At tonight’s Taize style service at our church, we sang several simple songs repetitively. The following song felt particularly appropriate as a prayer for the New Year.
O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.
Happy New Year to each of you and God Bless!
wrote Robin Jennings on ElderChicks recently. A former teacher, she has no time to sit in the rocking chair given to her when she retired. Rather than face a classroom each day, she now sees herself as her own classroom.
As a retired teacher myself, I loved the way she phrased this stage of her life. I identified immediately and wondered why I’d never thought to characterize my retired life that way. Instead, I’ve talked about my incessant yearning for learning that pushes me forward into each day.
When I wake up, always to NPR, I listen for a news cycle, all the while rehearsing my plans for the day. Always, it seems there is more that I want to do than there is time. I have this stack of Chicago Tribune articles on my desk, for example, that were supposed to be made into blog posts. One titled “Caregiving comes to the backyard” tells about the one room “med cottage” that you can install in your backyard to have your aging loved one close by. An alternative to taking an elderly person into your home or placing her in a nursing home or assisted living facility, these cottages contain the necessary medical equipment for any care needed. They also make it convenient for “family-managed” care and for the person to stay integrated into family life, but have private quarters.
I wonder if my mother would have liked that. In her final years, she did not socialize. She sat prettily in her chair by the window in her nursing home. All dolled up—polyester pleated-skirt dress, nylons, beads—with no place to go. She did not complain but would always light up when we entered her room. Living out-of-town, I could not visit often. If she had been in my backyard, she could have read all day in her chair, and I could have helped her into the house for dinner and given her the lotion rub at bedtime that she missed after my father died.
Another article, “’Living Room’ an alternative to ERs for mental illness,” tells about a concept that offers a person experiencing a mental health crisis “a more empathetic and calming experience that they might receive at a busy ER.” In addition to providing a quieter, more welcoming environment than a noisy fast-paced ER, it is more cost-effective. The article says, “if it keeps even two people per day out of the ER, it could save more than $500,000 per year.”
This makes so much sense. I remember patients admitted into the psych unit from the ER (where they’d maybe waited for more than an hour) that just needed a calm safe environment to de-escalate. Entering through a locked door into a bustling day room did not provide that. Being alone in their rooms did not provide comfort. In the Living Room concept, they enter a quiet room, home-like, with six or seven other patients, and with staff to provide immediate crisis intervention.
So what does a retired nurse do with this information? I can’t help but think about going to work in those places. I envision caring for an older person in her Med Cottage or a distraught person in her Living Room. I imagine both places to be slow-paced, warm, and caring. I can see that some recipients of care would be much better served there than in traditional institutional environments.
And, if we were in similar situations, isn’t that what each of us would want—a warm caring place with warm caring caregivers? Meanwhile, I’ll keep being my own classroom—reading , listening, wondering, and marveling at new information, new ideas, new dreams. New ways to grow.
Well. A few of you have held me accountable this past week by asking how the no sugar deal is going. Fine, thank you! Marv is loving every piece of the pie he bought last week, and he doesn’t have to worry about me inhaling every sweet he brought home from his office Christmas party.
But my stomach has a thing to say to your stomach. Listen up!
Image via Wikipedia
As you pouch out bloated with sugar, I’m eyeing the sweets on my owner’s kitchen counter. They are in order, left to right: tutti frutti hard candy, Frango Mints, white chocolate pretzels, peppermint chocolate cookies, cinnamon sugar cookies, crepes au chocolate cocoa flavored cookies, and caramel corn.
Just think if you had to watch this stuff get stale on the counter! It’s a crying shame. Not only that, but yesterday my owner passed up a bowl of peach cobbler while all the other stomachs around were simply gobbling it down. Over a hundred of them. If you don’t think I felt embarrassed in the corner hiding under my owner’s slacks, think again. I hate to be last at anything, and in this contest I didn’t even place!
At least my owner now says she’ll quit this no sugar tomfoolery on Saturday, the 31st. Why? Because she’s attending an annual family thing on New Year’s Day where it is tradition to eat angel food cake with lemon pudding as frosting. So, until then, I’ll sign off and let you all get more bloated up. Me? I’ll be dreaming about Sunday.
So, there you have it. I’ve let my stomach have her say. What is yours telling you?
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
not by any din of drums,
nor by the vintage of his airs,
nor by anything he wears,
neither by his gown,
nor his crown.
For his presence known shall be
by the holy harmony
that his coming makes in thee.
