Sandra Heska King

To Learn

Sandra — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:14:41 +0000

Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery,

we shall learn nothing.

~Henry Miller

More Than Enough

Sandra — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:25:50 +0000

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter.
“it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

More Than Enough

always more

to do

to be

to want,

but He became

less

so we could

be more

do more

want less

because He

is more than

enough.

Joining Peter Pollock’s One Word at a Time Blog Carnival on more.

Also with Shanda and community.

Stripping and Soaking

Sandra — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:41:52 +0000

I’ve turned the television to a music station–New Age.

Don’t judge me.

Right now I’m listening to a very soothing piano piece by Bernward Koch called “Evoking Wonder” from a CD titled Walking Through Clouds.

There’s not a cloud in the sky.

I watch a purple finch crack an oily shell, strip and probe and push with it’s tongue to expose white meat. Black fragments fall.

I’ve started to read The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron, a book we’re going to be discussing over at Tweetspeak Poetry starting May 23.

I’m ready to begin my morning pages (again) and schedule some artist’s dates.

I’m ready to crack and strip and probe and push and let fragments fall.

I told my daughter yesterday when we went out to eat after Grace’s soccer game how I can’t wait to sit down and write every morning. But I still feel bogged down by “stuff.”

So last night I attacked the back kitchen where kitty litter dust and dust bunnies and cobwebs have taken over.

I’ve begun to declutter. To strip more stuff. Again.

So I can get to the meat.

Oh, my goodness. Out the window. There’s a hawk soaring high with two–crows?

Be right back.

********

Gone. Already.

But there are two jets passing each other, dual tails tracing their paths.

Sitting next to Julia is The Soul Tells a Story: Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life by Vinita Hampton Wright.

“To those who tremble at the power, wisdom and ecstasy of their gifts: may you leap into your calling and feel yourself lifted and healed in God’s mighty arms.”

I’m ready to leap and feel myself lifted.

I don’t want to miss the wonders in any moment.

So this week I’m going to spend some time clearing out the dust and cobwebs.

Stripping out some clutter.

I’m going to spend some time drinking and soaking in words.

Drinking and soaking in Him.

Do stop back, though. Perhaps I’ll share some images, some words, some links that raise me up and make me think.

Like What it Means to Have a Platform by sweet Jennifer or this by the ever deep Lyla, Job | Not a Word and these from the Still Saturday community.

God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction. ~Psalm 23:1-3 (Message)

Scripture Sunday: Unending Love, Amazing Grace

Sandra — Sat, 12 May 2012 12:00:09 +0000

Soaking in His amazing grace and unending love with Deidra and Katie.

And Michael.

Still Saturday: Alone with the Alone

Sandra — Sat, 12 May 2012 03:31:22 +0000

Silence is not simply the absence of noise or the shutdown of communication with the outside world, but rather a process of coming to stillness. Silent solitude forges true speech. I’m not speaking of physical isolation; solitude here means being alone with the Alone, experiencing the transcendent Other and growing in awareness of one’s identity as the beloved. It is impossible to know another person intimately without spending time together. Silence makes this solitude a reality. It has been said, “Silence is solitude practiced in action.” ~Brennan Manning in Abba’s Child

Welcome to Still Saturday where we pause after a busy week, move in quiet pilgrimage, maybe linger a while in some still place, and soak in the beauty of images and words. We’d love for you to join us. Get the details above, grab your favorite button, and link up below. We all love to hear if something especially speaks to your heart, but please don’t feel pressured to comment. Simply take some time to gaze long and drink deep.

Rest.

To the One Who Heals (Repost for National Nurses Week)

Sandra — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:23:25 +0000

My shoe covers rustle along the linoleum floor until I come to the holding area.

I find her, eyes closed on the gurney, brown wisps around green paper cap.

A tiny lady almost swallowed by crisp white and warm woven.

I pick up the chart at the foot of the bed and page through it.

I check for signed permit and review lab work.

I touch her hand.

She opens her eyes and blinks at bright.

I smile.

“I’m Sandy. I’ll be your nurse this morning. We’re ready to take you back.”

