Miscellaneous Thoughts

Oscars
I watched part of the Oscars last night. I like knowing what is going on in entertainment, but I honestly wasn't super interested in what was actually going on--who was getting Academy Award and who was getting snubbed... I was actually really interested in the dresses. 


I find it funny going through pictures online the day after. I go through all the report cards and see what "the experts" grade each dress and tux. 


Most of the time I don't agree. Although I do agree with Yahoo!'s assessment of Kelly Osbourne's purple gray hair. Not a fan. I like seeing all the sparkle, glitz and high fashion glamour. 


I went to bed before they were done. Like I said, I'm not a "super fan," I watch but I'm not attached at the hip to the TV. In reality, they really don't matter. I'm sure to someone the little golden statue would be worth more than all the money in the world. 


But have those people really made a difference? Have they developed a cure to AIDS? Cancer? Have they brought clean drinking water to those who have none? Some do their part--Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, and others do try to help. Overwhelmingly, the rich and famous don't care much about their own staff, let alone the less fortunate in other parts of the world.


Economy
So is the economy actually getting better? I know that experts say it is, but I also have seen local families struggle as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers lost their jobs. These have been recent developments--not jobs lost three years ago and families on welfare since then. 


According to the news, Detroit is having trouble keeping up with demand right now. The automakers are hiring and people are starting to buy big ticket items again. For me the real test of the economy will actually be the housing market. When there are fewer foreclosures and more home sales, or at least the numbers are moving lower and higher, respectively, then I will think that the American economy is healing. 


Moving on
:) So, this week's post was a little different than what I've been doing. I'm not sure I like it. I promised a post, so this is it. I will definitely put more thought into next week's post. We shall see what I come up with. Ttfn.

Of Des Moines and Cake Decorating. Also Responsibility and Friends

Cupcakes are results of weekend fun
:) Good headline, right? My cousin and I are both into cake decorating. (I made a 3-layer 50th anniversary cake for my grandparents over the holidays this past year). So every time we get together we either make cupcakes or (a newer tradition) noodles. Don't know where the noodles came from but these are the cupcakes we made last weekend.

They were originally penguins from the book Hello, Cupcake! but they ended up only loosely based on them. For starters we had blue and pink penguins so you could tell the boys and girls apart (we learned this trick from the Feature Films for Families movie Scamper the Penguin--one of the greatest movies ever by the way). Then we used fondant instead of dipping the penguins in melted icing. We used heart marshmallows instead of regular round ones. So instead of perfect little penguins, we ended up with things that no one could recognize as them. The only way you could remotely tell that they were penguins was if like the one on the left we didn't put the flippers on. However, as my cousin informed me: She cut the cookies (they were hard and shattered easily) so we WERE using them. :)

Other fun in the Land of the Iowans: We went to a Buccaneer game--the local hockey team. I was good luck! They won. Plus I learned how to ice skate afterwards. They let anyone who wants to borrow skates for free after games and skate for half an hour or 45 minutes. It was fun, but I'm not used to the ground being the slippery part. I'm used to the skates moving (roller skating) not the ground--it really felt like it was moving! It was weird. Saturday we went real skating with wheels and everything! That was fun. We heard the birthday song three times for all the birthday parties that day. :)

More eventually on cake decorating--I really should post pictures. :)

So that was last week's post. I went home to my parents' last Monday and didn't have time to blog. 

 Blog Today:
My boss is gone from work this week and I am somewhat in charge. Kind of nerve wracking honestly. I am a lifeguard at a local pool and what I really don't want is a chlorine pump to stop working or something. Also we have a new school group in this week so the patrons are adjusting to a new schedule for the next few weeks, too. We are super busy, but that is good. The days go fast. I am actually opening the pool (5:30AM)  every day this week. I don't normally open on Mondays but I was needed today so I did.

So yesterday at a good friend's daughter's birthday party, I talked to a dear friend. Her family has a membership at the pool I work at and she was telling me that her daughters (who are very dear to my heart) had off school today. She mentioned they might come see me at work today, then remembered that they had lessons at 4. They probably wouldn't come to the pool twice in a day.

After I got off work at around 10, I was thinking to myself how good it would be to see them. So I called and they weren't busy. I went over and we all had a lovely time. I colored and played Barbies with the girls and me and my friend were able to sit and sip coffee and catch up. It was lovely.

