So... I'm supposed to graduate soon. Everyone keeps asking me what kind of nurse practitioner I want to be... where I want to work... and I just hafta give them my honest answer which is... "I have no idea."
I'm not too worried though. Someone asked me what my ultimate goal was... and... what came to mind had nothing to do with my career... I want to grow up to be a full-time friend... and then die and go to heaven. If I could quit work and quit school and just be an encouragement to people all around me for the rest of my life... that would be lovely. "Will work for meals" will hafta be my policy. But then I went back to clinicals today and I realized that... I actually enjoy working. What it does is... it forces me to interact with new and different people... to respond to situations that I wouldn't normally put myself in... and to push me outside my comfort zone... and in that way, it helps me grow to be a better person. If I were a full-time friend with unlimited time... I'd probably just spend all day doing things I want to do... doing things I like to do... being with people I like... and then I might not be as challenged or pushed... to do the things I don't like, to be around and work with people I wouldn't choose to, and then I might not learn as much if I were never uncomfortable. I'd become like... a soft smooshie cookie instead of a tough cookie. And I might also be a poor, soft, smooshie cookie if I never went back to work... and then forcing my friends to buy me meals might be the equivalent of having them pay for my friendship and then I'd just feel wrong... so yeah. Full-time friend and working for meals might not be the greatest idea I've ever had... but it did sound like a great one at the time I thought of it. :P
I don't really know why I'm not too obsessed or worried about my career. Maybe I'm too focused on the big picture and since my career is kind of a peripheral priority... the details of what kind of nursing I do or where I work... isn't all that important to me. God will provide for me. When I'm good and ready to start looking for a job... I'm sure that I'll get at least one of the jobs I interview for and I'll learn a lot... and then they'll pay me money so that I can go out and live my real life. Work to live. I also have a lot of stuff to do in the meantime before I graduate. I still have a little bit of clinical hours to complete... I have to get my project data analyzed... I have to figure out what it means... I hafta edit my first few chapters of my big paper... and then write the last few chapters... and then make a presentation and then defend it. And then I'll look for jobs and start studying for boards and then hopefully I'll pass boards and then start probably one of the hardest years of my working career... learning a complex, new role... one in which I feel completely unprepared and inadequate for... but will hafta just do it anyway cuz I went through all this schooling for it so I might as well use it. I think that the best part about working is meeting new people. I was walking around the hospital today and realizing that I learn so much from the world by interacting with people... hearing people's stories... reading about other people's stories... and then noting my reaction to it all. It's all very fascinating to me. Probably will be difficult but... I'll learn a lot and grow a lot. And it's always a good day when there's crying involved... that's what I think anyway.
“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.” ― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
To know people... to understand people... is to love them. So if I am unloving... it is because I don't understand the person... because I don't know them. I had a very unloving moment yesterday. I was watching someone make a complete fool of himself... and yet he was so happy to do it... so goofy, I suppose... that I wish that I could have just laughed at him or with him... I wish that I didn't roll my eyes and wish that he would just STOP and be normal. I felt horrid for wishing it. I felt horrid that I couldn't simply laugh with this guy. God created him this way and he was being really bold and courageous... to simply be who he is... unashamed and unafraid to be different and say silly things... and why couldn't I just appreciate that? I spent so long wondering why I was so mean-hearted towards this guy that I got really down on myself and felt shame and unworthiness. I felt that my heart was ugly and I wondered how it got that way. The NP I'm learning from asked me to go get a form for her. I went to the unit secretary and asked for the form and she gave me so much attitude... as if I should already know where it is... why am I inconveniencing her by asking her something I should already know... and for serious... she looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world. I did notice that she was updating her resume on her computer screen. She probably hates her job and hates her life. She probably assumed that I was an employee and that I didn't know how to do my job... and not that I'm just a student trying to do what I was told. She didn't know me, she didn't understand why I asked what I did... and she was definitely unloving towards me. I almost wanted to confront her and tell her that I didn't appreciate her attitude or her tone of voice, but... I thought that I'd better not rock the boat and it would be much better to just let it go at this time. And then the feeling passed and it didn't bother me anymore. Good thing I didn't cause a ruckus over something so small.
