death

Three people died on my floor this weekend. I took care of all of them.

One was even yellower than yellow man. He was mustard colored. His liver stopped working completely. And his fingertips were black and hard - necrotic tissue. And they smelled awful. He was unresponsive, but was breathing through a trach on his own. His family took him off curative cares. It's called comfort cares. And he lived for five or six days after that. They had begun to wonder if they had made the right choice. He died on his wife's birthday just after my shift was over and before my next one started.

The other man was one I talked about before - the sickest man I ever met. You know, if you're in the medical field, you hear people say, "I could just tell when I saw him; it was cancer." or "I knew he wasn't going to make it. He had that look about him."

I get it now.

He made it home before he died. That was what they all wanted.

I didn't get attached to the other lady. It's a good thing, too, because hers was the first and only body I saw dead. I was in the room when she died. She was on comfort cares, too, but her family wasn't around when she died. They had gone out to eat. And didn't come back for a few hours after her death and didn't answer their phones. She had been seizing all day long, the nurses think. Her eyes were rolling back and forth, back and forth, slowly, slowly, all day long. She appeared to be in a lot of pain. And we went to clean her up, and it all happened so fast. Body processes I won't tell you about. I was amazed at the nurses I was working with. They were incredible. It happened at six pm, just before my shift's end at 7:30.

That morning, I had been teary-eyed. Everything I was doing was making me cry. So I took a minute. I thought that's all it would take, but when I got in the bathroom, I couldn't stop crying. I was beyond the point where I could wash my face and look normal. So this girl opened the bathroom door - she didn't know I was in there. And she was totally cool with the fact that I was crying so hard that I was hiccuping. And we talked about death. Cause she's a nursing aid on that floor. Has been for like...three years or something. And I was a little more composed until I went in the room of mustard man with my preceptor to clean him up. And we talked about death more. Death process. Death paperwork. Family coping. Personal coping. Still wanting to come to work, even though there are hard things. And how getting through this and coping with this job says a lot about a person. "If you can do this, you can do anything," she said.

I'm okay, really. Yeah, I think I'm okay.

PS: Sushi fell through.

gratitude

I've had a conversation recently with a friend of mine. He said that being grateful changes depressed people to joyful ones. Well, at least he said it worked for him.

I just got done reading a girl's blog. I don't know her, but she commented on here once. Maybe she'll read this. She wrote "26 things I love about my husband." Cause he's turning 26, I guess. Then she got to 26, and realized she couldn't stop there. She wrote 101 more. I guess she couldn't make herself stop at 126 either. And then she said it would keep growing. I read about 60 of them and then thought to myself, "Wow, she is a writer."

But, maybe if I was as happy as she was in her marriage, I would've done the same thing - even being less of a writer. I'll start with 21, since I'm 21 and turning -well, my nephew was born on my half birthday: June 25th - turning 21 and a half and in honor of my newly born nephew. Does he have a middle name yet?

21 (and a half) Things I am thankful for about my life right now.

1) Having a nicely furnished place to live at a really cheap price for the summer.
2) Getting to work in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world.
3) Having a really great clinical coach who knows a lot and who doesn't hate me when I mess up.
4) Being able to talk to my mom a lot. She makes me feel better.
5) Being able to care tenderly for patients and families of patients who are dying.
6) Knowing what I'm going to wear to work in the morning, slapping it on, and being ready in 25 minutes.
7) Being able to go grocery shopping with my roommate and buy food.
8) Going to church and finding God.
9) Elisabeth Elliot's writings.
10) Friends who think and share their thoughts with me.
11) Heather Burnham, my roommate. I'm not just thankful for buying food with her. I'm thankful for her in general. She knows me pretty well - all of my quirks, and ridiculousness - and she still thinks I'm okay enough to hang out with.
12) Natural peanut butter and milk. and oreos, I guess.
13) This period of my life. It feels new.
14) Emma Katka. and Ruthie Lee. I haven't really talked to them in a long time. I just am thankful for them right now.
15) That the old lady that I meet with back in A-town and miss a lot - Ruth Miller - wrote me a letter.
16) John Steer, that British preacher who has faith and wisdom.
17) The old man that I took care of yesterday who said to me, "I'm so thankful for the way you girls care for me. Thank you so much for being so good to me."
18) Another old man I took care of this weekend who didn't appreciate the cares he was getting at all and got mad when I didn't prepare his bottom teeth just right. He made me appreciate the other guy a lot.
19) My floor at work. I floated yesterday to another floor. It was awful. Things weren't organized or stocked or documented well. Continuity of care was almost impossible with the way that things were set up. My floor rocks!
20) My preceptor who helped me to cope with death.
21) Life. Living and breathing easily and fingers that move and have blood flowing through them. Being able to run and feel the breeze. Reading and learning and being active. I'm thankful that I have life.
uhhh...21.5) Fire o th fou o Ju an th fri th ca t vis m.

