People

I rolled out of bed the other morning feeling like a truck had run over me. I knew that this was one of those mornings that even a pot of coffee couldn't do the trick.
I showered and read the bible and prayed. Help me to love my patients the way you love them, Lord. I dressed for work and then rushed through breakfast and made a lunch. Maybe today would be a super slow day at work, I thought, so I threw my knitting needles and a couple of magazines in my purse as I went out the door.
Work started with a bang and didn't let up all day. I had ten patients and they were almost all nuts. One older guy approached the nurses quite distressed; he couldn't sleep at night, he said, because he was a cross-dresser and didn't have any ladies clothes to wear, and could we please find him some ladies underwear so he could sleep at night? I hardly knew what to say.
As I was getting ready to give some morning pills I noticed one of my patients was very drowsy, more than normal. He looked like he was going to pack it in and I elected not to give him his usual sedative. He has long flowing hair, glow-in-the-dark barcodes tattooed under his eyes, and blue barcodes tattooed on his chin and forehead. In his ears he had rolls of tape instead of earrings. At first glance he wierded me right out. But later I found him sitting in front of the tv and I talked with him about his childhood, how he had a muscle disease that prevent him from gaining weight and he was so insecure about his looks that he did anything to fit in- including taking drugs and drinking- but even then, he could never fill the hole in his heart.
One very disturbed young lady kept repeatedly vomiting and asking me for medication to stop it. After giving her two rounds of anti-nausea injections and she was still vomiting, I sat down on the end of her bed and asked her, "Laura, are you making yourself throw up?"
"Of course I'm not! What do you think, I'd do something stupid like that?"
Yes, I did think that. She was manipulative, angry, and so desperate for attention that she was capable of just about anything. I told her not to eat any more and just to stick with fluids until we could get the issue settled. Later she came by the nursing station with a shirt showing her belly. Rules are rules; I told her graciously to go change her shirt. She yelled and swore at me and said she wanted to go slash her wrists but she went off anyway. She came into the nursing station later doubled over in pain and almost crying. Her abdominal pain was a repeat issue and she'd been to the hospital and they were hesitant to operate because was there really a problem?
I'd already given her pain medication not too long before and I lay her down and examined her and then sat down next to her.
"Laura, I believe that the body and emotions and spirit are all intimately connected. What goes on in your body affects your emotions, and what goes on in your emotions can really affect your body."
She nodded understandingly.
"I think it's possible that what's going on with your stomach is less physical, but may instead have it's root in the stuff that's going on in your emotions. And unless you deal with what's going on in your heart, your body is not going to get better."
We talked about it for awhile and she gradually sat up and stopped crying and finally went out, not complaining about the pain at all.
Later I heard her clattering down the hall and she appeared wearing a skirt that barely covered her behind.
"Laura, go change into some pants." I told her firmly.
"They're all in the laundry."
"Well, I'll give you some pajama bottoms, then, but you can't wear that in here. There are other people with all sorts of addictions and we need to be considerate of everyone."
She cursed me as she went away but I stood my ground, feeling frustrated and annoyed. I did my other work and thought, she's not going to get any sympathy from me.
And then as I sat there at the desk God began to change my heart. I got up and went out past all my other patients to where Laura sat on the patio alone, a cigarette between her shaking fingers. I sat down next to her.
"This is not okay." I told her. "I am not trying to make things difficult for you. I am on your side and I want to see you get well. I can try, but really there is only so much I can do for you unless we work together."
She began to cry and I put my arm around her.
"I just feel so all alone. I just want someone to love me."
She began to pour out her heart, about the boyfriend who was cheating on her and the mom who taught her to shoot heroin, and the little brother who was on the streets, and all the pain that was like a deep black pit. But deep inside she wanted someone to notice her, and love her, and take care of her. I talked to her about Jesus and about him being a friend that never leaves you and sticks by you through it all. I talked to her about letting go and asking for help.
"I can't ask for help." She said. "I have to do it on my own...."
"But you can't do it on your own." I told her. "None of us can."
We walked back inside together.
Later that evening I sat with another woman whose husband didn't want her to stay in treatment and I tried to convince her to tell him no and to stay.
"You need to decide for yourself what you want." I told her.
She was like a shy little mouse; she couldn't bring herself to look me in the eye. I wondered if she had ever said no to anyone in her life, let alone the angry husband who was trying to keep her from getting well. She held the phone in her shaking hand and cried as she tried to tell him that she wasn't coming home yet.
It's a long journey, I thought. All these people are desperately suffering. If I only hung out with people whose lives seemed together I might have an easy life. But I would lose sight of the thread of suffering that runs through all of us, and of the truth that it is only by the love of God that there is hope. A perfect life forgets that it needs God. Suffering people help us see every day what it means to need God, and what it means to love God by loving each other in our frailty.