So often we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday that we forget to take a timeout for life. Yes, there was laundry and housework waiting for me at home--including tile demolition in our first floor bathroom. But you want to know something? It was still there when I got home this afternoon. And I am going into the rest of the week with the recharge that I took today spurring me on.

Life is so busy and too many times we let ourselves burn out or just run the pace that we think we should. Honestly, the times I look back on with the most fondness and the ones that gave me the energy I needed to make it through are the times that I stopped and took some time to hang out and catch up and bounce ideas and thoughts off of a dear friend. Just a thought, but you could try it too.

My Time Volunteering: What I've learned and Where it's taking me

So I have been volunteering at a local hospital for two years. I worked up until last Friday in the ICU waiting room on Saturday mornings. The surgery waiting room is actually not staffed on the weekends. This means that families of patients having emergency surgery (they don't schedule non-emergency surgeries on the weekend) were sent to my waiting room. There weren't always many people in the ICU waiting room. Often, I had time to study and there was a TV at my station--I watched reruns of America's Next Top Model when it was on. 

I always hoped there wouldn't be many people in the waiting room. Walking in to find consult rooms with notes taped on the doors saying "Please don't disturb" and family members asleep on the couches and in the chairs scattered in clumps throughout the main waiting room, meant long nights and even longer days. It meant tears that I couldn't help. Hearts breaking as loved ones live their final hours. 

The end was not always near. Many families would enter a consult room with a doctor halfway through the morning, come out several minutes later, and you could tell, even though the day was almost half gone, the sun had just come up for that family. 

But the ICU is a place of contradictions. Hope and Fear. Death and Healing. Exhaustion and Rest. And many families who enter that waiting room do leave hurting. 

In my time in the ICU waiting room, I tried to not intrude in the lives of the people who were worried and tired--which meant I tried not to intrude on anyone. Everyone was there for a reason. I did try to offer conversation if they initiated. I felt like talking about mundane normal things could offer them almost a vacation from the situation they were in. 

I was often doing something unique--crocheting dish clothes, studying biology or looking over MCAT stuff. Doing something unexpected intrigued people walking by. They would ask what I was making, studying and we could talk for a while. Often it was just about me to start. Eventually, talk would come around to the loved one they were waiting for. What happened? Why? I wasn't allowed to ask the questions, but many times after we talked for a while it would just come out. I was able to ask people if they minded if I prayed for them and their patient. I was never told not to.

Many days I went home feeling like I had not helped anyone, like I hadn't made a difference. I would go home and cry for the families that were hurt and broken. For the mother and the husband who came out of the ICU crying, carrying the giant stuffed bear and tennis shoes of the daughter and wife who had just passed away. For the 20 people who were there for their mother, grandmother, aunt, wife, and came out of the meeting room (there were too many to fit in a consult room) with the doctor, crushed because there was no hope left. 

Life in the ICU is hard. It is draining. I have more respect for the nurses and doctors who help give dignity to the families and patients than I ever could have had I not had this experience. But I am worn out. I went to see my coordinator last week and we talked about where I can go. Since I got married Saturdays don't work very well. The newlywed in me wants to be home when my husband is. :) Plus we are gone many weekends. Also, I wanted somewhere less hard. Somewhere I can talk to more people. Somewhere that I won't go home from and cry. I need a recharge. I am getting my recharge.

BUT. When I have recharged, when I am happy again, I am going to the PCU (Palliative Care Unit). The PCU is where people who are dying go. To Palliate is (according to dictionary.com) to relieve or lessen without curing, to alleviate. We can make them comfortable, but not make them better. The cool thing about the PCU though is that it is one of the only places in the hospital where I (a volunteer) can get direct patient contact hours. I can basically do the work of a CNA and actually HELP. I can see the patients and do what is needed. I will need additional training but I am excited.

I am not scared of death. I know I need to have experience with it. All life ends in death in this world and being a doctor I will see it more often then most. However, how I look at my job as a doctor in relation to death will make a difference in if death is a drain on my life or not. If I am crushed every time I lose a patient,  my heart would not be able to continue on. A good friend of my parents and me is a doctor. He told us that he looks at it as a privilege to help escort each person from this life to the next. I want to look at it like that as well. 

This is long. I will be done for this week. Looking forward to next week, I will be blogging about a recent trip to Des Moines to see my cousin. You might even get a pic of us decorating cupcakes. (We both love cake decorating). TTFN.