearts to Chicago and put me in this job immediately.

Something else I’m thankful for:

This is our church! Covenant Presbyterian. It’s wonderful. It’s a PCA church, just like the one we’d found in Pasadena before moving. Jeremy and I are leading a small group in our apartment with a girl named Abby, who is really neat. We had our first meeting last Monday evening, which was a delight and a blessing. Something else I have been incredibly excited about and blessed by at Covenant is the ability to be involved in worship. They even have a choir. Yes, please. Yes. Music is an element of my life that never seemed to fit into my California world, and being able to participate meaningfully in it here makes me feel like I am my whole self again. The church is not quite a mile from our place, so we bike there a lot. We love this.

SPEAKING OF BIKING. Jeremy and I drove to Ohio last weekend to participate in the big Hancock Horizontal 100, a bike race in Findlay, OH. We got really sore, and sunburned, but we made it 50 miles. Jeremy’s grandpa (!) went 62, and his parents rode all 100 on their tandem. It was great to spend some time with family, and get a little exercise while we were at it.

Well. I don’t have much else to say, and I hate to say it but I have no clever way to end this post. So I guess I’ll just end by saying YOU SHOULD COME VISIT US HERE IN THIS WINDY CITY.

i love my job

Just for you–some old school (or as the author of this photo would say, “vintage”) nurses to be inspired by (or at least to enjoy):

I cannot tell you how much I love my job. In fact, I barely know where to even start talking about it. But boy do I ever feel like I somehow landed in the perfect spot. I’m moving past that total deer-in-the-headlights-can’t-seem-to-remember-anything-from-nursing-school-feel-like-I’ll-never-get-the-hang-of-this stage, slowly making my way into the wow-sometimes-I-pick-up-the-things-I’m-supposed-to-be-learning-this-is-at-least-beginning-to-feel-kinda-like-home-and-I-like-it stage.

The first few weeks of my job made me feel like I must have somehow dreamt up all those years of being in nursing school. I must not have actually gone, because if I had, I’d have some idea how to take care of a patient.

I still feel not so competent in many respects, and the more I’m learning in my classes and clinical, the more I find I have yet to learn (of course). But for the first times, I’m having days that aren’t totally clouded by my lack of experience. I’m actually kind of getting the hang of some things. And it’s allowing me to see past all the tasks I haven’t mastered to all the things I really love about ICU nursing.

I LOVE ICU nursing. Love it. I knew it when I first stepped foot in the ICU two years ago. But even more than that, I love my ICU: the CTICU. The nurses are wonderful. The patients are incredible. The cases are wildly interesting and the medical teams are unbelievable. The other night at work I had to pick up a medication for my patient from the 6th floor pharmacy. As I reached the doors of 7ICU I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “How on earth did I get here? I can’t believe this is where I work.”

I know there are still difficult challenges ahead. I’m sure I’ve still got some bad days in front of me, and I don’t doubt coming off orientation will be frightening. But I’ve got to soak up and hold on to these times when I know for sure this place is exactly where I want to be.

Praise God and thanks be to Him for bringing me to the CTICU.

turning and tossing

I can’t sleep. I tried laying in bed with my eyes closed, but I can’t stop thinking about dark blue scrubs and nurse managers and the Getty and the beach. I suppose it’s because tomorrow (well–today, actually) Jeremy and I are going to UCLA to pick up my new scrubs and meet my new manager before we head off to the Getty and then the beach.

Tuesday I signed my papers for UCLA, and next week will be my first week of real work as an RN. It makes sense that I’m excited to visit the hospital tomorrow and begin in three short days. But excited enough to prevent me from sleeping three whole days before it all really starts?

I’m not anxious. I mean I don’t feel nervous. I don’t think I should be freaked out. I had hot dogs and coffee with Kate Jordan today, who–as of last night–has two full shifts in her brand new surgical ICU under her belt. I asked her if she got a little nervous before her first couple days and her answer was pretty much just plain “no.” My other friends who have started also seem to be doing fine. No one seems really worried, or like they nearly wet their pants each morning as they drive to work.

It is a little fishy, however, that I’m awake, unable to sleep, like I said, before the weekend even really gets going. Maybe I’m just really excited about going to the Getty and the beach. Although I noticed I started biting my lip tonight, which is something I tend to do when I’m sort of subconsciously stressed or anxious about something.

