. . . This is where I have spent most of it: Holed up in my office studying and doing assignments when I wasn't visiting various nursing experiences for my Community Health Rotation. (After taking pictures of the kids, Paul felt it appropriate to continue to document my nursing experience) I enjoyed it, but the semester has been twice as hard as I anticipated and it is so hard to stay focused when everyone else appears to be at play.
Some of my favourite experiences in community health were being able to spend two solid days with midwives at a public health department. It was great to actually experience what my days will be full of eventually and to actually feel like I am in fact developing usable knowledge on my journey to midwifery.
I was also fascinated to find out that I love the end of life as much as I love the beginning. I had several inpatient and home hospice experiences. I love the sacredness of death and the ability to help people to move on in grace and peace. It was also amazing meeting families that were helping their elderly stay at home while they were passing, what a great opportunity to give them their grace and dignity and normalize the second experience, besides birth that we are all privy to.
We also visited a variety of social service settings, my personal favourite (to many of you who know my passion about community and communal living will not be surprised) was a communal living faith community JPUSA. It is a 250 person commune. One of their expressions is to house about 35 older adults that need assistance. They provide their meals and some health services to them, as well as providing a community of which they are valued members.
I am now back in the hospital medical-surgical floor and I show up there three mornings a week at 6:30am-2pm. I ride the train down with one of my classmates. We are at Cook County Hospital (you know where ER is set). It serves the poorest of Chicago. It can be a pretty depressing place, but it has also been a place where I know even our newfound nursing passion is appreciated amidst the constant buzz of a floundering hospital.
Some of you have asked me to outline my days more. So to sum up my summer, I have spent Mondays in a classroom from 8:30am-4pm. Then Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I have been in the hospital. And then evenings and weekends are studying and catching up with the family. It has been an amazing summer having my younger sister Lorie here to be with my kids while I pursue this. She has blessed and honored me in many ways going the extra mile to help out around here and making this part of the journey that much more bearable.
I have three more weeks, until I get my first long break (a whole month). Each day I feel a little more like a nurse. People have begun to ask me my opinions about all sorts of stuff . . . I still don't feel like I know much, but I am always eager to try and to serve with my newfound skills and knowledge in whatever way possible.
So this is what I wish I could have been doing more of this summer . . . but at least I have made some occasionally sweet family memories in the middle of all of this.
Some of my favourite experiences in community health were being able to spend two solid days with midwives at a public health department. It was great to actually experience what my days will be full of eventually and to actually feel like I am in fact developing usable knowledge on my journey to midwifery.
I was also fascinated to find out that I love the end of life as much as I love the beginning. I had several inpatient and home hospice experiences. I love the sacredness of death and the ability to help people to move on in grace and peace. It was also amazing meeting families that were helping their elderly stay at home while they were passing, what a great opportunity to give them their grace and dignity and normalize the second experience, besides birth that we are all privy to.
We also visited a variety of social service settings, my personal favourite (to many of you who know my passion about community and communal living will not be surprised) was a communal living faith community JPUSA. It is a 250 person commune. One of their expressions is to house about 35 older adults that need assistance. They provide their meals and some health services to them, as well as providing a community of which they are valued members.
I am now back in the hospital medical-surgical floor and I show up there three mornings a week at 6:30am-2pm. I ride the train down with one of my classmates. We are at Cook County Hospital (you know where ER is set). It serves the poorest of Chicago. It can be a pretty depressing place, but it has also been a place where I know even our newfound nursing passion is appreciated amidst the constant buzz of a floundering hospital.
Some of you have asked me to outline my days more. So to sum up my summer, I have spent Mondays in a classroom from 8:30am-4pm. Then Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I have been in the hospital. And then evenings and weekends are studying and catching up with the family. It has been an amazing summer having my younger sister Lorie here to be with my kids while I pursue this. She has blessed and honored me in many ways going the extra mile to help out around here and making this part of the journey that much more bearable.
I have three more weeks, until I get my first long break (a whole month). Each day I feel a little more like a nurse. People have begun to ask me my opinions about all sorts of stuff . . . I still don't feel like I know much, but I am always eager to try and to serve with my newfound skills and knowledge in whatever way possible.
So this is what I wish I could have been doing more of this summer . . . but at least I have made some occasionally sweet family memories in the middle of all of this.