Love is an action first and a feeling second. If you love people, eventually you'll come to like them. -Tim Keller
And I really don't know if what specific kind of nurse practitioner I am. If I look back at my life and how I've gotten where I have... it was more to do with following and being near people who captivate me than actually being interested in reason for our interaction. I did plant genetics research... not because I was interested in it per se... but because out of all the labs that I interviewed for... I liked the PI's for this project the best. I hung out with the pain management team a lot... not necessarily because I love pain management... but because I liked being around the team. Whereas I enjoyed nephrology and cardiology... I could probably see myself doing either of those specialties... but I think I just enjoyed being at City of Hope more than the specialty I was learning while I was there.
School has been... a pretty rough road. Someone recently caught up with me and asked me, "why did you do this to yourself?!?" and... I honestly had no response. Why did I do this to myself? I am already a registered nurse. I could have had a perfectly good career working as a RN for the rest of my life. I already have 3 degrees... why did I NEED to pursue a fourth? It's a lot of time, money, and other resources to invest... why... why... why?
So I'm rounding with the bone marrow team right now. There are a LOT of complications that could, and often do, happen when undergoing bone marrow transplantation. There's a lot of chemo, there's nausea, there's vomiting, there's frequent hospitalizations... fevers... antibiotics... antivirals... antir-ejection meds... anti this and anti that. My NP was saying how the first year after transplant is extremely difficult... and so many people have such a hard time with it. Someone left a patient door open and we could hear someone retching and vomiting... and she looked at me and said, "well isn't that nice... everyone thinking of getting a transplant should come by and hear this to prepare themselves for what's coming ahead..." and then I said, "I think everyone should get a sign to put in their room that says, 'eye on the prize, (insert name here)'" because day after day after day in the same hospital room... dealing with one complication after another... you hafta keep your mind on the big picture otherwise you'll go crazy and then want to leave against medical advice... and then all of this would have been for nothing if you stop taking your meds, get some kind of upper respiratory infection, don't get it treated and then die from that because you're immunosuppressed. She told me that a lot of people get transplants and they just don't have the coping skills or resources to be able to manage their care. She said that she wished that they did more psychosocial screening and denied more transplants than to see people break down from the aftermath of the transplant. They need to remember why they did the transplant in the first place... to keep their eye on the prize when everything in every fiber of their being is pleading to stop and end the suffering. Sigh.
"why?" and "what's the point?"
Inside and outside the hospital... these are two questions/statements I've heard repeatedly for a variety of reasons and contexts. I've been thinking about them a lot... and the words keep replaying in my mind... for a long time after I parted from the friends who uttered them.
In a cancer hospital... we hear lots of sad stories. There are some patients that you see and you wonder.. why did someone so lovely, so kind... with so much to live for... why did all of this happen to them? And we see some patients, who against all odds... and even though they have every reason to be depressed and give up on life... they wear a smile on their face... they are walking up and down the halls... "to save what little I can". I heard a doc talking today and he was saying how... look at these patients... they're trying so hard and all the rest of us who aren't struggling with cancer are content to just sit on a couch and push buttons on a remote. It reminded me of something else a friend said to me the other day... "you don't know how good you have it".
Where I am right now... I think I'm struggling. It's not an agonizing kind of struggle... but it is a struggle. I feel like I'm alone, on a boat... in the stillness and darkness of night... it's cold and I'm tired... and I wonder why I'm here and for what purpose... battling senioritis... feeling time pressure but at the same time... not feeling much of an urgency to acquiesce to it. I think it's not so much a physical exhaustion as it is a mental and emotional one. I have very little left in me... and the finish line is so close.
"the pain reminds this heart that this is not... this is not our home" - Laura Story
I often don't feel like myself anymore. I see glimmers of the person I used to be here and there... but I'm pretty darn tired. But since I hear so many people asking "why?" and "what's the point?"... in an effort to answer those questions... I made a list of possible responses. All of them were... valid to some extent but I could refute each of them as eventually meaningless or fruitless... save for one... and that one reason is... love. Maybe the cancer patients would choose to undergo a transplant for the sole reason to preserve their lives... to LIVE... but... maybe for me... to live a life without love... I'd rather not live at all.
Love is both a macro reason and a micro reason... it's why I exist at all... and why I do things on a daily basis. It both fuels me and directs me. It is all my reasons. Or it should be anyway.
