I'm Back!

I just finished my first day back at Nursing since Shannon and I left for Christmas vacation. It was quite a hectic day. One of my patients was a borderline code for most of the day (more about her later), another patient who was status post-hip surgery kept trying to go to the bathroom because he didn't believe me when I explained the purpose of his foley catheter, and another patient I had was perhaps the saddest-looking person I've ever seen. She could barely talk, had an NG tube for suction, and was very weak. To make matters worse, I attempted to untangle her long and dirty hair but probably only made things worse and caused her unnecessary pain... sigh.

I think I saw a parable in the first patient I mentioned, so I'll tell the story and then you can compare it with what I got out of the experience:

One day in the hospital I had a patient who had a history of drug abuse and was found to be positive for barbiturates and methamphetamines in her urine. Her eyes were puffy to the point that she could barely open her eyes and whenever I tried to assist her or obtain vital signs, she would yell at me and complain about the poor nursing care she felt she was receiving. Eventually, about 2/3 through my shift, we found that she was desaturating (she had a low O2 reading). We put her on oxygen therapy and continuously monitored her O2 Sat. However, whenever her O2 sat got to a high enough level she would regain consciousness, take off the oxygen mask and desaturate again. I would then wait until she was asleep again and unable to fight me so that I could reapply the oxygen mask. This continued over and over again until the end of shift when I left.

So what did you get out of it? The woman is us! When we're lost in sin, God comes to our rescue, but as soon as we regain control and healing, we turn right back to our ways. We reject the assistance God offers. To put it another way, God is offering us medicine. We can choose to take it of our own free will or wait till things are so bad that we have no choice.

Ironically, the only way that I could have maintained her O2 sat would be to restrain her arms and legs, which would practically take away any choice of hers to work with us. In spiritual terms, God would essentially be removing our free will from us which would take away all purpose in living. But in real life, this happens in the hospital from time to time and, hopefully, the patient no longer needs the restraints by the time they leave the hospital and can once again make good decisions for themselves.

I think the deeper meaning of all this for me is that nursing ceases to be just a job when I choose to love this person and not give up on her. God has never given up on me even when I have given up on Him and myself. I think this can be seen in Matt 25. It's a great verse and speaks volumes to the life of a servant.