Anonymous 15th Century
Source: Bulletin cover, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Christmas Eve 2011
Fourth Presbyterian Church
Walking past a Fannie May shop this morning, I remembered those days when Pixies™, eggnog creams, and chocolate covered cherries covered the counters of nurses’ stations at Christmas. So, I want to challenge you, especially nurses, to skip the candy, in fact, to skip sugar altogether, over the holidays.
But, you say, there are too many temptations. Patients leave “thank-you” boxes of candy, the break room is laden with the unit manager’s fudge and peanut brittle, and the cafeteria has their famous peppermint stick soft ice cream.
But, I say, no excuses. Why? Because you have everything going for you to lose some weight over the holidays. You’re already running around, right? At work, you never sit down. At home, you’re shopping yet for that red cashmere scarf for your mother, wrapping that boring book on football for your husband, and picking up and dropping off kids until you’re ready to drop yourself.
So, just by running around, you’re doing the exercise part of losing weight. Now you only have to make sure you’re not eating more calories than you’re burning up. Nutrition 101.
And that’s where sugar comes in, or should I say, sticks to your hips. So, what can you do to ensure that you lose weight over the Christmas holidays? You guessed it. Skip sugar.
I know that’s not easy! One year, while I was conducting research in a medical practice, vendors I’d never heard of buried us with goodies I’d never heard of–German Stollen Bread, Lindor Dark Chocolate Truffles, Ghirardelli’s Peppermint Hot Cocoa… The office staff arranged each arrival on a table right outside my office. By the end of each day, the table was missing my hourly scavenger hunts for the next best thing. As my lab coat tightened around my shoulders, I couldn’t wait for the holidays to be over. Seven pounds later, it was New Year’s Day and time to make the annual “lose weight” resolution.
This year, in my eleventh year of retirement, I’m taking a new approach and starting my annual resolution before Christmas. Skip sugar. Walk more. That’s it. No sugar, more steps.
Skipping sugar covers all those foods that produce empty calories and end in “ose,” except for milk (lactose) and fruit (fructose). Simple—pass up the candy, cookies, cupcakes, pies… You know the rest. Nutrition 101 again.
I started two weeks ago. The digitized numbers on the scale are edging down, 0.2 pounds at a time. It is possible to skip sugar. I passed up my husband’s offer last night of apple pie. This morning, I walked 3,780 steps to a bookstore. If you nurses wore a step counter, many of you would find that you walk thousands more than that every day.
I’m sitting at the bookstore café now. The white-bearded man on my left is scarfing down a chocolate frosted chocolate cupcake. A little girl is eyeing the brownies in the display case. I rise from my chair, wander to the case, and contemplate the goodies infused with sugar: Oreo Cookie Blast, Chocolate Blackout Cupcake, Godiva Double Chocolate Cheesecake.
Did I tell you that my favorite comfort food is chocolate? A serotonin booster, you know.
I turn away. Since I started de-sugaring myself, I no longer crave chocolate, or any sweets. A miracle! I choose the Spinach and Artichoke Quiche.
And, I am sure that you, during this holiday season, can pass up the sweets and skip sugar too! Think of how good your scale would look and you would feel come New Year’s Day.
*I welcome company! If you’d like to join me, publicly, in my No Sugar binge, click on the little bubble on the top right hand of this post, and follow the directions to leave a comment. Or email me, privately, at caringlessons@aol.com
I have to share some happy news!
In 1983, we moved from one Chicago suburb to another to be near my new teaching position at Trinity Christian College. Our kids went to high school down the street.
By 1994, Marv and I found ourselves empty nested, but continued to live in our home until 2005. Then our daughter called and said she was moving back to the area. After a quick discussion with Marv, I called her back and asked, “Would you like to buy our house?” She said, “Whatever.” I said, “Sold.”
You see, I’d wanted to move downtown since 1979 when I commuted to the University of Illinois, transferring trains in the Loop. Oh, the excitement of honking taxis and screeching trains and hustling commuters! (See Caring Lessons, Chapter 11, Meeting Sadie.)
In 2000, after my retirement from teaching nursing, I kept bringing up the idea of a move. Raised on a farm and loving his tool-stocked garage, John Deere rider mower, 1/3 acre yard, pond, water fall, and koi, Marv finally relented, “Okay, here’s the deal. You have one year to find a place. If you don’t find something I can agree to in that time, the subject will be closed.”
You can bet I was on it. Right away. Since I’d been going downtown one to two days a week for writing group and symphony and writing classes, I simply took an earlier bus and scoured the areas near Lake Michigan from Lincoln Park north to Museum Park south.