If all the effort I make in my entire life... were so that just one person would experience God's love... then it would all be worth it. If God would give up everything to save just one... He would have done it. And I should do the same. Why I enjoy being with friends... it's to give and receive love. It's delightful. I wanted to become a nurse practitioner so that I'd have more skills and more tools with which to better help people... to better love on them... to have more avenues and opportunities to touch other people's lives. Sure it's a good career with fairly good job stability and decent pay... but it's a whole lot more than that. Also... I don't necessarily have to work as a NP if I don't want to. I could just throw away my education and do something completely different if God called me to do so... and it still would have been worth it because I met so many lovely people during my program... I got a chance to experience things I never would have had the opportunity to do otherwise. I don't regret going back to school... again and again. I had the time. I had the resources to do it. So I did. Not everyone can.
I think all of this... is simply preparing me for the next great phase of my life. I might not know what the heck is going to happen next year... where I will find a job... whether or not I'll pass boards... but what I do know is that... everything will be OK. I am exactly where I am meant to be right now and it's preparing me for the next thing ahead.
So I've also been listening to this song called Oceans by Hillsong recently. Maybe the past month or so. We just started a series at church entitled Oceans after the song. It's pretty relevant and has been quite impactful. The first part goes like this:
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand
It's based on Peter's experience... walking on water. Being called out onto deep water... is like being drawn out and asked to take a risk... to step out onto the unknown... where feet my fail. Even though a whole lot of people play a part in my life... when it comes to big picture... it's actually just me and Jesus. Just the two of us. Especially when He calls me out and when I come... I find Him in the mystery of it all. Sometimes things just don't make sense... like why I went back to school when I didn't need to... or why God called me into widowhood and singleness... could He have drawn me out in other ways? Maybe... but perhaps this was the best way for ME and only God knows the actual reasons why... even though I might have brief flashes of insight sporadically.
And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine
That last line... "for I am Yours and You are mine"... whenever I read that in the Bible and I hear how God keeps saying it to His people... claiming them... giving of Himself to them and asking for them to belong to Him... it ALWAYS moves me. Why does it move me? Because that is love. To be claimed... to be chosen and singled out from all others... to know and be known... is to be loved.
One of the deepest desires of the human heart is for love without parting. -Tim Keller
Anderson loved me. To even think on the kind of love he had for me... often makes me cry. To have tasted it and then to not have it any longer on this earth... it is heartbreaking. And yet... the whole situation only made me realize God's love for me and His grace in even allowing me to experience Anderson's love in the first place... to have prepared me as a nurse to be able to better handle being his caregiver... and then after being widowed to have it prepare me to be a better nurse and a better person... this is how I know that God is worth it. Against all odds... against all logic... to have come out of a horrible situation with more peace, more love, more joy and more sense of purpose than before having experienced it... does give me confidence to say that He knows what He's doing, He knows what He's talking about and that knowing Him is what I was made to do... and who I am becoming is who He intended me to be.
Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now
All across time, God has proven Himself faithful to His people. His people have very RARELY proven themselves faithful to Him and yet He still remains the same across the ages. From the moment we were first created, He has been loving us and providing for us... He has great plans and great purposes... with thoughts and ways much higher than ours. In my own experience... He has done the same for me. He has never failed me... and He won't start now.
I went to this lecture last month entitled, "can the human side of cancer be therapeutic?". I took sparse notes but what I did pull out was that what we can do as healthcare professionals is to not only treat disease, but to point people back to meaning and purpose. It's the little things we do to acknowledge people and their suffering... to help decrease their fear and change the way they think and process information. That we need to hear what isn't being said... to open our eyes and open our ears and BE human. We are all going to be on the "other side" one of these days and it would be awesome if we could treat people the way we would like to be treated when we are the patient and not the healthcare professional. To me... all of that was reminding me to go beyond the job... and infuse love into my work. I can do the work without love but I can also do the work with it... and to love others while I do my job is to increase the the effectiveness of my interventions because I'm addressing not just their physical needs but their mental, emotional, and even spiritual needs.
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior
I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine
To love and be loved. Or probably more appropriately... to be loved first... and then to love... is the prize to keep my eye on. So wherever He will call me... however deep He takes me... my faith and my trust will grow and increase way above I could ever ask or think... and none of this would happen if I only stayed where I was comfortable and only did what I wanted to do. If you do what you always do, you'll get what you always get. In order to grow in new and different ways, you hafta do things you've never done before.
Ok. I think I'm done now. Thanks for reading if you got this far!
love,
Tiff
