Growing Pains

How hard it is to grow up! Rapid development in a child or adolescent's body can cause great pain in their joints. Right now, I am growing into the role of a nurse and am often being stretched beyond what I think I can handle. Being faced with a life-and-death emergency situation last Friday, I'm better understanding the weight of the career I've been called to, as well as the value of another life. How valuable is the life of a human being? God has made us a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned us with glory and honor. We're so much more important to him than the sunsets, the stars, and the seas. Jesus demonstrated His love for us by giving His very life so that we could truly live.

Our patient Friday is the sweetest, tinitest little woman who had her birthday (AKA recieved her stem cell transplant) that day. Kristin and I walked into her room when the doctors were rounding and she was actively throwing up. The doctors left while Kristin helped her into the bathroom and I went to get sheets for her bed. My phone buzzed an emergency in her room and I walked in to find Kristin and the woman's husband holding her. She had collapsed in their arms, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, she was unresponsive, had stopped breathing intermittently and turned completely pale. Kristin said, "help - I need you to get the charge nurse and page the doctor right now." I ran and grabbed the charge while another nurse came in and called Rapid Response Team, which alerts the MD, stat nurse and respiratory team to come immediately. They got her onto the bed, put O2 on, and thank God, were able to bring her back. Scary. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as I pretty much froze while everyone else was busy monitoring her, drawing labs, and ensuring her stability. Wow - if there has ever been a time I felt incompetent, it was right then. The first real emergency I've been in. This doesn't just happen on TV - it happens in every day real life. More than anything, I was so relieved that she was okay and thankful to God for sparing her.

Right now I am overwhelmed about my responsibility and wondering how I am going to be able to handle it all on my own. Administering chemo, stem cells and bone marrow transplants? Emergency situations? I know I am not expected to perform beyond my capabilities, yet, I still wonder if I'll ever feel like I really know what I'm doing. It blows my mind to think about everything that happens in a 12-hour shift. My mind is still reeling from the week of learning and experiencing. All the same, I am completely in love with this job because of the patients. Funny how in our lives moments of intense brokenness are often intermingled with a glorious and inexpressible joy.

To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. -Oswald Chambers

I am reassured to know that the straightness of my gain is not a precondition of usefulness to God. And I am humbled to see that out of the twistedness of my wounds, he designs for me a special place of service. -Robert D. Lupton