Re-post - The Construction of Nursing

In recognition of Nurses Week (May 12-18, 2014) I am reposting from Feb. 6, 2013.
Preparation for nursing begins with role models, a nugget of natural desire, and often ability, to care for others, then nurturing that desire. Nursing school continues the preparation of this highly task oriented and soul driven career.

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Nursing ~ a job, a career, a vocation
The image of the nurse has changed dramatically in 45 years, 
no longer seen with white starched uniforms and caps
We are not relegated to hospitals and doctors offices.
Nurses are spread liberally throughout communities
not just in hospitals, but in clinics, schools, in work places, 
on cruise ships, in isolated communities in the north.
Nurses are street nurses, detox nurses, intensive care nurses, pediatric nurses; nursing specialties abound.

For most nurses in hospitals, we are clothed in scrubs (once only relegated to the Operating Room) and in community clinics attire may be denims and t-shirts.

Nurses are considered by many to be the front line of health care.
(Makes it sound like a battle zone!)

And, I can’t think how many times I’ve heard nurses called
angels of mercy or cruel and heartless.........

It doesn’t seem that what we wear always makes much difference
although when some one of us does take the time to appear ‘professionally dressed' it is appreciated ~ ‘I know who the nurses are.’ 

Whether starched whites or denims and t-shirts, in clinics or hospital units (or pods, or neighbourhoods), nurses aspire to provide the same care.

And then there are all the changes in health care systems that
nurses manage as well as managing their clients.  And we continue aspire to provide the same care.

Hospitals are built, reconfigured and torn down as 
technology changes
space needed is re-evaluated and revamped.

Salaries change with the 
seesaw of union and management conversations
variant budget needs of societies.

Equipment used is upgraded for 
ease of use
improved safety features

Documentation of patient progress is upgraded to
computer driven programs
while many still are pen and paper
some still are transitioning so are using both old and new
always taking care that legalities are maintained.

Despite all these changes - 
nurses in any and all of these areas
ride with the changes (not always patiently so)
caring for their patients and advocating for your good health.

“To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do,

in spite of all we go through; is to be a nurse.”

~ Rawsi Williams

An Idea's Time

An idea 
flowed onto my head 

between droplets of warm water,
blew through my hair from the branches of an old oak
fluttered onto my shoulders cupped in a falling leaf
slipped into my ear on bird song, gently insistent to be captured and written prepared and developed on a page, moulded and shaped
from image, metaphor and language ~ tools of heart, soul and mind.

“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it 

slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”

~ Maya Angelou

Sleep Prepares the Way

Sleep.
The ultimate preparation for each coming day
But what's this? To prepare for sleep at the end of a day?
Pushing our children and ourselves to work hard, play hard and shave our sleep time away leaves little room for preparing to sleep.
Softening the edges of work and play yet keeping any joy, excitement or passion
can enhance our daily experiences.

Preparation to sleep ~
merely lowering the volume of life
softening the sound and fury of a day
gentling challenges that stir the soul
easing off the heavy boots of travel or work
calming minds filled with problems or worries
turning lights down as the sun goes down.

Awakening ~
when sleep is accepted and welcomed
when preparation has been exercised
feels refreshed and rejuvenated
for whatever shows up in the coming day.

“Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”

~ Thomas Dekker

The Neuroscience of Sleep by Russell Foster at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/russell_foster_why_do_we_sleep

Outcome Unknown

My mind ~

like a gigantic theater in the round sees broad steps circling the base of many more steps leading to doors and hallways high in the mist above my head.

To reach the topmost door

I must prepare for the climb

but what is needed to reach the goal. What outcome will there be? What's missing from my bag of tools learned in the school of life?

The steps look hard and unforgiving

but each baby step has been softened.

Running back and forth on the stairs

sitting on landings and plateaus

then climbing hesitantly, slowly

doorways and openings become less threatening

always a choice dangles before me:

run back, just run around,

let go completely

or keep stepping forward.

no speed limit......

only time and a dream.

“We must begin where we are and move forward immediately

by starting small and capitalizing on what’s at hand.”

~ Mike Schmoker, Results

Book Review: Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

A difficult review to write. I’ve usually been able to review books I have undoubtably enjoyed, some more than others. This one caught me by surprise. To say that it’s interesting is rather anticlimactic and possibly avoidant. At the same time I would not stop myself from reading through this book. My preparation besides reading the book? Listening to the discussion this afternoon at my book group.

An ordinary family in Britain leads many lives. Ursula, the protagonist, is often the person that experiences these lives in ‘Life after Life’. To read it literally, from time period to time period, it can leave one wondering ‘why bother reading’ and better yet ‘why bother writing it’. And yet over the pages and chapters, the question ‘what if’ still hung in the air, answered with different scenarios. To understand it literally, it often felt like a disjointed series of vignettes.

Another perception I had, not shared by the group, was that it seemed a picture of the way mental illness was misunderstoond and pushed aside in the mid 1940’s from the inside world of the protagonist. In discussion today, there were reminders to me that some of the protagnoist’s ‘different lives’ were accompanied by a memory from prior life. It allowed the protagonist to change her behaviour to fit a new life, or to question a current outcome.

Finally, the story was played out in the war years in Britain with graphic and brutal reality, ending following the war. These scenes were of the citizens of London and not the soldiers, the Home Guard that picked up their neighbours bodies along with great chunks of buildings.

Would I read this book again? Definitely. The nuances, layers and characters in this book are many and fascinating. Is this story merely answering the question ‘what if?” or is there more to this story?

“A story has its purpose and its path. It 

must be told correctly to be understood.”

~ Marcus Sedgwick

Preparing to be Creative

Preparing to be creative is such an odd phrase! Isn’t creativity an innate ability to design and innovate? Something with an inside/outside quality that doesn’t seem really connected to anything more than a sudden idea. For me, many of my ideas come while in the shower or while I’m driving. While doing something else with my hands and my mind that doesn’t involve anything more creative that getting ready for work or going from point A to point B.

And maybe that is the preparation to be creative ~ without pencil, paper or computer at hand. The task becomes how do I hold onto that thought or idea. Well, that in itself is creative and possibly quite wet if the shower is involved. If driving....that involves preparation. A tape recorder that is always there with a button ready to be pushed, comes to mind. But, for me, distraction for grabbing a thought can interfere with my driving, so I have to be willing to let that one go. If it’s important, that thought will return later, maybe in another form and hopefully ‘at a more opportune time’.

Tonight, my level of exhaustion after my Aquafit class, has definitely not prepared me to be creative. Exhaustion often feels equivalent to a great heavy body of water that just wants to settle and pool.  But I wanted to write..to be creative.  I turned, as I have recently to a TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (http://www.ted.com/playlists/11/the_creative_spark). As has so often been the case, my creative energy was renewed, even although my physical energy still was calling for rest. And thus this muse.

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s 

self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. 

You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.”

~ Ray Bradbury

Defining Motherhood

Motherhood
not a simple task,
although there are many,
but an art form of caring.

Mothering
never a simple task
as children grow
but an art form of letting go - and always caring.

Motherhood
carries babies and responsibilities ~
handbook not provided ~
aunties, grandmothers, neighbours and moms carry the lessons.

Mothering
takes temperatures and washes dirty faces
listens to long winding stories
life preparations each step of the way.

Being a mother
is an exercise in gratitude
to sons and daughters for
all they have been, are and will be.

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”

~ Robert A. Heinlein