Interesting things

1. I had a crazy patient named Nate this week. He is very talkative and a little bit nuts and he was hit by a train last year. He rolled up his pantlegs to show me where they'd put the pins in his leg, and then told me to put my hand on his head. There was an area about 4 inches square that was missing the skull and I could feel softness through it. "Now feel this" he told me, and strained down, and as he did, his brain bulged out the hole. Talk about gross.
2. I had a dream today that I was a spy and I was hiding down the side of a building with my head turned all the way left so I was flatter. I woke up to find I was in the exact same position on my stomach in my bed. Only the tree that was suffocating me was actually my pillow.
3. I went to Sam and Yvonne's house for dinner and decided to make a cake. Because Marlene's kitchen is under construction I made it in the toaster oven, in a bundt pan. It rose properly, browned properly, and tasted great.
4. Last night Robin took me hiking up a mountain and on a bridge over a river he gave me a pretty little ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course.
5. The whole purpose of this blog entry was to tell you that I'm engaged. And that I'm ridiculously happy about it.

Addictions

I started my new job this week and it has given me lots to think about. I'd like to tell stories about my patients but in the interests of keeping their confidence I've changed their names, in case you wonder.
The place I work at is a medical detox facility that helps people withdraw from drug and alcohol addictions. Most 'clients' stay for a week or less and although they are free to leave at any time, the place is locked up and under pretty tight regulations. In the morning I key in a password and I monitor the security cameras and try to keep pretty strict boundaries. There are times when it is alright to let people into your life and trust them completely, and there are other times when you have to keep a bit of distance. For example, one of my clients this week has court charges pending for sexual assault against children.
I struggle to look in his eyes and say, this is a human being, created in God's image, who I am called to love and respect and offer him dignity as he suffers. We are all working through addictions in some way or another. Some are just more on the surface than others.
One of my clients came into the nursing station yesterday and I brought him into the examining room. Ben is only 22 and was brought to the hospital by police last week. On our checklist of illegal drugs he's taking just about every one. His family is all messed up and he was trying to committ suicide so he was put on a suicide watch.
"I'm feeling terrible." Ben told me.
He sat on the examining table with his head hung over, his face pale and sweating and his hands shaking.
"I need something... Can you give me some more Valium?"
I took his pulse and blood pressure and temperature and all that, and assessed several parameters that help us determine his reaction to the withdrawl. I had already given him a sedative a couple of hours before and felt that he wasn't as badly off as he felt- the big issue was his psychological dependance.
"Ben, you're used to popping a pill or having a drink everytime you feel crummy." I said to him.
He nodded. "Yeah, I just know that drugs would settle me down right now. I don't even want them, but I don't know what else to do."
"And you've gotten into that habit of using them to cope." I continued. "But you can't do that anymore, right? You need to find other ways to cope with that feeling. What do you think are other things you could do to help when you feel that way, instead of taking a pill?"
He shrugged. "I dunno... listen to music. But I get sick of that. There's nothing on TV. I've read all the magazines I can."
"What about exercise?" I asked. "Sometimes a run can help... or watching a movie, or eating, or praying..."
"What do you do to help cope?" He asked me.
I reached over and closed the examining room door quietly.
"It's my belief, and that of the other staff here, that the reason people do drugs and alcohol is because they have a hole deep inside of them that they're trying to fill."
"That's exactly how I feel." Ben interjected. "It's like there's this hole in my heart that I keep trying to satisfy."
"I'm techinically not supposed to talk to you about my personal beliefs," I told him, "But we've all got that hole inside of us. I do too. And the only way it was filled in me was by experiencing the love of God and having a relationship with him. People try to fill that hole with all sorts of things, but the only real way is to know God's love for you, and that no matter what you've done, he loves you unconditionally."
"My mom is a christian." He told me, "and sometimes I listen to worship music on my walkman and it really calms me down. But I don't want to believe in it just because she does. I guess I haven't yet found that for myself."
"Have you ever prayed and talked to God?" I asked him. "Why don't you try?"
"I'd like to." He told me.
We talked for some time longer and then he got up to go out, his eyes bright.
"I feel like I hit my rock bottom." He told me. "And I feel like things are getting better. I have reasons to live and I don't want to die anymore."
As Ben left I looked tentatively at the other nurses to see if they had overheard our conversation. I don't want to get fired from my job, you know? But 7 days of medicating someone so they come off of alcohol is not the answer to the hole in their heart. I feel like if I just did that I would be putting a bandaid on a big, gaping wound. I want to give them hope. I want to really love them.
I heard a funny noise in the hallway and I rushed out in time to see Christie, a high-strung skinny street lady, projectile vomit all over the floor. Her roomate was a middle-aged mother that has had her life destroyed by alcohol and is trying to put it back together, and she was very distressed.
"Oh, you poor thing! You're really not feeling well, are you?"
I rushed to help her. Sometimes showing love is a more practical thing, and I settled her in bed with gravol and water and told her everything was going to be okay. I don't know if it will be, but I know that it could be, so that's what I say. I know that 97% of the people who come through here end up back on drugs or alcohol. My hope is that I can be part of helping that 3%, yes, but also for the 97% I want to love them as much as I can while they are here and if they don't choose to grab ahold of the hope I offer them, I'll still love them.

