April 22, 2013 (this is 2nd surgery, 1st was April 8, 2013: http://blog.scottsontherocks.com/blog/2013/04/08/its-not-a-head-achy/)
My typing is terrible (it only looks better because I have spent so much time trying to get this spelled right) and it has taken me days, on/off, to put this together… I KNOW I am not doing it justice.
This is NOT mine to share, except for the fact that I was in ICU and whitness this….
I have been vomitting and actually drenched more than one nurse this day, I am in ICU because I NEED to be in ICU, my brain is still bleading, causing swelling… causing vomiting, which causes more swelling, “I” am that needy patient that needs attention and cannot be left alone for very long… blah, blah, this isn’t about me (sorry) but should make my point. I have been saying since the beginning of all this to the nurses “…I am so thankful that there are people LIKE YOU willing to be nurses, I am not one of them… I am so glad that someone is willing to do that because I could NEVER be a nurse.” Some would laugh and say, they could never be a computer geek and their fancy hospital stuff wouldn’t run without computer geeks.
Tonight I made a short post on FB to thank the nurses “Dear Lord, thank you for nurses. Yes, I could say more but He doesn’t need me to type.” I never realized how much more that comment would mean to me.
From the “sounds” of things, there were obviously two very elderly patients also in ICU and doing poorly. They had been there weeks from the sound of things.
They both suddenly “coded” at the same time…. resources were streatched pretty thin as teams were working to bring these people back. Prayers were flying. Despite that, my care never deminished, I was being cared for and checked on properly.
Meanwhile…. a young family of four was t-boned during a snowstorm, on the freeway nearby, and appeared in ICU… ALL FOUR OF THEM coded.
Six people, dead… and yet, they called in … I suspect EVERYONE from the hospital… and worked on this family too.
I heard many of them (I hesitate to say ALL… but it wouldn’t surprise me)… praying. “Dear Lord, please help us do your will.”
I’m sitting here thinking, that is kind of a strange request… why not SAVE? Why not “heal”… lots of thoughts through my head now. Selfishly, “I” am not the one praying which made me wonder “why not?” I pray. Sometimes, I’m a bit flippant about it but I also know He has a sense of humor… but why not now? I just listened, I felt the need to listen. I finally decided that maybe listening is praying.
They managed to moved most of dying (actually, in my opinion, all of these people are dead) patients to rooms, but the teenage girl was stopped literally outside my glass. I heard one of the doctor’s repeat “Dear Lord, please show me your will and leade me to it.”
I asked him about this later. He said it would have been easy for all the teames to CHOOSE, to let the elderly die and save the family. That could very easily have been God’s will and no one would have doubted it. BUT, what if they saved the girl but now she is a vegitable… would that have been God’s will? He told me, “God has a plan and I do not know His plan but I am willing to let Him work through me, and I pray every time that it is His plan and not my heart making the choices. Last week I let a 3 year old dye in his mothers arms. I cried and yet I know it was His plan. I learned a long time ago to pray for Gods Will, …not my will, …not health and happiness, not money or job security. I am a vessel of Gods plan. I often hear stories later that help me understand God’s plan. I thank Him for letting me have a glance into those.”
I start hearing shouts from down the halls… they have saved 1, 2…. and I watch as the girl wakes up and asked what happened… ALL SIX are alive!?!?!
I cannot even begin to fathom how emotionally draining this has been on these teams of people… and the nurses, who have to go back to “just being nurses” for everyone else. My nurse appeared, obviously frazzled but with a smile. She tells me a story… She knows He stopped the girl outside my glass. If He hadn’t, she would have had to leave the team to keep an eye on me, this way, she could see us both… and how thankful she was that during this time, my brain was behaving. That was the first time I realized it too. (Small smirk up at the Lord for kuddos on that one!)
With privacy laws in place, I knew I’d never really hear “the rest of the story…”
However, two days later, the same doctor from above was standing outside my glass (door was open). An older woman approached him… her mother had passed away. Oblivious to the other nights events, she explained to him that even though her elderly mother had been here for a long time, and she KNEW she was dying, she had not worked up the courage to tell her something. Because he saved her mother, she was able to talk to her one more time. Mother/Daughter talked and healed some old wounds and she kept thanking the doctor for that opportunity. “I really needed that more than I realized, before she died.” She walked away.
He winked at me as he walked away from my door.
“Dear Lord, thank you for that glimpse into your plan.”… “and thank you for nurses!”
[NOTE: Many of you have asked if you can send these two posts to other nurses… YES!]
This one is kinda emothionally intense… so here is one about the nurses in recovery that’s more fun: http://blog.scottsontherocks.com/blog/2013/04/25/i-think-i-earned-a-brownie-point/