She nods, and her chin quivers a little.

I ask her name and check what she says against her armband.

I ask who her doctor is and what we are doing today.

She tells me, and I confirm that with what’s written.

I note the steady drip, drip from bag through tube into arm.

I ask if she has any questions, and she shakes her head no.

So I unlock wheels, and maneuver through the door and down to OR-1.

The rooms a’flurry with activity.

Instruments clatter and clank as the scrub nurse lines them neat on rolled towels.

We stop in the hall for a moment, and she looks up.

Would you pray for me?

Her voice quavers.

She has a broken heart, after all.

And today we will hold it in our hands.

Stop, slice, sew, restart.

I come around to her side and bow my head.

I pray for a sense of His presence and for her peace.

I pray for the surgeon’s skill and for a flawless procedure.

I pray for an uneventful recovery.

Before I can say “amen,” the surgeon barges into the hall and shouts at us to hurry up.

We both jump.

He’s on a schedule, after all.

And he’s not a patient man.

He’s a wonderful surgeon, and he can fix this heart.

But I’ve seen him fling a bent forceps across the room in frustration.

I whisper “amen” and glance down at her.

Her eyes are wide.

I wink and smile.

“It’ll be okay,” I promise. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

And then I wheel her into the room and next to the table.

She slides over, and I strap her down and hook her up.

Then I hold her hand and gently cup her cheek as she gives up control to the One who heals broken hearts and wounded souls.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. ~Psalm 147:3 (NIV)

National Nurses Week

May 6-12, 2012

In Which I Leave the Bedside

Sandra — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:20:41 +0000

I’m twenty years old, working as a G.N. (graduate nurse), still waiting to find out if I passed my boards.

It’s 3 p.m., and I come on duty to discover I’m in charge of all the intensive care patients. I have two regularly-scheduled nurse’s aides and one practical nurse who’s never worked on this unit.

I make assignments and give myself two patients–a man still recovering from open-heart surgery and a burned toddler who needs frequent dressing changes. I pass all the medications and later in the evening admit a new patient–from whom I also draw blood for labs.

I work an hour-and-a-half overtime and don’t eat or go to the bathroom. I don’t have time to hold a hand or stroke a cheek or chat a moment.

Not long after, I quit.

I register for college classes and sign on as a special duty nurse at a neighboring hospital. I’ll work one-on-one. The hospital is excited because of my ICU experience. I’m excited because I’ll finally have time to spend with my patients. To hold a hand, stroke a cheek, and chat a moment. Or more.

I’m also excited because when they call, I can say “no” if I have enough rent money on hand.

Some patients require major care. Some just need a “babysitter,” and I can study at the bedside.

One evening I’m assigned to Louise. She is on what we used to call a respirator (Bird) and requires regular tracheostomy care. I take report, read her chart, do my assessment, and settle in. I’ll be here for the next eight hours. Someone may relieve me for dinner.

Or not.

Towards the end of my shift, I do another assessment, empty her Foley bag, and prepare for a final suction. I remove the respirator and insert a catheter into her trach tube to clear secretions for the last time before my replacement arrives.

I watch in horror as her eyes widen. And her face color turns from peaches-and-cream to cherry to blueberry to blackberry.

I drop the catheter and reattach the Bird.

But the Bird is dead.

Not a peep.

It. Won’t. Work.

I press the call button and yell out the door. “I need help!”

I reach for the Ambu bag.

It’s gone. Missing. AWOL.

So I do the only thing I know to do.

I put lips directly to trach tube and blow.

The room’s filled with people now, and I’m manning the crash cart, watching the time and drawing up medications until, finally, Louise is stable, and the room clears, and it’s past time for me to go home.

Louise’s family gathers around me and thanks me over and over.

And I nod, try to smile, give a hug, and think, “I nearly killed your mom, your wife, and you’re thanking me?”

Not that anyone has accused me. Not that one word has been breathed to that effect.

But this is me. The responsible one.

And I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve done something wrong.

That this incident is all my fault.

Someone will figure it out soon.

Eventually.