So, when my daughter said she’d buy our house, I sprinted to my stack of folders, piled on top of my four-drawer file cabinet still filled with teaching stuff, and coaxed Marv to the kitchen bar to study floor plans.
Having a built-in buyer made our move simple and easy. And Marv remained my daughter’s lawn guy and could putter in his workshop in the garage. The best of all situations for a wanna-be city girl married to a farm boy at heart.
Fast forward to last year, 2010. My daughter’s family moved. In today’s market, as you know and some of you have experienced, selling a home does not happen the minute the sign goes up.
And, because so many house-selling stories today do not end quickly or happily, I’m taking a moment now to thank the new owners for falling in love with my former home. And with Marv. He was present for the inspection, telling them about the raspberry bushes and who knows what else, but he’s got an open invitation to drop in anytime.
With heartfelt gratitude, I wish this family many, many hours of happy memory-making as they settle in, get warmly welcomed by the great neighbors, and begin this new chapter of their life.
I think I caught the infection I mentioned on my 11/29 blog post on this same topic. If so, that would be a good thing.
Infections are normally unpleasant. They can be contagious. They can keep you home from work.
But the infection that I hope I caught is a contagion that many of us in America who have weight to lose would love to catch. It’s what Laura Dion Jones, the host of The Laura Dion Jones Show on WRMN 1410AM, is all about. A motivational coach, par excellence, she worked her magic on me, after I was a guest on her show on 11/30, when she offered me a ride home after the interview. The drive from Elgin, Illinois, back to Chicago, took over an hour during rush hour.
Imagine being captive in the car of a woman who has motivated 166 people in Elgin to lose 1685 pounds in a little over 18 months. And who has lost 130 pounds herself. And kept it off for years. Plus, she radiates confidence that anyone can do the same.
Imagine getting a messenger-delivered package the next day that contained Laura’s book, Commit to Get Fit: The Secret to True and Everlasting Weight Loss. On the cover, a large Laura, draped in a black tunic top topped with multiple strands of colorful beads, stands alongside a svelte Laura wearing a black form-fitting dress. A plus-size model at one time, she looks smashing in both pictures, but much healthier and happier in the latter.
I could not help myself. I sat down and read the book cover to cover. And then, having caught the bug, started tracking my daily carb intake, water consumed, steps taken, miles walked, and weight.
You can probably figure out the rest. With the holidays rushing toward us, I’ve said no to Marv’s offer of pumpkin pie for three nights in a row, passed up frosted cookies and heart-shaped brownies at the wake of a dear friend, and avoided the donut holes during coffee hour at church.
The song that’s singing in my head is one I made up that I sing to the tune of Jesus Loves Me! This I Know. It goes like this:
No more sugar! this I know, No more sugar! this I know.
No more sugar! this I know, For my body tells me so.
Yes, no more sugar! Yes, no more sugar!
Yes, no more sugar! My body tells me so.
Oh, and by the way, the interview with Laura on WRMN 1410AM gave me a friendly relaxed opportunity to talk about what nursing means to me. To see Laura in action for yourself and to learn a bit more about nursing, watch the YouTube version here. Then eat an apple, walk a mile, and think about buying Caring Lessons for that woman in your life for Christmas!
With the IV drip rate post of the other day, it’s been fun going down the memory lane of nursing with you. As I’m working at my desk this morning, taking a breather before getting frosted in Chicago’s cold, I decided it was time for an audio post update from Caring Lessons. Take a minute in your busy day and listen to a young night nurse’s story. Then take a minute and express thanks for the measure of health that you have. And then get going on your Christmas shopping…
Thanks for stopping by today!
It’s an overcast chilly day in Chicago, just the kind of day for a good joke. And I got one this morning from a former nursing student at Trinity Christian College, now a seasoned grad. She’d had a “crazy” day yesterday. Here’s why:
Our primary IV tubing is on back order. This means we can’t use our IV pumps. I’ve never not used a pump. DRIP RATES? Seriously.
Did she expect my pulse to race in sympathy? Not a chance. Instead, my mind raced back to a PM shift in the 70s. I’d started that shift on my usual floor – twenty-eight med-surg beds. Half-way through report, the PM supervisor “floated” me to another med-surg floor. Thirty-two beds. Starting report late—it was oral in those days, given by the day nurse in a conference room—got me off to a frazzled beginning.
