Wow.

Well ... I survived my first day with patients.

Sort of.

I didn't actually see any patients alone.  During the day I toured the entire hospital (grandiose doesn't even begin to describe this building) and after 16:30 (I'm practicing my military time) I was shadowing one of the residents with two other interns so I did a lot of nodding and looking sympathetic.

So it's not like I still have any idea what it is going to be like all night by myself.  But I least I did something other than sitting in a conference room and listening to the worst case scenarios and thinking all in hypothetical terms.

There were also moments when I was convinced the day would never end.  There were many points today that my anxiety skyrocketed, that my legs started to shake and that my heart started to pound like crazy.  I got choked up / teared up a lot; at one point I texted Bruce and said "I'll be home at 10:30 tonight - I'm going to need to cry."  There was one point during the day that I decided I was going to quit and was just going to beg my Church & Ministry Committee to ordain me without CPE (ha, right).  Towards the end of the day I was telling myself I needed to call the person (ahem, Max) who said to me, "When you do CPE go somewhere where people die" and curse him out for telling me this was a good idea.

But ... I'm home now, blogging from the comfort of my couch.  Bruce met me at the door with a strawberry peach smoothie with fresh cream, double stuffed oreos and a card that made me cry (although today it doesn't take much, apparently).  Luckily I am doing educational stuff all day tomorrow so I won't be at the hospital at all.  I actually have an assignment due tomorrow at 9 a.m. that I haven't started yet (oops) so I'm going to wrap this up and get going on that.

Thanks for all of the prayers, friends.  I really feel them working through me.  I feel like this summer will be like running a marathon - there are times when I will hate it, love it, feel a high, feel exhausted, want to scream, want to cry and can't help but smile.  I will be glad when it's over but (hopefully) happy that I did it.

I really really cannot express how appreciative I am for everyone who has been reading my ramblings and checking in with me.  If I don't respond to your text or message, know that I am just a little overwhelmed right now, but I am reading everything and feeling so unbelievably loved and supported right now.

Going in Blind

Go figure.  Last night I was trying to get into bed at a reasonable hour (does 11 even count as reasonable?) and as soon as I got out of the shower I went to take my contacts out.  Usually, I forget to do it until I'm half asleep and have to stumble out of bed to do it.

I should really stick with what I know - because my eyes were super dry when I got out of the shower and I completely ripped one of my contacts in half!  And it was my last pair!

So now, on my first day of actually seeing patients, I'm totally going into the hospital blind!  Well - with glasses, which may as well be the same thing because the dumb things drive me crazy when I wear them for too long.  I'm hoping I can get some new contacts (which will involve an eye exam, because my old prescription has expired, of course!) some time this weekend.

Wish me luck - I'm going in blind!

No Worries, God's Got This

I got the following text from my sister this evening:

How was day 2/74? :-)

Can I just stop for a moment and say how grateful I am for my awesome and amazingly incredible friends and family for supporting me these past couple of days?  I know I can be overly dramatic at times (who me?!), but I was really anxious about starting up and having zero prior experience as a chaplain.  Having people check in and sending positive vibes has made all the difference in the world!

I was a little sluggish this morning.  Our carpets were getting cleaned today so Bruce and I were up late last night running the vacuum and moving furniture around so the guy coming in to clean could cover as much surface area as possible.  My 5 a.m. alarm was not well received this morning so I gave myself an extra hour and had to move a little bit more quickly once I was up to get out on time.  I really need to get to bed early tonight - I am staying late at the hospital tomorrow to shadow the on call chaplain and really don't want to be dragging!

Today was - in many ways - similar to yesterday.  We were in the hospital today, but spent most of our time in the chaplaincy office conference room going over program things and more orientation stuff.  From the sounds of things, we will start to get out onto the floors tomorrow (supervised, I hope of course!), but we are also going to be doing some role play with the residents (they are the chaplains that are completing a year-long CPE program, they have been at the hospital since last August).  Us interns will start our on calls THIS WEEKEND (luckily I'm not on call until next Friday) so we each need to shadow one of the residents this week.  I am staying tomorrow until 10/10:30 p.m. so you may not hear an update from me tomorrow night.

That's a lie.  Y'all know I can't help but update this thing incessantly when I'm going through transitions. It's my vice.  It keeps me sane.  Remember the weeks leading up to my wedding?  Oy.  Besides, it will be fun to look back on one day.

We had worship this afternoon with the other chaplains and a few of the staff members.  The resident who planned the worship preached a really fantastic homily on trusting God with the things in our lives that overwhelm us.  I'm not sure if the message was aimed at the interns, but I felt like she should have started it off by saying, "Sarah, this message is for you."  Let's face it - I am definitely terrified of what my floors, my nights on call, my referrals and my pages might bring.  But God called me into the ministry - if there's something I can't handle, God's got my back.  It's as simple as that.

Don't get me wrong.  I still will need to make my rounds, answer my pages and follow up with referrals. Saying that "God's got my back" doesn't give me a Get Out of Jail Free card (hmm ... bad analogy).  But it does help me breathe and relax as I navigate the bumps, bruises, twists and turns of this new journey.  And breathing and relaxing is probably a good thing when it comes to being a chaplain in a trauma center.

***

And on a completely unrelated note, my sister told me in our text conversation (textersation?) that my mom got one of those refrigerated cold mailing boxes and is shipping us the top tier of our wedding cake!  I know it seems like a silly tradition, but for some reason I really want to celebrate it and I am insanely grateful to my mother for trying to make it happen.  Our anniversary is in less than two weeks!

Besides - the only cake I got at the wedding itself was the bite Bruce fed me.  People kept telling me how good it was - I'd like to taste for myself!

*** 

And this is even more of a completely unrelated note, but I was about to hit 'Publish Post' when I looked behind me and saw this ... 

How do cats always look so comfortable?

One of the great mysteries of life.