I wait (for years) to learn I’m being sued.

It never happens.

But I say “no” more often when the hospital calls.

And I apply for a new job. One where I won’t face emergencies. One where there is always a doctor by my side.

I work in offices, in the operating room, in public health.

And I never go back to the bedside.

Have you thanked a nurse lately?

National Nurses Week

May 6-12, 2012

Spilling these hazy crumbs of memory with sweet Em today.

For National Nurses Week: Through the Time Tunnel (repost)

Sandra — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:50:02 +0000

Monday, September 13, 2010

I enter a time tunnel and stand in front of Andersen Center, what used to be Andersen Hall.

I’m surprised that it still stands.

I’m overwhelmed.

I look up and see my room. On the corner. With the bay windows.

I must go inside.

But my husband says we can’t. There are security locks on the door.

I step forward to peek in the window.

And the door swings open.

And we are inside.

There is a lady sitting on a bench. She asks what department we are looking for.

I start to cry.

“She used to live here,” says my husband. “When she was a student nurse.”

“Then you need to go that way,” says the lady.

So we go that way, but we do not know where to go or what to do. We push open a door that has a mail slot in it and nearly knock over another lady in scrubs.

She asks if she can help us.

I start to cry again.

My husband explains.

And Debbie (we only find out her name when we leave) is stunned. She says she’s always wanted to meet one of “us.” I belonged to the last class to graduate from Saginaw General Hospital School of Nursing. It’s not even Saginaw General anymore. It’s part of a sprawling Covenant HealthCare System.

Debbie takes us on a tour and introduces me to people and finds people to unlock doors.

I see my room and Becky’s across the hall. We made and hung our own curtains that Maintenance took back down and replaced with the ugly fireproof ones while we were in clinicals. Now those windows are framed with vertical blinds.

I tell Debbie how I stocked up on baby fruits like strained bananas and apricots for late night study sessions. And I tell her about the first night and how scared I was and how I locked my door and cried because of the commotion in the hall and the pounding on my door. The “big sisters” were pulling the new students into cold showers.

And I tell her about how we had to yell “flush” if someone was in the shower so they didn’t get scalded. And how Maintenance called out “man on the floor” if they came up.

Today our rooms are offices.

I see the lounge where we used to gather around a piano and sing and have monthly birthday parties. It’s a board room now.

Where were our mailboxes? I try to remember. I tell Debbie how we used to sunbathe on the roof.

I see the back door. A short run across the parking lot would put us in the hospital. That’s where we were if we weren’t in the dorm. That was our life for two years, year around. And we often earned extra money as aides if we did not go home for the weekend.

One of my instructors wheeled me across that parking lot to have x-rays the morning I couldn’t stand up after throwing my judo instructor on my foot the night before.

I see the tunnel entrance. It also led to the hospital, and we went through it when it rained. We used to have laundry cart races in there. We can’t open that door, but I peer in. It a lot more narrow than I remember. I take a picture through the glass.

Debbie takes us into some conference room that is being remodeled. And way over on the far wall are some large hinged poster-size photos. She says someone wanted to throw them out but someone else said no. I look first at the last picture of a graduating class—1969. Ours. And I point to myself and Becky. And I tell Debbie about some of the other girls in the photos.

And I see the class prior and my “big sister.” And all the classes that came before, all the way to the front to the hospital founding in 1889. But I’m sure several are missing.

And Debbie tells me that a couple nurses in OB were still wearing their caps up until a couple years ago.

Finally, we say goodbye and thank you and hug and walk around to the front of the hospital and into the park, where I remember walking with one of my psychiatric patients after she had come out of a catatonic state. And I look up and remember watching a sunrise from what I think was a surgical floor lounge.

We go inside, but nothing looks familiar. And a lady shorter than me by inches, a volunteer, Florence, asks if she can help us, but I can’t talk again. And Dennis tells her why we are there, and she tells me she worked there in recovery when I was a student. She doesn’t remember me, and I don’t remember her, but we talk about the doctors and nurses, and she tells me of some who have passed on and we share stories. She says she does not recognize most of the hospital herself anymore, and that even the cafeteria is different. So we say goodbye and don’t go past the information desk.

