The Pros and the Cons

I watched someone die tonight.

The patient was DNR, meaning "do not resuscitate". Someone hit the code button, and therefore everyone in the building knew that a patient's heart had stopped beating. But the family asked that the doctor honor their loved-one's DNR request, and so he died.

Working in the hospital late at night is strange. The lights are down. The recessed lighting gives it the feel of a fancy restaurant. Monitors start beeping almost always ignored. They never beep for long.

There are people wandering around that may or may not have business on the floor. They shuffle past every few minutes or so. Doctors, respiratory technicians, janitors, visitors. Usually the visitors stay in the rooms with the patients. Sometimes the stress of a loved one in such a helpless state is too much to bear, or maybe they just want a cigarette. Nurses are doing endless paperwork and the secretary is shopping on e-bay. Some of us are wearing bathrobes because it gets so cold here overnight.

It's 3:14 in the morning and it might be hours before I do any real work. Four o'clock vitals and six o'clock accuchecks. Plenty of quiet time to think...read...pray.

I turned 35 recently. When I first thought about my 35th birthday, the first thought in my head was that I was halfway to 70. I think it was Oprah who said that 50 is the new 40. I thought that kind of inflation ended in the 80’s (thank you, Gipper).

It comes to times like these where one reflects upon life, weighing accomplishments against time spent watching cartoons. I have a Bachelors degree from Purdue University. I’ve traveled through South and Central America. I’ve been sea kayaking with whales. I was once close enough to a bunch of bald eagles to throw a rock at one. (I didn’t. Those things are huge!!)

In spite of all these things sometimes I wonder whether I’m using my talents or burying them in the basement, see Matthew 25:13-30
I’ve recently learned from my new internet blogging friends that I would benefit from being more bold. When I was in high school, I was guided by the principles of anger and snap-judgement. Hopefully I will find a middle ground. Next week I am going to give of myself by helping to build a playground with an organization called kaboom If you see someone on the news injuring himself with some kind of power tool, that will probably be me. I heard that racing legend Tony Stewart will be there. He once threatened me with a Sawzall. I can’t wait to see him again.

Kaboom is a wonderful organization. My wife and I helped build a playground through Kaboom in 2003 at a shelter here in Indianapolis. Kaboom benefits children who have parents who are in and out of jail. God forgive those people if total strangers can appreciate how precious their children are better than their own parents.

Hardly anyone ever posts any comments on any of my blogs; my well-prepared, painstakingly thought-out blogs. I was wondering if my posts are just too vanilla to evoke any response or if it is simply a case of being a grain of sand on an endless beach.

So I considered that, if I wrote a post evocative of controversy, perhaps I might get an answer to my question.

So here goes.

I call myself a Christian, and yet I don't like to talk in public about controversial subjects, such as abortion, gay rights, or who I think God will let into heaven. To be fair, I'm not certain I've made up my mind of some of these issues.

I long for the days when I was a teenager and knew everything. I was such a pain in the behind if you ever had the misfortune to argue with me.

But these days, I prefer to "live and let live", for the most part. I'll share my faith with people I know, telling them how God has blessed me or how God has answered my prayers. But I'm so afraid of taking a philosophical stand that I haven't been to Church in more years than I can count. I'm afraid someone will ask me to explain myself. I'm afraid to visit a church uninvited for fear I'll be asked to leave, or worse, asked to share my faith. It should come as no surprise that no one has invited me to church in years.

So you can tell me: am I really a Christian, or does being a Christian require putting my faith into more action than posting anonymous blogs where nobody will read them?

I haven’t posted in a while.

I’ve got things I want to talk about; I just haven’t had time to compose them. I got a job working in a hospital as a care technician. The job is rather demanding. Right now it’s demanding my soul.

You see, I deal with people who are sick. I’m working in critical care, so the people here are really sick. One of my patients right now isn’t expected to recover. The family is in there right now discussing what to do. One of them is holding onto the false hope that, since Grandma opened her eyes, she understands what is being said. Another is crying because she knows she’ll never have her Grandma back like she was before.

It makes me think of a poem I once read. I can’t remember the author’s name or even quote from the poem, but the essence is that people sometimes leave their souls at home. I haven’t decided if I can pour my soul into my work, making myself vulnerable to the needs of my patients, or if I should leave my soul at home and do my job with clinical, detached professionalism.

I don’t know what to do.

Before I begin, let me preface by saying that I’m neither a scientist in the traditional sense, nor am I a theologian, but I’d like to share some thoughts about the divinity of God and the nature of the universe.

First of all, we as mortal beings are bound by three dimensions. We are trapped in time. Time is a trap because it is simply an illusion created by our inability to perceive everything all at once. This may be enlightening to anyone who has ever wondered about the nature of God, since the Bible tells us that He neither has beginning nor end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (New International Version)
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Psalm 90:4 (New International Version)
4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

Since God has dominion over time, then the passage of time is meaningless to him. Each moment that passes in our lives is eternal. Everything that ever was will always be.

When I was a kid I was frightened by the concept of eternity. Of course, to a child, sitting through a church sermon was an eternity. I’ve heard of women going into labor that lasted for over 24 hours. I can’t even imagine doing something I like for 24 hours, let alone something as painful as childbirth. Imagine what an eternity spent somewhere unpleasant would be like…

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about this anymore. At the end of our lives we can be like children on their way home from the amusement park. We can sleep in the back seat, fully confident in the knowledge that our dad is behind the wheel and that we’ll get home safely.

Matthew 28:19-21 (New International Version)
19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

All Bible references were taken from BibleGateway.com

I’ve been away for a while. Like anybody cares. But I’ve been busy, since I just got a new job.
Now this new job is a huge step for me, since it’s working in healthcare and I’ve never done that before. Up until now, I’ve mainly worked in retail, since that is what my degree is in. But after a year as a student nurse, I figured it was in my best interest to get a job in that field.

So I went to the hospital to fill out a proper application. I didn’t know what to think when I parked in the garage and read the sign warning me that the hospital would not be responsible if someone broke into my car and stole my C.B. Radio. I wondered if my C.W. McCall 8-track tape was safe.

So I’m left to wonder how I’ll perform, how best to deal with the pressure. I considered joking with the patients. That seems to be the easiest thing to do. I got some practice when I was just a volunteer at the hospital delivering flowers. What do you say to someone who has just had brain surgery and doesn’t know the person who sent him flowers? “Looks like you have a secret admirer”? Joking with patients can help iron out the rough spots, like when you've accidentally walked in on a new mother who is breastfeeding.

Of course, the best way to deal with stress or adversity is to pray about it. I've been doing that a lot lately. I've found that prayer is a marvelous paradox in that, in the act of letting go, we gain more control over our situation.

I predict that working as a nurse requires a sense of control. Some of my nursing instructors were definitely control freaks. But I find more comfort in gaining control through letting go.