discovery

Here is an unorganized something.

I had a root canal. The whole experience made me feel like a little kid who had just pooped his pants. I had this huge rubber thing attached to my face exposing one tooth. And I couldn't suck in my spit, so I was drooling all over. And I couldn't talk. I kind of grunted to the dentist lady so she could suction out my spit. On the ceiling, which I stared at for a good majority of the 90 minute visit, there appeared a chart about the acidity and sugar content of various beverages. "Sip All Day - Get Tooth Decay". Crafty. It was interesting for about seven minutes. Then I wished there was some kind of art up there.

As I was feeling exposed, awkward and abused, I started thinking about going home to bed. And how ugly I felt. And then I started thinking about my roommates. They were going to go to the cities and help out their youth group. And I could ride along if I found a place to stay. Earlier, I had called my friend Matt, whom I barely know. "If I happened to come to the cities tomorrow, would I have a place to stay?" He figured he could work something out. But by this time, I was thinking, "I don't want to go. I want to go to bed."

And that's when I realized that if I went to bed, I would feel depressed all day long. And even though I didn't really know what would happen if I went to the cities, I figured it would be better than being depressed, so I hung out with Matt and his grandma in her big, old and wonderful house. And I laughed so hard I peed my pants a little.

In other news, yellow man might have cancer around his liver. He's not really that yellow anymore, though. He looks pretty good actually. Last week, I saw a man sicker than I've ever seen anybody. It was eerie. Cancer sucks. It hit me.

I met someone with what's called pure red cell aplasia (aplasia = no growth) a long time ago. This part has been a long time coming. He said that at the time of his diagnosis, sometime in 2007, I think, there had not existed 100 people diagnosed with his disease. It is that rare, and that poorly researched. And he was in a clinical study in order to test the efficacy of new drugs on his condition. It's a type of anemia (you could say anemia means low/ineffective red blood cells) related to the depletion of erythroblasts (the cells that make the red blood cells). A lot of times, when people have anemia, it's because something is killing their red cells or because their red cells aren't working right. This condition was different, because the problem was up higher, you might say, in the process of the formation of the cells.

I feel like life is coming around again. I catch myself smiling for no reason. And I like that. Also, I find myself telling the same stories over and over again, and asking the people around me, "Did I tell you this?" because I can't remember who I told and who I didn't. In fact, I was just going to write something about already mentioning red cell aplasia. I feel like I did.

After all was said and done, the dentist cost $600. But my tooth doesn't hurt anymore. So I guess someone would say that it was worth it. I haven't decided yet. I think dentistry would be a horrible job. Nurses make people feel better. Dentists make people feel worse. Doctors do too, sometimes, but for the most part, the people aren't awake during the worst stuff. It's not fun to feel your head vibrate as a drill goes into your tooth and feel the spatterings of tooth and smell the drill smell. At one point, my bottom eyelid went numb. That was a weird feeling. I'm glad I'm not a dentist.

I'm going to eat Sushi with a band called Bread of Stone today. Yeah...I'm that cool.

