Kids always seem like they are having fun and enjoying the moment. I remember as a kid when time stood still as I played outside and rode my bike. I miss those times when I can “play” and not worry about my job or my bills.

Why do adults stop playing?  Adults need to play more to help us experience that magnificent moment in time when we are enjoying life. Isn’t that what life is about? To enjoy.

I played yesterday at the waterpark in Florida. It was very relaxing and I forgot I was an adult just watching my nieces play.  Time stood still for me. Being in the waterpark was a retreat for me. No cell phones or blackberries. It looked like the other people in the park were enjoying themselves as well.

I think if adults played more we can be more centered and grounded. The little things won’t be big.

Do you play on a regular basis?  In invite you to “play” more in your life and email me your comments.

Back in 1996, Peter Nolan and Paul Crawford of the University of Birmingham (UK) issued an interesting article in the Journal of Advanced Nursing entitled: “Towards a rhetoric of spirituality in mental health care“.

Abstract (emphases mine):

The spiritual dimension of care is frequently alluded to in the nursing literature, but rarely examined in terms of what it means in practice or how it might be taught to students entering the profession. Some of those most in need of spiritual care are people suffering from mental illness or psychological distress. The aim of this paper is to explore the different meanings of spirituality and to suggest ways in which the spiritual care of clients can be implemented. It further recommends which aspects of spirituality could usefully be included in nursing curricula. The paper concludes by alerting nurses to the causes and manifestations of spiritual apathy in contemporary health care and calls for a rhetoric that will counter the jargon of cost analysis which currently prevails in the health services.

Obviously, this was written more the 10-years ago, but it remains very relevant. My own perspective is that whilst spirituality now features on the curriculum of many nursing programmes, little is done to help bridge the theory-practice gap in this area. Increasingly, “spirituality” and “religion” are equated, and – alarmingly – associated with post-mortem care planning (arranging for appropriate rituals to be observed, etc). Spirituality has become associated with ritual and is regarded as the domain of the chaplaincy department – who are regarded as professional spiritual carers.

Spiritual care has been compartmentalised in the same way that surgical intervention has. Nursing care plans often fail to realise that nurses cannot avoid implementing “spiritual care” – the interaction of two individuals is one rooted in a common, spiritual, experience of personhood. Student nurses, who endeavour to become skilled in caring for the human spirit, must learn a “way of being” with patients – an approach to spending time with, valuing and dignifying the human persons that are commended to their care. Christian theology contributes to this by understanding humanity in the Imago Dei, and by acknowleding a relational ontological approach to ethics.

As this article emphasises, therefore, spirituality is the necessary and universal responsibility of all healthcare practitioners. The responsibility for spiritual education of nurses falls both in the theoretical confines of the university and in the practical setting of the ward. Nursing theology and spirituality is cut at the coal-face of the nurse-client relationship. Nursing theology provides not a cognitive-proposition focussed set of data, but a grammatical framework which serves to regulate and add meaning to our common experience of humanity. Nurses are therefore tasked to become experts in human spirituality, even if their primary duty is not that of the pastor – to facilitate the encounter between man and God.

It is with great pride

Anthony & Sheila Metcalf

Announce the commencement

of their son

Steven Ross Metcalf

and the Valley View High School

Class of 2009

Sunday the 31^st day of May 2009

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon

The Shuster Center

110 North Ludlow St

Dayton, Ohio 45042

Lorna Rattray offers a profound reflection on 6-years work as a Mental Health Chaplain. Full text article available free, in PDF format.

Abstract:

This article reflects briefly on 6 years of mental health chaplaincy work. It stresses the common humanity, with its needs and vulnerabilities, of chaplain and patients, and the need for openness in relationships. Worship in the hospital, and its relationship with the realities of life is considered. The article ends with a reminder of the dependence of us all on the incarnate God.

My highlight:

God does not stand off from us, as the ‘expert in human life’ who hands out ‘his’ wisdom and guidance to us when we come to ‘him’ pleading for help.

Rather, God comes to us in the incarnate Jesus, who identifies with us in our human predicament, and teaches us, out of his own experience, both how to discover and develop our full humanity, and the truth that, however desperate we may feel – ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22.1; Matthew 27.46; Mark 15.34) – our God is with us, and we can depend on him.

