black/white

I love playing with my pictures, and I was excited about this challenge because last Friday I did a photo shoot with my friend and her girls.  It was my first time photographing more than 2 people, and I was wondering how I would do.  Conclusion: I love my single-people shots but have no clue how to group more than 2 people.  Guess I need to work on that…

Anyway, I would have played with them some more but I have spent the last 4 days on orientation for my new job and pretty much what I have learned is that I did a smart thing by not picking an 8-4:30 job because OH MY WORD I don’t know how people do it.  When do you get things accomplished? I am so tired by the of the day that I collapse on the couch.  So ready for my 3 12s to come back… and even more ready to be on nights again.  Mornings are not my friend.

 

So… the few I have played with in black and white~

Mom:

Oldest:

Youngest:

Family:

I love black and white pics so I can’t wait to see what everyone else did on You Capture this week!

Healing Hands

My patients have an awful lot to say about me, I guess because I don't say much of anything so the silence has to be filled somehow, right? Nearly every single shift and sometimes a few times a shift, I get compliments on my hair. All the old people think it's natural and I can't lie so I have to confess it's bottled. But they love it anyway. All the little old ladies think I am so beautiful and I smile sweetly and say "Thank you, now don't move while I put this IV in!".

Last week I took care of an 82 year-old man who introduced me to his wife like this: "This is RaDonna my nurse, she takes really good care of me and she also has a really nice butt!". I was mortified! My face turned a brighter shade than my hair and I ran out there as fast as I could! The funny thing is I got a text the next day from a paramedic friend of mine saying that he was transferring my little old man to the next hospital over and he wouldn't stop going on about my nice butt. So now my derrière is apparently the talk of the county!

My favorite thing that my patients say about me isn't my hair or my tush, but that I have a very gentle touch. It made me so happy when I finished putting in an IV today, and my patient says "Thank you for being so gentle with me." So many times I see nurses or aids roughly turning patients or grabbing their arms to put the blood pressure cuff on them and it makes me so sad. One of the ICU nurses I followed around the last month of nursing school told me that patients can tell you care by the way you touch them. That has stuck with me throughout my year-long nursing career and I hope I never forget it.

I tell you what though, I didn't feel very gentle last Tuesday when I was holding a tiny little 7 week-old baby for a lumbar puncture. Poor little baby had a fever that wouldn't break so we had to give him the full workup: labs, IV fluids, cath urine, lumbar puncture, and antibiotics. I was terrified taking care of such a tiny baby and the worst thing was he never stopped crying the entire 6 hours I took care of him. Every time I walked into the room I brought some other method of torture with me. I looked for a vein on him but had to bring reinforcements because he had nothing that I could see. I catheterized him for the urine sample and that was hard because I had never cath'ed anyone under thirty before! When it was time for the lumbar puncture, we laid him on his side at the edge of the bed and bent him into a fetal position and held on as tight as we could without hurting him. He wailed the entire time but Dr. C was good and nailed it.

We ended up transferring that poor little boy to a hospital with a PICU to rule out sepsis. One thing I hate about emergency nursing is that I rarely get to find out the end result of my patients, and the few times I do find out, I usually don't like what I hear. The little old man who like my butt was transferred because he had a massive aortic aneurysm and he only had a 50% chance of surviving the surgery to repair it. A sweet man I took care of last week for gallstones ended up coding the following day. This morning I cared for a man with a 106.9 F rectal temp and after I finally got him cooled down enough that he wasn't delirious from the fever, all he wanted to do was hold my hand because it was warm.

I don't know if any of these patients lived or died but they touched my heart, each in their own way. I am so glad I can make a difference to them by the gentleness of my touch and hopefully bring God's comfort through my hands.

I found the following blessing for nurse's hands on the internet and I wanted to share it with you.

Blessed be these hands that have touched life.
Blessed be these hands that have felt pain.
Blessed be these hands that have embraced with compassion.
Blessed be these hands that have been clinched with anger or withdrawn in fear.
Blessed be these hands that have drawn blood and administered medicine.
Blessed be these hands that have cleaned beds and disposed of wastes.
Blessed be these hands that have anointed the sick and offered blessings.
Blessed be these hands that grow stiff with age.
Blessed be these hands that have comforted the dying and held the dead.
Blessed be these hands, we hold the future in these hands.
Blessed be our hands for they are the work of Your hands, O Holy One

My Country

I love the 4th of July.  It and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays. (except St. Patrick's day, but that is a given.)

3 years ago when I spent the summer in South Africa I did okay with the homesickness.  S.A is nothing like USA, but I loved it all.  Until I realized that on the 4th of July, the holiday celebrating my home, there would be no watermelon, no barbeque, no family sitting on the lake watching the fireworks.  Oh… fireworks. I love them .  So we were running VBS at this little Indian church in Durban, I was beyond homesick, my teammates all thought I was crazy for being so sad about missing this one little holiday (WE ARE IN AFRICA,CORRIE!) and I walk into church late and see these beautiful children

and hear them yell “Happy independence day, Corrie!”

Pretty sure none of them had any clue what they are talking about but it made me smile, and slightly less longing for home.  That is one of my favorite memories of this holiday, the one I spent far from home…

Now… this 4th of July was so~much~fun.  It is my friend Tiffany’s birthday, and we celebrated big. I would show pictures, but I was too busy going down water slides and getting into splashing fights to take any. And then as we headed for fireworks, the skies opened up and that plan went out the window.  But as far as AMERICA goes, here are my captures:

Joe has spent the last 6 months in Army training, and got to come for a couple of weeks before he goes to his new assignment. He spent the time helping plan their wedding, which we are hoping isn’t delayed by a deployment.

America would not be the awesome country it is without the people who volunteer to protect it.

And the place I love:

People hate on Kansas all the time, but seriously? We have the best skies around. Fireworks or no fireworks.

The weekend ended with me hiding in an empty room to watch the fireworks at work when they set them off on Monday.

I love my country.

Part of You Capture