And we walk back to the car, and I’m not crying anymore, but I’m tired and thirsty. And I’m quiet, as my mind tunnels back in time and breaks through to more blurred memories.

But I’m confused about the tears–tears that did not come even when I sat in front of my childhood home or the now empty lot where my grandparents’ home stood.

Maybe it was the going in. The going deep. The touching. Hearing echoes in the halls. Brushing away cobwebs.

Because those two years, more than any others, consumed me and defined a large part of who I am.

And getting inside? Pretty much a God thing.

Celebrating National Nurses Week

May 6-12, 2012

For National Nurses Week: Nursing School Memories (repost)

Sandra — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:12:25 +0000

I graduated from Saginaw General Hospital’s diploma nursing program in 1969, a member of the last class.

Most programs lasted three years, but this one packed all the work in two. We went year around. The hospital staffed around the students, and some of us also worked as aides on the weekends for a little spending money.

Not that we had much time to spend money. We were either in clinicals, in class, studying, or sleeping–and not much of that.

We lived in a dorm connected to the hospital with a tunnel. Sometimes we amused ourselves with cart races.

Most of the girls had roommates, but Becky and I each had our own room in the end turrets–maybe because we lived further away and stayed on the weekends more often than the others.

I locked my door the first night and lay on my bed shaking and crying. I wanted to go home.

I wanted my mommy.

Especially when I heard crashing doors and screaming. And then pounding on my door. I didn’t answer. I found out the next day that the “big sisters” were dragging all the newbies into cold showers.

Initiation.

If we survived the first six months, we received our school cap in a special ceremony. Every school had its own uniform and own cap. You could identify a nurse’s school by the cap she wore. We sent our caps out to the cleaners who washed, stiffly starched, and pressed them flat. We’d need to fold and staple them back together.

Capped by my big sister, Betty

The ceremony took place in a church, and we’re each holding a Nightingale lamp.

My brother carved the school’s insignia (copied from a uniform arm patch) into a plaque as a gift. He cut himself and bled all over the house one weekend I was home and wouldn’t tell me what he was up to. He ended up with stitches.

Some things I remember

Seeing my instructor’s feet outside the curtain while I was giving a complete bed bath. She was eavesdropping.

Having to give up my chair at the charting desk if a doctor appeared.

My first patient death and having to prepare the body.

Passing nasogastric tubes down each other and injecting each other with sterile water after practicing on oranges.

Following a patient through an emergency C-section (baby’s arm had “prolapsed”) and discharge. The baby had a physical issue that caused doctors to question its sex. “We love him in spite of his penis problem,” mom told me before she left.

Assisting with a circumcision performed in the nursery.

Stocking my closet with jars of baby fruit for late-night study snacks.

Friday (8 a.m.) dates with a formaldehyde cat.

Early morning doctor rounds.

Getting yelled at for coaching a mom in labor.

Sunbathing on the dorm roof.

Metal bedpans and emesis basins.

Glass thermometers.

“Man on the floor!” warnings when Maintenance came up to fix a dorm issue.

Psych rotation–playing Euchre with the patients, scopolamine and insulin treatments.

Birthday parties and singing around the piano.

Dr. Manning halting surgery to admonish (and embarrass) Becky. “Young lady, we NEVER say ‘oops” in the operating room!”

Having to wear our hair off our shoulders.

Yelling “flush” if someone was in the shower so they didn’t get scalded.

The fragrance of alcohol, Dial soap, moist dressings, musty halls in the old wing, and fresh paint, as well as some not-so-pleasant aromas.

Having the difference between empathy and sympathy drilled into us.

Reflective listening exercises.

Avoiding the autopsy page. We were all supposed to observe one. I always managed to be busy. Or pretended to be.

Doing post-op teaching for a patient several days after a routine gallbladder removal.

We earned a black stripe for our caps later in our training. After graduation, we could work as a graduate nurse until we passed state boards, allowing us to add R.N. after our names.

