oatmeal

It was Labor day, so I made a point to ask the couple in room 587 if they were veterans.  "Oh yes, he's the veteran",  the patient wife exclaimed. "Yep", he agreed.  "From summer of '41 to fall of '44 I was on a boat in the South Pacific."

For the next few minutes I asked questions and got bits and pieces about his drafting and travels, the letters they wrote back and forth, and the friends that were made during these hard years.  "But you know what I remember most?" Mr. Veteran asked me.  "On the boat trip home, they ran out of food.  For three weeks we had oatmeal for breakfast and soup for dinner, EVERY DAY."  This cracked  up his wife of sixty-six years.  "It ruined him", she laughed.  "He still won't eat oatmeal."

So sixty nine years ago, Mr. Veteran became a military man, traveled the world, fought a war, sailed the seas, and missed his sweetheart, but what he remembers most is bad oatmeal.  Our memories are peculiar.

I thought about this yesterday while we were training in the summer interns and next year's residents.  Trying to sum up a year's worth of our CPE experiences we ended up telling them about our most terrifying on calls, bloodiest traumas and how often our supervisor made us cry.  Their wide eyed expressions alerted us that we hadn't adequately conveyed the depth and value of this program.  But how do you sum up a whole year of intense ministry and personal growth? How can anticdotes   transmit the experiences, learning and bonding that have happened?  It is easier to just share little, seemingly insignificant memories that pop into your head.  I now totally get the "oatmeal was horrible" remark.

My head is full of little memories from the last year:
Laughing at Nathan, Cathie and Vicki's stories of woe and mirth after a night on call. 
The breakfast lady who hands me a hard boiled egg as soon as she sees me in the morning.
The lunch lady who greets me with "Well, here is the vegeTARian" as soon as she see me at lunch.
How triumphant I feel at 8:31am when I realized I survived another night on call.
Robin enduring phrases that have become a part of all of our vocabulary. "My sense is...."
Lizzie's warm smile.
Carson's teasing and dry humor.
Jerry's response to the pager - "OK, time to spring into action"
The smell of fresh air after being in the hospital for 30 hours straight.
How hot the trauma bay is.
The sick feeling I get when the pager wakes me up in the middle of the night.
My pride in learning my unit staff's names.
NICU's soapy scrub brushes. I love the smell and the fresh feeling after a day of disinfecting lotion.
Our great names for things around here. The Magic Staircase, The Gross Door Knob, The Suicide Staircase, The Murder Mart, The Slippery Slope, The Hood, etc.
Marveling in the weekly re-re-re-repaving of I26 with Nathan.
The beautiful Oncology fountain and reading nook.
How quiet the halls of 4 south are, outside the on-call room.

Just a few of my oatmeal memories for the day.

Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. Isaiah 46:9

google chaplain

I had only been at work a few minutes when I got called to a death.  Mr. Mujallah had spoken with a nurse during breakfast.  She told him she would come back and get his tray.  When she walked in twenty minutes later he was on the floor and not breathing.

I waited with a nurse and doctor outside his room for his children to arrive.  His two sons were tall and dark and in shock. They were dismissive and abrupt with me.  I wondered if it was a "we don't like women" thing or a more probably a"we just lost our dad unexpectedly" thing.  I waited outside the room.

After a while the nurse called me in.  "They don't seem to want an autopsy to figure out what happened.  I don't know why."  I had a tiny flashback from our Spiritual Care for the Islamic Culture class and remembered something about nonautopsying.  When the doctor started discussing the autopsy again I asked the family if they would prefer not to for religious reasons.  They nodded vigorously.  I was promoted to "person to be tolerated."

The Mujallahs told me that they were not particularly religious, but wanted their father to be buried at a Mosque.  Perferably the one that their mother had been buried in two years ago in driving distance, but they couldn't remember the name or the exact town.

So I did what any good chaplain would do.  I googled.  I borrowed a computer from the nursing station and googled mosques within a 50 mile radius.  This is South Carolina.  It couldn't be that hard.  I came up with a surprising five mosques, four with pictures which I printed off.  The Mujallahs immediately recognized one of them.  "That's it!".  We had our mosque.  I was now the "very helpful lady."

