Spare Change

On Sunday I had a wonderful opportunity to have dinner with a nurse bound for Rwanda. We were introduced to each other via email by the founder of Vista Ministries whom we had both worked with in other missions contexts. We had been emailing one another since Feb. while I was in Mexico City. We are hoping to develop some type of working relationship between Kibogora Hospital in Rwanda and the school of nursing here at Northwest.
We had a good time sharing stories, thoughts, hopes, dreams, and visions for the future. When we ended our visit the last thing she said to me was, "I hope the next time I see you will be in the Kigali airport."
That night I went home and dumped out my infamous coffee can which I put all my spare change into at the end of the week. The coffee can has historically been my "missions trip fund." I started to count how much I had saved up and soon found out that it wasn't near enough for an international plane ticket. It's going to take a long time to save up that much spare change.
I thought more about my new friend and how exciting but scarey it must be for her to leave her home and her family and her church to go to place that is so much different from the place we call home. I must say, that takes a lot more than spare change; that even takes more than an arm and leg, it takes your entire self.
I have to ask myself, am I giving the future God has for me just the change left in my pocket at the end of the day or am I giving Him the person that wears the pocketed garment? Am I living a "spare change" life or "fully invested" life? That's something to think about...

No Longer Homeless

Last week I saw our new Health and Sciences building at Northwest University for the first time. As I walked in I saw Dr. Christensen, the dean, (a.k.a. my boss) and Ramona our program coordinator moving equipment into the new skills lab. Wow, the place in absolutely amazing. The halls are so spacious you could drive a car through them. The classrooms (yes that's pleural) each have the capacity for 54 students. There is a very nice student lounge, a computer lab, and lots of bathrooms! But wait, there's more... Dr. C. then gave me a little tour of the rest of the new school of nursing. He ended the tour right in front of room 242 which had my name on it! That's right folks, my very own office. I took that as meaning I am no longer orphaned!?!

This is my new office. I know, it sort of resembles a closet doesn't it. It's actually bigger than it looks, and it has even more space now that I made them take away some of the excessive furniture. At any rate, this a big improvement since last year. I was homeless then and most of the time when I was working on campus I went to the students computer lab. Sometimes I could get into the adjunct office but once I got in there I had to share a desk with Annalee Oakes. For those of you who don't know, Dr. Oakes is the biggest nursing Guru who ever lived. She was the former dean of SPU's school of nursing and is known around the world. Secretly I enjoyed sitting at her desk (though I was never brave enough to put my feet on it).
This year I will be designing and teaching my own class. I am developing curriculum for an Advanced Medical/Surgical Nursing course which will be a 400 level course required for all seniors. This will double as my thesis/scholarly project. In many ways I'm glad it's already scheduled into to the Spring semester. This will keep me from being one of those perpetual thesis writers. (I hope...)
It's just been so awesome to see God's blessing on this program. Just a few short years ago we didn't even have a classroom and Dr. Christensen's office was a broom closet (no joke)! We now have a beautiful new building, 5 international clinical sites, a great faculty, and a very supportive community. It's both humbling and exciting to be a part of this growing program.

All in a Week's Work

Well, it's finally Friday! Actually it's very early Saturday morning, but today at 7:30 am I will be free at last. It's been a long work week. I started out Monday morning by going to an all day faculty retreat at Northwest University. We had a workshop on writing test questions and evaluating the effectiveness of student testing. Tuesday (during the day) was also a faculty workshop as well. Tuesday evening it was off to work at the hospital and I have been here every night since. My first nights of work I got to be "CRN" which basically means just being the "helper nurse" and putting out fires all night long. Tonight it's a case of pulmonary edema, good times...
So... 2 cardioversions, 4 central lines, 23 ABGs, 13 transfusions, 3 peripheral IV starts, 6 bedpans, too many milligrams of morphine, ativan, lasix, diltiazem, epi, and lidocaine, countless turns and ins and outs of beds, 1 post mortum care, 1 intubation and 13 cups of coffee later I'M STILL AT WORK. (On yeah, and add to that one exposure to TB.) What's wrong with this picture?
For having recently quit a job ironically I find myself even busier than before. The bright side is that I only have 5 1/2 hours left until a few precious days off. I hear it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I say let it pour, there's nothing better than going home to a warm bed in the morning and being able to sleep knowing that I'm not missing the sunshine. I get to end my day when everybody else has only just begun. I'm sleeping while they slave away. And yes, the glass is half full. (For you nurses out there that means that 160 cc need to be charted under PO intake. ;)

