Thank God...

I was right, it really is exciting to see how God provides... My acceptance to the PhD program at WSU is dependant on my completion of a graduate statistics course. That means I have to take such a class THIS QUARTER. Unfortunately there is only 1 such class being offered this quarter that fits the bill and it's on Tuesdays. The problem, I work 12 hour shifts on Tuesdays at the hospital.
I've frantically looking for trades to make it work but I couldn't find any coverage for 2 of my shifts, today being one of them. This morning the assistant manager called and said she would come in for 3 hours to cover my patients while I went to class. The charge nurse arranged for my patients transfer to happen early, before my class, and another nurse took over my other patient so that Tami (the assistant manager) didn't even have to come. Yay, I owe 5SE one PhD!
Well, that might be a little premature I guess; but I certainly am very thankful that I have such supportive co-workers. Now I just have to register for the class and hope there are still spots. I have a to register as a non-matriculated student so I can't register until everyone else has.
Stay tuned for some exciting provision!

It Will Be Exciting To See How God Provides!

With the budget cuts, the State of Washington has been chipping away at our tuition credits for years. As I was researching the latest set of restrictions, I found out that my PhD program is not eligible. I have already formally accepted a spot in the cohort. The question is so I look at all of these things as doors closing, or do I just sit back and say, "it will be exciting to see how God provides?" Thus far, I'm voting for the latter.

A New Adventure on the Horizon

So much to update, so little time... Last Monday I got a letter in the mail from Washington State University. I've been accepted into the PhD Nursing program! Classes begin in June. I am excited about starting a new chapter but a little nervous as well. I recently found out that the full time position at NU that I was anticipating has been eliminated due to budget cuts. UW is also no longer letting employees cut their FTE and I need to maintain benefits. Yikes, I'm not sure if I can continue to work two 70% jobs and go to school at the same time. I suppose I should be excited for that too because then I know that something HAS to change. Good times ahead!

Me Too...

As I was sitting in the break room with the student from the previous post she turned to me and said, "I hate cancer. It never plays fair, I just can't understand it. My mom had cancer. She surgery and chemotherapy and radiation. She's in remission now but it was so scary. I absolutely hate it!"
I hate it too!
From the first time I had met her in nursing school as a close friend's mother, she had been battling cancer. Mrs. V. was an amazing lady, so full of God's grace and peace. I remember once when I went to visit my friend, I ended up sitting on their couch for hours sipping tea listening to Mrs. V talk and tell me stories about God's faithfulness in her life. In many ways she became like a second mother to me. She even tried to put me to bed once. :)
Over the past few months Mrs. V's health had declined. The cancer had spread in her brain. I learned on Sunday morning that she had passed away only hours earlier. She did leave an equally amazing daughter but she will be missed and always fondly remembered.
Boy, do I hate it too!

A Thousand Firsts

I recently mentioned to one of my fellow nurses that I loved being a teacher because I could have the same experience for the time a thousand times. Teaching and performing even the most basic of skills never gets old. It's so much easier to remove surgical staples when you get to do it with somebody who's so excited about it you know they'll be talking about it for days to their roommates.
This week it was a little different however. One of my students experienced her first death. The patient was a middle aged Chinese woman. Cancer had caused her body to waste away so that she looked like a skeleton with skin lying in the bed. He husband was so attentive, he had been at her bedside for days.
I had gone in to see this patient a few times and had had a brief discussion about end-of-life care with my student. On Friday morning as I was assisting another student with IV medication, I saw the first one standing outside the room. I quickly finished with the medication and went out to talk with her.
Tears streamed down her face as she told me that her patient had just died. "She hadn't taken a breath for several minutes so I listened to her heart. I could faintly hear something at first but then it just faded away. What do I do for her husband? Is it OK to cry with a family? I'm trying to pull myself together..."
Yes, unfortunately as a nursing instructor you experience death a 1000 times for the first time too. They ask questions like: "Why did this happen? What will they do now? This just doesn't seem fair. It seems odd that in a few minutes I will have to see my other patient in another room and carry on like nothing has happened when I know their whole world has changed."
All my "teacher words," no matter how true or how profound, can't take away the pain and shock of losing your first patient. So there we sat in the break room behind the door. After few minutes of sobbing and a bit of talking, she fixed her makeup and went back into the room just in time to help her husband dress her in a beautiful Chinese robe before the rest of the family came to bid her farewell.

There's and App For That?

This morning while traipsing across the hospital I noticed signs announcing the new Da Vinci surgical system that had just arrived. The sign said that they would have the machine on display for demonstration in the hospital lobby this afternoon. My nursing students are on Medical/Surgical rotations and are rotating through the operating room. I thought they would be excited to learn about the new system so I snuck downstairs and asked the company reps if I could bring them by. Of course the reps are excited to talk about their product to anybody who will listen so they had no problem with it.
I arranged for the students to meet in the lobby for post clinical conference. They played with it for a few minutes and managed to complete the tasks of displacing and replacing a series of rubber bands on tiny cones in a matter of minutes. My one and only male student says, "That's cool, now what are we doing?" Another one says, "There's an app for that!"
A quiet Chinese student just stands staring, "This is the cool thing you wanted to show us? I'm shuddering as I picture all the video game geeks becoming surgeons."
Well, you win some and you lose some... I let them go home a few minutes early and I stayed the extra time to play with the "robot surgeon."

Peanut Butter Milkshake and a Walk in the Park

A peanut butter milkshake and walk in the park, those were my "self care" activities of choice following my phone interview for the WSU PhD program this morning. I had been dreading that interview for over a week, why couldn't I just drive to Spokane and do the interview in person. It doesn't matter now... at least it's over.
Since for some odd reason I don't have a phone in my office and the functionality of my cell in this building is rather dubious, I used the dean's office to make the call. I think in some ways sitting at his huge desk surrounded by all of his post-it notes to self and numerous degrees made the process more intimidating.
Now we wait...