The next hurdle was the funeral home.  Muslims strive to bury the deceased as soon as possible after death, avoiding the need for embalming or otherwise disturbing the body of the deceased.  We needed to find a funeral home that would take Mr. Mujallah right away and get him to our mosque by night fall.  We called three funeral homes before finding one that would accomodate our needs.  At this point I became "our chaplain."

With everything decided, the still-in-shock family was ready to leave.  I walked them to the elevator and we said a warm goodbye.  As I walked back upstairs to check in with the nursing staff, I realized that very little actual spiritual care had happened.  I hadn't hugged them or listened to stories of their dad.  I hadn't prayed with them or for them.  But I had tried to be there with them.  Sometimes people need chaplain/priest or chaplain/friend.  The Mujallahs needed chaplain/googler.

"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."  Luke 11:9

ice

The always wise Pa Ingalls once said.  "Everything evens out in life.  The rich man gets his ice in the summer and the poor man gets his ice in the winter."  I keep wondering about that after two unique visits, two very different lives, in one morning, on one Oncology wing hall.

Bruce is in room 5.  He invites me in and boisterously engages in conversation.  I ask him how long he has lived here, and soon he tells me that he has been homeless for many years.  He happened to be visiting an aquaintance who worked at a nearby hotel when he suffered a seizure.  While in the emergency room he learned that he had cancer.  He is enjoying some stability with a sure bed and meals while he is here.  He talked about how hard it is not to know what the future holds and how we have the chance each day to be grateful for what we have.  I tell him I am struggling with that too. He admits to being scared.  I know that feeling.  He jumps at the offer of prayer.

Paul is in room 8.  He waves me in but is not very chattery.  I learn that he is the retired president of a large company in this area.  I ask about how long he has lived here, and he tells me about retiring after years of being president of a large local company.  His only time away was a military stint in Europe and overseas vacation travel.  I ask if he got to sight see at all in Europe and he mentions visiting the Castle Chillon in Switzerland in 1945 that I had visited in 1998.  We compare notes.  He lets his guard down and soon is talking about living with a terminal diagnoisis and how his faith commuinity is help sustaining him.  He says he is weary.  I know that feeling.  He lets me pray for him.

President, Homeless, Chaplain.  As different as three people can be.  Yet not really so different at all.  All under this same roof on this same day with our challenges.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes about our common ground.  "I can't explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. ...I kept identifying with the people He loved, which was really good, because they were all the broken people, you know? The kind of people who are tired of life and want to be done with it, or they are desperate people, people who are outcasts or pagans."

This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus?  Matthew 5:45

patient is....

My son sometimes starts a sentence with "Not to be mean, but....".   There is really no good ending to a sentence like that.  "Not to be mean, but you look beautiful"?  Never ends that way.  I try to jump in and remind him that the first part of that sentence won't excuse what ever mean thing comes next. 

With that being said.... Not to be mean, But      I will not miss the hospital pager one bit.  It is a tiny, incessant, inconsiderate dictator.  I occasionally have fantasies about throwing it out the window or stomping it to pieces.  It summons us to tragic accidents, drawnout deaths and pharmacy assistance phone calls in the same breath.  It gives me an adrenaline surge even if I'm not on call and don't have to respond. 

Vicki has reminded us all year to surrender to the pager.  Just to relax and be open to whatever it brings.  When I do this, it helps.

Nathan has reminded us all year to not immediately give into to the pager's demands.  "Why sit in the trauma bay for 15 minutes waiting for the ambulance, when you can finish your lunch, stroll down, and arrive at the same time?" This drives Cathie crazy.

Lately the pager has given us a little comedy.  I'm guessing that the communication desk sends a complete page but we only get the first part of it.  This leaves our weary, twisted, creative minds to imagine many possibilities as we make our way to the facts.  Vicki has already captured this mental game in her great blog.  But since I just got two such pages, I wanted to share them with you also.