I walked out of report closer to 4:00 than 3:30, and bee-lined to make rounds, just to make sure all my patients were in their beds and breathing. As the only RN with four aides, I was especially worried about the eight post-ops, with more to come back yet from surgery, plus the eleven IVs to monitor. (Yes, monitor means to personally count the drip rate of each one.)
My rounds were cursory. In bed, yes. Breathing, yes. Bleeding, no. IV infiltrated, no. IV bottle (yes, glass, no plastic bag), marked with adhesive tape by day nurse with the amount out at 3:00pm, yes. Right drip rate, yes (i.e., x number of cc’s per hour to have a 1000cc bottle run for a specific time period). Good. On to next patient.
Just routine rounds. Fly, fly, fly. Fly back to med room and start setting up five o’clocks. 9-1-5-9 meds. No unit dose. No med carts. Cafeteria-sized aluminum trays papered with medication cards color-coded for time to be given. Phones ringing, no unit secretary.
Is your pulse racing yet?
I worked in overdrive the whole shift. More post-ops came back from surgery. In a really stupid policy move, the RN on the floor had to go to the recovery room to accompany the patient back to the unit. I’d think how dumb that I was leaving thirty-some patients with four aides while I’m gone for at least fifteen minutes to make sure of the safe arrival of one patient. I prayed for no emergency.
Back from surgery, I’d have orders to note, doctors to call, nine o’clocks and sedations to set up. In the flurry, as I made my after supper rounds (only there was no time to go to supper), I stumbled over something next to a post-op’s bed. Pushing the bed curtain aside, I got that sudden feeling of a boulder crushing my chest. Checking my feet, I saw the familiar crossbars of an IV pole. Slamming the curtain way back, I saw IV tubing leading to the patient’s arm. An IV I didn’t know about, hadn’t checked.
The bottle was dry. Empty. Blood backed up in the tubing at the insertion site. Bad enough that the IV would have to be dc’d and restarted, but bad also, of course, that the patient had gotten them too quickly. The tape on the bottle, so much out at 3:00pm, indicated the bottle was supposed to run most of the PM.
I hadn’t been told about this IV in report. And clearly, the day nurse had not counted this drip rate correctly, or had counted it when the patient’s arm or tubing were a bit bent, so that the IV went whoosh when they were straightened out. I still choke in horror thinking the patient could have died if all 1000cc’s (about a quart) had been infused within minutes. Then I might have found the patient cold. And dead.
The fear of IVs gone awry lives on in my bones today. I was happy to read my former student’s solution to her drip rate counting dilemma:
Found a new website www.rncalc.com.
In my day, that information on how to calculate drip rates was in our heads. No smart phones then.
When I asked if I could use this incident for a blog post, this nurse said, “Yes, you may quote me, but you have to try to feel a little sorry for me.”
Sorry, did you say? No way.
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I feel exonerated. Finally. When my daughter was two, her temper tantrums merited a blue ribbon. Once, as I was leaving a coffee date, a friend with a child also two, remarked, “I don’t know how you stand it, Lo.” She stared with me at the floor where my feisty adorable blonde-haired child splayed herself out, arms and legs in x-fashion, screaming. All because I said, “It’s time to go home.”
“Can’t you do something?” my friend said as her child stood docilely at her side.
So, imagine this week when I woke up to an NPR story on temper tantrums and found out the right thing to do is to let the child work it out. Researchers have found that ordinary tantrums have rhythms of anger and sadness. “The trick in getting a tantrum to end as soon as possible,” one of the researchers said, “was to get the child past the peaks of anger.” Once the child is past being angry, what is left is sadness, and sad children reach out for comfort. The quickest way past the anger is to “do nothing.”
It wasn’t long after I got up that my daughter called. She is now the mother of a two-year-old who has “melt-downs”. Happily, I told her the news of how I had handled her now famous tantrums properly. When I finished, she quipped, “At least you did one thing right!” Ha Ha Ha
Many of us have had first-hand experience with temper tantrums, either our own children, or other people’s in the mall, the church nursery, or the grocery store. We see mothers shouting back, yanking arms, threatening. For some reason, probably from having tried to intervene, I realized I could not talk to my daughter or try to pick her up. I had found that she would eventually wind down. Without the benefit of the findings of a research study, I sensed she just had to get her unhappiness of the moment out of her system.
And, now, I know I was right. My advice to you moms: Be easy on yourselves. Be open to what the research says and, the next time your toddler has a temper tantrum, take a deep breath, count to ten, and stand ready to give a great big hug.