My first job was in an intensive care unit. I rotated through all three shifts. I struggled to sleep during the day, and I remember a nightmare evening as charge nurse even before I passed my boards.

Over the years, I worked as a special duty nurse, office nurse (OB/GYN and family practice), OR nurse, community health educator, and public health nurse. I went back to school in my 40s to get my BSN at Michigan State.

I haven’t worked in the field for several years. I miss it sometimes. I feel a sense of home when I step into a hospital, and I keep my license intact–just in case.

“Once a nurse, always a nurse,” goes the saying. I believe it. That need to nurture and comfort in some form continues to be part of who I am.

Even as I’ve turned to writing.

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art,
it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation,
as any painter’s or sculptor’s work;
for what is the having to do with dead canvas or cold
marble, compared with having to do with the living
body–the temple of God’s spirit?
It is one of the Finest Arts;
I had almost said, the finest of the Fine Arts.

~Florence Nightingale

Composed by Mrs. Lystra E. Gretter, Detroit, 1893

Are you a nurse? Do you have memories of training?

Do you know a nurse who creatively practices the art of compassion and caring?

Thank a nurse this week.
National Nurses Week
May 6-12, 2012

Of False Signs and Feathered Hope

Sandra — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:19:48 +0000

There was thunder.

And there was lightning.

And Grace called, all whispers.

“Grandma, I was just in bed saying my prayers. And I asked God to bring Great-Grandma back. And I asked Him to give me a sign that she was coming. And right then there was this big flash. And . . . she’s coming back!”

“No, Grace. That really was just a coincidence. Great-Grandma’s not coming back. She’s in heaven, and she’s happy, and she doesn’t hurt any more. But we will get to see her again one day.”

“No, Grandma. He gave me a sign. She’s coming back.”

How to argue with that?

Will her faith falter because of a flash?

Will her hope hover on the edge of hallelujah and turn away?

Or maybe this morning she’s forgotten and moved on.

But it can happen.

Dashed hopes and dreams wound and wither our faith.

We can choose to walk on and trust God to work all things together for good.

Or we can throw our mat down and camp out on the edge of discouragement, on the edge of I-Feel-Sorry-for-Myself Land, and dwell in depression and despair.

We can hang around the edge of the water waiting for someone else to stir things up, someone else to carry us, someone else to raise our hope.

Does God even see us?

One man plopped down (John 5) by the water in the house of mercy. He hung out hopeless for 38 years. Since before Jesus was born.

And Jesus saw him. Fixed His eyes on him out of all the hundreds and asked him if he wanted to get well.

The man didn’t answer, “Oh, yes, please. Could you help me? Could you wait with me until the water moves and carry me in?”

Instead, he whined to the Living Water about not having anyone to put him in the pool. Fixed his eyes on others.

Did he find some comfort in his paralysis? Did he see himself as a victim?

He didn’t ask for healing. Did he even want it? Really?

But Jesus in His mercy poured it over him anyway. “Get up and walk.”

Don’t lie there any more feeling sorry for yourself. Get your act together. Feel my strength flow through you. Get up and move on with your life.

It wasn’t faith that healed him.

It was mercy and grace.

Compassion.

Disabilities and challenges and limitations.

Thunder times and dark days.

Grief.

False signs of hope.

No signs of hope.

We can plop and play the victim. Or choose to see problems as privileges.

We can seize the opportunity to see with new eyes.

To choose our focus.

To choose feathered hope.

To rise up and walk.

To dive into hallelujah.

Some more cardinal photos for you. Because to me they are a sign of hope.

Counting the Gifts

Gray days that make me grateful for sun.

Soccer balls and softball gloves.

Stones of all shapes and sizes.

A grand girl blowing dandelion puff for the first time.

Compassion bloggers who bring us stories from Tanzania.

The yawning ache in my heart to go to Kenya–and the opportunity to grow from “no”–or “not yet.”

Feathered red hope.

Emily Dickinson.

An antique kitchen table fixed with a few mallet wallops.

Fresh-washed white sheets and a white down comforter.

Soft pillows.

The sweetness of a moist and tender prune.

A cat rubbing up against my legs.