Trauma:  40yom is
wishing he'd worn a helmet?
now wiser about playing with guns?
a momma's boy?
fine, chaplain can go back to sleep?

Code stemi:  Patient n
never arrived?
needs spiritual care?
neuro stat?
ned smith?

Trauma: fall from
chair?
roof?
cliff?
grace?

Chaplain wishes
people would finish their sentences!
the pager would stop ringing!
mopeds were illegal!
she understood everything right now!
you peace and prosperity!

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7

a dozen times a day

George was in bed watching Rachel Ray on TV when I walked into his room.  "Are you learning how to cook?" I teased him.  "No"  he laughed.  "She's an energetic young thing, and she makes the food look good, but it's just too much work."  He pushed mute and I sat down to chat.

George was born on a nearby farm in 1929.  When he was a young boy, his dad would bring him into town and give him a quarter.  With strict instructions never to cross the road, George would spend the day alone wandering in and out of shops, watching people, and ponder what to buy with his whole quarter.

In 1951 George left Spartanburg for the first time.  His army unit was headed for Korea.  During their layover in New Jersery plans somehow changed.  Before he knew what was happening their group was rerouted to Frankfort, Germany. "That was some luck" George muses.

In two years George was back home, this time as a working man.  One night his cousin called.  "I have a date, and just found out she has a friend over.  Will you come too?"  The friend was a girl named Dottie.  George was immediately smitten.  While his cousin drove up and down nearby roads ("there was really nothing else to do around here back then") Dottie and George sat in the back seat and talked and talked.  They have been inseparable ever since.

Eleven days ago they had their 55th anniversary.  It was a big todo with their three children, their seven grandchildren, their church friends, and other retired couples in their neighborhood.  There was a little wedding cake and lots of flowers.  After all this time George still thought Dottie was beautiful, and Dottie still thought of George as the handsome military man sweeping in to save her from the dulldrums of the farm.

The next day, still worn out from the party, George and Dottie decided to eat out.  George ordered oysters.  And ended up with the worst food poisoning of his life.  Dottie called for an ambulance and George could hear the sirens coming.  Then he saw Dottie slump to the floor.  George couldn't stop vomiting as rescue workers rushed in and took Dottie in his ambulance.  Soon another one arrived for him and George was rushed to the emergency room. 

They both survived that night!  Dottie had had a stroke that paralyzed her left side, including her lips, so she has to really work to enunciate.  She is recovering in a restorative care facility a block from the hospital. George was miserable for two days, then quit throwing up.  But during his tests a mass in his stomach was discovered.  He was admitted to the hospital for further tests and surgery.

It has been ten days since they've seen each other.  Trapped in hospital rooms in neighboring buildings, worried about the other as their kids run back and forth between them with reassurances.  "I've never gone this long without her," George admitted, his eyes getting red rimmed and watery. "Even when we are rattling around our house I go looking for her a dozen times a day."

I clutch my heart....so wishing I had magic powers.  All I have is this promise:

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am The One.  I am The One who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.   Isaiah 46:4

tpn

Every week in NICU team meeting we talk about each baby - Their progress, their health, their nutrition, their family and what the upcoming week looks like for them.  Over and over I hear the report that baby X is taking TPN and lipids. Baby B is taking TPN and lipids.  Baby M is too.  TPN and lipids.  TPN and lipids. It only took me 11 months to get someone to explain it to me. 


 Dr. W!  He walked me right over to a crib and showed me the clear bag dripping into a tube.  He explained that TPN is Total Parenteral Nutrition.


With a little wikipedia help for clarity  "Parenteral is a route of administration that involves piercing the skin or mucous membrane. Parenteral nutrition refers to providing nutrition via the veins."  This happens with preemies whose gastrointestinal tracts aren't fully functional or are some how impaired.
 
So parenteral nutrition (PN) is feeding a baby "intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion. The infant receives nutritional formulas containing varying amounts of salts, glucose, amino acids, lipids and added vitamins. It is called total parenteral nutrition (TPN) when no food is given by other routes.  TPN provides the carbohydrates and proteins, while the lipids bag is filled with pure essential fatty acids.   (I just made my colleagues promise that should I end up needing TPN they would remove the lipid bag from my IV immediately.)