It’d be nice if my rational mind could have a little more control over whatever part of me is responsible for these little “feelings” that rudely creep up on me without my permission. I know I’ll be fine. I’m pretty confident I’ll make new friends, learn a lot, and eventually become a really good nurse. But I have a feeling the road there will be tricky for me in some ways. That’s good, I suppose. Wouldn’t want to get out of college and feel like things got easier now, right? Nah. Bring it on. (Carefully, please?)

what the what

Yesterday started off like any normal summer Friday. Jeremy and I had ourselves a nice breakfast and spent most of the day cleaning out our closets and sending old clothes to the Goodwill. I never could have guessed what I’d find on my voicemail that afternoon.

“Hey Erin Mann, this is Brenda. I’m the new unit director for 7ICU. One of the new grads that had previously been coming for August has not passed boards and we’d like to extend that position to you.” Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. WHOA. What?! As I listened to the rest of the message I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. The start date: AUGUST 10. Two weeks and two days away.

I ran into the kitchen jumping up and down nearly shouting, “OH my goodness. OH MY GOODNESS.” at Jeremy over and over as I listened. I replayed the message for him and called this woman back as quick as my hands could dial. I heard a voice on the other end of the line: “Erin?” “Yes?” “Do you want a job?” I couldn’t get the words “yes! Absolutely! I would love to start in August!” out of my mouth fast enough. I talked a bit more with Brenda–who seemed awesome, by the way–and hung up the phone in happy disbelief.

Jeremy and I sat down at the kitchen table. The only words we could come up with were along the lines of “WOW.” “Oh my goodness.” “Can you believe this?” “What in the world?” We popped open some champagne courtesy of the MacDonalds and called our parents.

For a couple months now I’ve been making other plans and talking to people about how maybe this could be a neat opportunity to do some other things before full time work starts. However, I’ve also been honest about that fact that if I were the one choosing how the next six months would go, I’d start my new job in August. Well here I am. Starting my nursing job in the ICU in two weeks. Talk about blowing my mind.

I’m still in a bit of a state of shock. I still lose it every once in a while and let out a ridiculous squeal. I’m eager to sign my papers. I feel totally unaware of what the next couple months will be like. Incredibly thankful and excited. I feel like God has taught me a great deal through the past couple months, yet he is graciously gifting me with this opportunity I SO desired when I first applied for the job in March. All I can say is what the what and Dang, Gina.

So our life’s course has yet again been changed with a mere phone call. No doubt I’ve felt this before: here goes nothing.

project: unemployed for the next six months

Here’s me 21 days ago:

Graduated. Bright-eyed. Optomistic. Reveling in the promise of my bright future.

Here’s me today:

I know I know. I didn’t lose my job. It’s not like that bright future will never get here. And yes, I’ve already blogged about this job setback thing twice. But that’s what a big part of my life this thing is, people. And now that we’re past the big news, we have to face what’s ahead: six months of unemployment.

My first response to this whole thing was of course disappointment, tears, phonecalls, texts. But surprisingly (and really only by the grace of God paired with a week full of especially fruitful devotional times) I handled the news pretty well. I felt like I had a pretty good perspective and I worked hard to see how this could be a neat situation.

That went well until about Wednesday. I figured maybe I was experiencing some under-the-surface frustration/anger/upsettness when I noticed myself being particularly irritated with just about everyone on the road as I drove to my friend’s. That’s when I realized I wasn’t going to spend the entire next six months always feeling really confident and great about the situation.

However. This is a great opportunity. How many people a) know exactly what they want to do for a big chunk of their life, b) actually have a great opportunity lined up to get on the right track, and c) are forced to spend six months before it all begins to do whatever in the world they can think of? I’ll tell you: not many. So I want to spend my next six months wisely. Thoughtfully. Doing things I figured I’d probably never get around to on account of my upcoming full-time job.

These are some things I thought up in the past 5 days:

• Learn Latin-American Spanish (!)
• Pick up where I left off learning the guitar
• Use my one free audit on that Character of God class I couldn’t take last semester
• Read and finish a meaty book each month
• Run at least a 10K with Jeremy
• Join “the Union” (a kind of ministry internship) at my church
• Travel to the OC for a weekly Bible study with friends from school
• Get a part-time job at a local cafe, coffee shop, or non-chain restaurant
• Create an official wedding scrapbook
• Offer to help with something in Biola’s Department of Nursing
• Take a sewing class at The Reform School
• Take up swimming as a regular form of exercise
• Get a part-time job at an urgent care, clinic, or convalescent home
• Attend one of the Burbank Animal Shelter’s kitten fairs
• Compile and compact all my old nursing binders
• Try a new recipe once a week
• Continue/develop tiny group on Monday nights (that’s when me and some small group friends get together to grab dinner and go over our small group stuff for Thursday)

Any comments? Ideas to add? Please do share.