What Lasting Impression will you Leave?

The last question in my bible study lesson this week challenged me to think about what would be said in my eulogy when my time comes. What would I want to be said? How can I align the person I am now with the person I hope I am at the end of my life? It's interesting to think about. I have been pondering this the last couple of days and then I learned that my friend's father unexpectedly died. It drove the point home even more. I am extremely sad for my friend and his family. The news also reminded me we are not promised anything more than this moment. I see it at work more than most but even still, it makes me pause.

When I tried to answer the bible study eulogy question, of course traits come to mind that you hope people associate with you - kind, generous, caring, faithful. Of course smart, witty and beautiful would be nice too but I am trying to be realistic here and make changes within my control.

After giving it some thought, what stuck with me most is that the impression I want to leave with people is that they are cared for and loved. When I think of the people that I regularly spend time with and seek out, they are the people who leave me feeling this way. Being with them makes me feel better - heard, cared for, understood. These are people who I can be messy with and they love me anyway. That's who I want to be. I want the people in my life to feel a little more loved and cared for after our time together.

Looks great in writing but in practice it is hard. Hard at home when my teen doesn't speak in more than two word sentences and is put out when you ask him to look up from his phone when you are talking to him. Hard when at work a confused patient tells you to get the **** out of his room and stop bothering him. Hard when I am tired or frustrated. It is much easier to be loving and caring to the 80 year old woman who smiles sweetly every time I enter her room. Easier with friends who have been with me for 20+ years and love me in spite of myself. It's in these times I need to fill up so that I have some reserves to be caring and loving in the more challenging times.

I have a ways to go. I'm a work in progress. I get angry too quickly, am impatient and terrible at relaxing which doesn't help my fuse. I have been known to yell at my kids, raise my voice and say things I quickly regret. BUT I AM WORKING ON IT. I may need to work a little quicker to bridge the gap between who I am now and who I hope to be since I don't know when the end will come. Don't ask my kids or Michael how it's going - remember, WORK IN PROGRESS. But, I am going to try and with the holiday season upon us, I can't think of a better time to start.

The Vices Among Us

It's not uncommon in a month to have a patient that is on CIWA protocol. CIWA stands for Clinical Institute Withdrawal System or Canadian International Wrestling Association - depending on who you are asking. The CIWA protocol is put into place if a patient is currently withdrawing from alcohol or if there is a potential that they might during their stay with us. As nurses, we have to watch for signs/symptoms and then respond appropriately whether it be with medication, increased monitoring, etc. I am more apprehensive when I see this as an order because I am never quite sure what I am walking into. It can be an order placed as a precaution and the patient never does experience significant withdrawal OR it can be very, very messy. Awhile back I had one that fell more into the latter category.

In addition to alcohol withdrawal, we see people who are withdrawing from drugs or who are struggling because they can't get their nicotine fix while in the hospital and the patch isn't cutting it. Usually I leave a shift where one of my patients is going through withdrawal with a firm "don't do drugs" message for my kids. They are getting a little tired of it. But, here's the thing....the more I am around it, my feelings have shifted a bit. As ugly as the withdrawal can be, there is often a story that goes with it. When you look deeper into the situation there may be a spouse with cancer, a recent widow, joblessness. A hard situation. Really hard. My guess is that in some of these situations, the addiction started because life got messier.

Messy can be hard. We all have various ways we deal with hard things - some ways healthier than others. Some of these habits probably didn't start as addictions but they were a way to temporarily make some of the difficult times just a little easier. Maybe going to the bar for a drink rather than home to an empty house didn't start as a problem but as a way of coping.

A few days a week I am fantastic at coping. I can totally manage my life when I wake up in the morning on a day off, Michael has work and the kids have school. I am home alone with the dog. I find this quite manageable. I can go 8 hours without talking to anyone. My time is often filled with errands, running, walking Annie and paying bills but it's on my own schedule. On those days, I am a rock start with coping - even the dog says so. It's when the kids get home from school that things get a little more complicated and my patience isn't quite as amazing. Last week, the kids had been home for 10 minutes and I had to take the dog for a walk to get out of the house before I said something less than kind to my teenager. 

Relationships, work, school...they are CRAZY hard. Some of us have vices that take the edge off at times. My vices usually involve coffee and running but I understand the other ones. If I didn't have such a history of alcoholism in my family, my vice might have been alcohol. I do enjoy a glass of wine but it ends at a glass. Too risky for me. But...I get it. Numbing the pain can be very attractive in the short term.

So, when I have a patient who is struggling with an addiction, I TRY to consider the bigger picture. I'm not perfect. Instead of just talking to my kids about not doing drugs, I need to talk to them about coping strategies, the importance of people you can talk to you in your life and taking care of yourself. I need to look at my patients AND the people in my life with a different perspective. Is the vice hiding something else? More often than not, I imagine it is.