Dr. W explained that each baby is regularly evaluated.  Each baby has a their own unique mix of TPN.  Each baby gets the exact mix of what they need for that day to meet their specific needs, to provide them with complete nutrition and to enhance their optimal growth.


This afternoon I have been thinking about what would be in my emotional TPN bag.  My perfect mix to meet all my needs and enhance my growth.  Would a nap fit in that blue bag?  A quiet summer evening with Steve and the boys and me crowded onto our porch rocker?  Fun conversations with all my family on my parent's blue couch?  A girl movie?  A tiny bit of chocolate and a long walk? An exciting job prospect? Another nap?


I love how Eugene Peterson envisions consistant worship filling the need inside us.
Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God - it whets our appetite.  Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship - it deepens.  It overflows the hour and permeates the week.  The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security.  Our everyday needs are changed by the act of worship.  We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence.  Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God.  We begin to live in the leisure of the person who knows that every moment of our existence is...lived under the mercy of God.  Worship initiates an extended, daily participation in peace and security so that we share in our daily rounds what God initiates and continues in Jesus Christ.


Total nutrition!


Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalms 37:4

really good news for a change

I never like to hear bad news.

    Hello, this is your mechanic. I have some bad news for you - it was the transmission.
    Hello, this is your tax lady.  The bad news is your refund is a lot less than last year.
    Hello, this is every health care facility in North Carolina, sorry for the bad news but we have no openings.


But in the hospital the bad news can be.....really bad.


I talked to a sweet couple last week.  After a lifetime of work and children, they both retired in April.  Finally they could travel and garden and relax.  The first of May brought bad news of his just discovered, aggressive cancer.  They are reeling.  And trying to change their dreams and plans.


I listened to a doctor, anxious about delivering bad news to young parents - that their beautiful new baby was totally blind.


I patted a woman's back as she tried to absorb the bad news.  Her husband's latest heart attack had taken him.


I left the hospital today thinking that if I am hungry for good news, there are people here who are starving for it.  It's no wonder this beautiful good news quote jumped out at me.  Read it a couple of times -


"Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all."  Frederich Buechner



How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" Isaiah 52:7

prechaplaining

I was looking out my window, enjoying the breeze through the trees.  I was aware of a car pulling out of our neighborhood and then POW!  I watched a car T right into it.


And then silence.  Another car stopped and the driver jumped out.  Two neighbors heard the crash and ran to the scene.  I could see the airbags had deployed.  Passers by were now redirecting traffic and calling on their cell phones.  In minutes a fire engine came sirening up.  Then a police car.  Then an ambulance.  The rescue workers jumped out and took charge.


Two people were pulled from the cars and carried out on stretchers.  As the ambulances were pulling out a tow truck drove up to pull the wrecked cars out of the busy street.


Then I realized that somewhere a trauma bay was being readied.  And a chaplain was being paged.


Hasten, O God, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.  Psalm 70:1

how long?

There is a question I hear over and over.  In the trauma bay -"how long did he go without oxygen?  In the waiting room - "how long till we get some news?"  In Oncology -"how long do we have?  The answers are always vague and unsatisfying.


How long?  It is a question I ask too.  When my future stretches blankly before me.  When I am tired of waiting.  When I wonder how many hurdles are still awaiting me.  Just tell me!  My mom recently reminded me that I have always hated to wait, to not know. 


It helps to see my impatience and frustration mirrored in the pages of the Bible.


My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long?  Psalm 6:3


How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?  Psalm 13:1


How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?Psalm 13:2


O Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my life from their ravages, my precious life from these lions
Psalm 35:17


How long, O LORD ? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Psalm 89:46


How long must your servant wait? When will you punish my persecutors?Psalm 119:84


How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?  Habakkuk 1:2


They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?"  Revelation 6:10


And some hints of an answer...


"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem..., how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! Luke 13:34


You, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.  Ephesians 3:18


"Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.  Exodus 14:13
 
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.' "2 Chron 20


I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.  Revelation 3:11