Lost and at home

It occurred to me the other day that in the last 2 years I haven't stayed in the same place for more than 3 months. In fact, I've slept in over 25 different beds (including a hotel in Paris, a tent at Paul lake, my sister's bed, an old crack house in Chicago, the couch at my brother's house, a mickey mouse bed in New York, a plastic mattress in Antigua).... and now finally, the blue room in Bob and Marlene's house.
My ritual is usually the same wherever I go: I spread my purple quilt cover over the bed. I put my little clock, my bible, and my little green notebook at the head of the bed. And I tell myself, it's going to look better in the morning. I cut myself a bit of slack for the first couple of days cause I know that I find change hard and might be feeling blue for the first little while.
And somehow, some way, God is always good to me.
I was hesitant about my potential job in Kelowna but I had an interview this monday and the manager hired me on the spot and we spent ages getting to know each other. She told me I could work whatever shifts I wanted, I didn't have to work nights, and best of all, there is an entire 62 hours of job training in the next two weeks that alleviates all my concerns about being inadequately prepared for the job. I'll be working in a detox center and I am looking forward to the change of pace from all previous medical experiences. I am going to learn a lot, and I am going to be challenged and rewarded.
I left Vancouver with blossoms falling off the trees and a gentle warm sun, and up in Kelowna it is cold and still a little gray. My room is lovely and I unpacked my boxes (well, most of them....) and made a little home for myself. Yesterday I drove around and got groceries and this morning I went running and I feel like I am getting the hang of this place a bit. It's not a huge city, although I did get lost once yesterday. I made dinner and took it up to Robin and Sam at the house they're painting and on the way back home I did some giant circles around town. Was this the right road? That one? I stopped at various intersections and deliberated about turning left or right or pulling a U-turn. Finally I lifted my gaze up to the mountains and knew in my heart that if I went towards them, I would find the road that led North and led home. And I did.
When I came home I sat with Bob and Marlene and I told them about a difficult decision I had to make and asked for some counsel. They gave me the same counsel my parents would have: they told me God would speak to me, and they prayed for me.
In my dream last night I fell through an icy lake and couldn't find the surface and by the time I was dragged out by a friend, I was unconscious. I awoke in a strange bed with people trying to warm me up and my lungs thick with fluid. I felt distressed and a friend sat with me and began to explain what had happened. As I listened I realized that the story of me falling in the lake was deeper. I hadn't fallen; I had thrown myself in. And not once, but twice. As we were speaking, another friend burst into the room and began to tell me things, giving me advice and telling me I was wrong about this situation and that, and here was why..... I began to feel as if I was swimming under the icy water, trying to find the surface, but not knowing which way was up and which was down.
Suddenly I thought about the fact that I hadn't fallen into the lake; I had jumped in. I had allowed myself to enter that place of confusion and doubts. I looked him in the eye and I said, "that's not true what you are saying. You are wrong."
And then I awoke from my dream. Perhaps this sounds kind of flaky and wierd to write on my blog, but I need to sort if out somehow. There was more to the dream but this morning the answer to my dilemma the night before was crystal clear.
And just like being lost on the road yesterday, I need to find the road that leads North and stick on it until it leads me home. Taking the side roads that seem familiar just leads me in circles. It is the same as centering myself when I move to a new place: I put my blanket on the bed, I put my clock by my pillow. And I tell myself, don't worry about how you feel, Heather, because eventually it will make sense.
My centering point, my North Road for the dilemmas of life is the time I spend alone with God where I listen to HIS voice, and only HIS. It comes when I 'lift my eyes up to the mountains, to where my help comes from'. And once I lift my eyes up and refuse to be drawn into the icy waters of confusion and doubts, then I can find my way home.
Although as a side note, there are other places to get lost, like in the lobby of Robin's apartment building the other day. I actually had to call him on my cell and get him to come find me. Oh well.