Just in Time

Friday was the last day of summer quarter and thank goodness! I powered up my laptop only to find that the screen (which had been ailing since I got the computer as a hand-me-down) had finally given up the ghost. For the last several months I've had vertical lines of nothingness plaguing my screen, now I only get about 1/3 of the content to show up and the rest of it looks more like a bar code.
I've been telling myself that I needed to buy myself a new computer if I ever expected to make it through grad school, but I was too cheap to do it until I had run the previous one in to the ground. Yesterday I went to a BBQ at my dad's, afterward I asked him if he would come with me to buy a new laptop. Fourty-five minutes and too much money later we emerged from the store victorious with new laptop in hand. As I drove my dad back to his house he apparently just couldn't wait and whipped out his pocket knife and opened the box as we were driving 60+ down the freeway. Of course he had to boot it up and start playing with it... Wait a minute, whose computer is it? We can just call it a "daddy daughter bonding experience."
Anyway, it's probably safe to say that two blog entries in one day is due to the end of the quarter and the new computer. I just hope that this one will last through a thesis.

Taming the Jungle

I recently attacked my very first "retirement project," my backyard (a.k.a The Jungle). The project looked very intimidating at first but with the help of my friends Tammy, Doug and Nancy, and my dad and his truck we finally did it. It turned out to be quite the project though and the brush we cleared out filled my dad's entire trailer (horse trailer size).
Now I have to decide if I'm going to do anything to landscape it further or just sprinkle a bunch of Casseron all over. Does anybody out there have any suggestions?
If any of you are feeling left out because you didn't get to help with the yard projects I've got plenty more daunting tasks as well. They include but are not limited to: applying an "anti-moss" strip to the roof, cleaning out the garage, repairing a rotten deck, fixing the upstairs bathroom fan... Ah, the joys of home ownership.

I found this interesting bone under all the brush I cleared, does anyone have an idea of what it may have come from?

Retired

Well folks, I finally did it. After 8 years of working in EMS for American Medical Response and a total of 10 years experience in the business I finally quit. If you're sitting there thinking "there really is a God," you're right. There is nothing else in the world aside from Him who could have made me retire my Smith and Wesson duty boots and reflective all weather coat.
I loved working on the rigs. No matter where I went from the streets of Seattle to Bethel, Alaska to Vancouver, Canada to Mexico City, Mexico to hurricane devastated Mississippi it seem like I couldn't escape my ambulances. I lost count of how many calls I ran after the fist 3500.
This year I had accepted a new position within the company as a CCT nurse (critical care transport RN) which came with a significant raise and was a great opportunity for more advanced training and experience. I loved it and the new role seemed to come very naturally.
So why did I quit? It's simple but complicated at the same time. The quick answer is that "my rice krispies made me do it." The real answer: "My rice krispies made me do it." To make a long story short I felt convicted, prayed hard, and heard from the Lord. Though resigning was a difficult thing to do, I was excited to do it because I knew it had come from the Lord.
However, I soon discovered that doing the right thing doesn't always immediately solve all of life's little difficulties. After I quit I didn't feel relieved, my schedule didn't get any easier, and I felt pretty miserable. But I should be excited about that too, I guess it just means that I finally figured out how to prioritize. I realized that I had tried to put my own desires and plans first. So now I'm just asking, "God, where are you taking me?" I pray that the answer is closer to Him.

Family Reunion

I've been waiting all year for this!
Last weekend was the Morgenroth family reunion on Lake Crescent at my grandparents house. Sadly there were several family members who couldn't make it. However this year was the year for a "new" boat. My cousins and I all had quite a hayday breaking it in with waterskiing and wakeboarding which we did almost nonstop.
Actually, I was the only one who skied, everyone else was wakeboarding. I tried it but couldn't figure out how to stear (or at least stear well).
I ended up spending two more nights out there than anticipated but I had a great time just relaxing, watching shooting stars, and eventually fighting traffic over the new Narrows bridge to make it home in time for work.