Munificent wrote to me. Did I ever tell these people about Munificent? I guess I'll have to save that for a later post, because at the moment, I'm using someone else's computer in someone else's house as I wash my clothes (and someone else's clothes) in someone else's washer and dryer. My friends let me use their house even though they're not here. I thought that was really nice. And I'm eating their popcorn. Truly, does life get better than this?

beached

It's been a perfect day here, the kind that makes me want to go jump in the lake. So my roomie and I scoped out a county park with sand and sun and water. it was perfect. and while I was mulling over Elizabeth Elliot's words about her early missionary experiences with the Colorado indians, I heard a strange thing a few yards away. A big hispanic man in a hawaiian button-up put some plugs in his ears and began to serenade his beer at a picnic table. Intermittently, he would let out an elated, whiny sort of chuckle.

"I can't get through a page." My roomie had a tough time letting our live music remain in the background when a man fully decked out in a black wet suit with a huge white scorpion on his significant belly came into our view saying to his woo-ee, "Anytime I see water, I just want to get all decked out in a wet suit and jump in." Throughout our stay, he continued to woo his special friend with replaying of his latest video game victories. He laid on his side with his head propped up on one hand - feet in the water, head out, wooing her.

It was very Napoleon.

"I keep thinking of deer." My roomie was referring to our latest encounter with the security guard here at Evanston who told us that we need to drive really slowly right by the speed bump, because deer like to run out of the woods, "And if one of those hits your car, boy, yoo knoh, it's totaled." He sort of looks like a worn-out version of Nicolas Cage. He's got his hip shades. I think they're stolen from the fresh prince of Bel-Air himself.

Oh, the people.

A Possibilities Girl

Possibilities are sometimes more real to me than reality. And so in this world, where perfect possibilities and undashed dreams fail incessantly to come to pass, there is a deep, overwhelming sadness.

But I think the sadness swells from other rooms flooded with some lies.

Things proposterous like, "My sin is greater than everyone else's, so God shouldn't forgive me."
Things proposterous like, "I'm so bad, God's arm is too short to save me."

It's really a pride thing when everything unboils itself to the raw truth. "What makes you so great, kt, that you are capable of outpowering God's grace?"

Do you ever feel like God's just asking you all these questions? I feel like that lately. So often, we ask Him all the questions, but have you ever thought that perhaps He is asking you just as many questions?

"What are you going to do with this huge house I have given to you to take care of? How will you manage it? What else can I entrust you with?"

"What do you think about this topic that I have 'coincidentally' brought to your attention (Makes me chuckle to think of God using 'quotation marks')? How are you going to pan through this in your mind?"

"Are you going to rebel against me in this place?"

"Are you ready to skip a grade in this school? Can we move on to more important things?"

Oh! How I long to be faithful! And even here, this possibility is often dashed to pieces, only, His grace is real. The possibility of someone completely loving and beautiful is one that is truly fulfilled. And unity with Him will be accomplished in full one day.

Oh, That Day!

Do you ever just feel sad and that's all?

As I sit here "studying", I get sidetracked easily. My mind just needs to know. I'm learning, but not the test material; and part of me wishes I could just learn without tests.

But no matter, the thoughts that strike me tonight are ones of longing. All of them. And all of them about different things. Longing for the people I love to stop making stupid decisions. Longing for the Lord Jesus. Longing for unity with Him. When I won't have to look at Him through this dark glass, but see Him face to face.

There is a certain thing that I eagerly expect. It might be the one thing I don't ever question. It's so deeply ingrained in me- whether taught or not, I do not know - that I cannot deny it for more than a moment. It is the hope that there is more to this life than what we see now. If this is the end, nothing makes sense. Evil, hunger, pain, sorrow, breakups, people crushing others beneath their feet...I question all those. I question God's justice there. I question my beliefs. I question everything I have always known. But I cannot question the hope of Heaven. I may forget about it for a time, but when it enters my mind, there is no turning back. There is Heaven. There is resolution. There is beauty beneath all the drudgery.
I don't know what Heaven will be like. I know that it won't be most of the things that we picture it being; we simply can't fathom complete goodness. Even our best thoughts of what good entails are tainted by a mind that sees dimly. But as I try to ponder the unponderable, I feel at home.

Resolution. No more battles. No more struggle. No more.

My heart longs with the very deepest longing for the fulfillment of the hope of heaven.