While attending a local high school graduation ceremony recently, the role parents play in the lives of their children came into sharp focus. It was a truly defining moment, one that I shall not soon forget.

Following the principle’s opening words of welcome; the students that had received scholarships spoke briefly. One common denominator united them: They thanked their parents for “all the love,” “for all the encouragement,” “for always being there,” “for the great example,” “for setting high standards for yourselves and me,” “for being an awesome role model.”  Applause followed each as he or she stepped off the stage.

The last person to speak was the class valedictorian. She took the microphone in her hand, looked across the sea of faces in the packed auditorium, and then asked, “Mom and Dad, where are you?” Scanning the crowd, but not finding them, she repeated her question, “Where are you, Mom and Dad?”

Two people stood up. Their daughter, beaming said, “Audience, I would like to introduce you to my parents. I have asked them to stand along with me because I would not be up here today if it had not been for them. And now I would like everyone to give them a big round of applause because they are the ones who deserve it more than I.” And applaud they did – with such vivacity that it seemed as if the noble efforts of parents everywhere were being honored.

Parenting. This most scared duty cannot be understated. Of this I am convinced: the firm foundation of a parent’s deeply rooted commitment to his or her children may also be the springboard that launches those children to new heights. The effort to teach our young all that is good and true and worthy will bear fruit in season as surely as New England cherry trees open beneath the May sunlight. The growth within our children’s souls – the product of our abiding presence and tender care – will come to bloom before us as we stand looking on in appreciation, and perhaps awe.

Maybe we, too, will hear the applause someday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Making the decision to have a child – it’s monentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ ELIZABETH STONE

I’ve read posts that criticize the show (click here to see promo) as yet another poor portrayal of nurses.  I’ve finally seen the promo, and I have to say – I’ll be watching.

She has some rather glaring flaws (including addictions and questionable ethics), but I’m glad to see that she is not simply another angelic handmaiden.  Her knowledge base is evident, and she tries to advocate for her patients.   One of my favorite moments in this promo was  her reaction when she caught a potentially fatal mistake of hers.  This is a person who truly cares.

For those in an uproar over those addictions and questionable ethics, they need to remember that this is a television show.  Of course that behavior is unacceptable (and illegal), but this is a television show. There would be no show without conflict within herself and between herself and others.

I’ve only been a nurse for a year and a half, and I’ve known of nurses who’ve abused.  I’ve known of nurses who’ve bent the rules.  I’ve seen (or heard) of inappropriate workplace behavior.  This show isn’t making anything up; it’s simply dramatizing behavior that can be found in any workplace.

There is so much to be mined from the nurse’s experiences. We have three new shows about us this year: Nurse Jackie, HawthoRNe, and Mercy.

That’s pretty cool.

** In response to The Nurse Practitioner’s Place…

I am a brickWall

My head is like a rock and I could beat my self with a bag of bricks and bleed all over town and still go to work every week like a highly trained monkey.

I keep telling myself that I stay in my current position because

1. the experience is priceless: I went straight to PCU out of school and within 1 year became ACLS certified, feel comfortable responding in a crisis even code blues (cardiac arrest ),  feel able to manage very sick patients be it heart failure, blood clots in the lungs, sepsis, and heart arrhythmia’s, heart attacks, strokes etc…I would never of learned any of this as fast if I went to a general medical floor.

2.  adrenaline addiction: When all is stable, I feel lost, bored, and generally unsure of what to do next. I like clinical work: interventions all day long.  I fear boredom of medical floors: they have different work to do there like wound care, and tube feedings, and other types of care that I am just not interested in.

3.  I am in love with the function of the heart and PCU/telemetry nursing is a good place to start to advance to  Cardiac Care Units or other critical care specialties.

4. Everyone knows me and my often bizzare choice words. Moving to another position/hospital means starting all over again. And when I stand in the nurses station crying: will they understand me?  my floor is rough: the nurses are bitchy, the patients are real sick, and support seems lacking:  they say if you can work there you can work anywhere: emergency or ICU.

Why I want to leave:

1.  the experience gained was not free. The first year I broke my heart, my spirit, learned many lessons in hard ways, got dumped on as the new nurse. The second year has been better and I anticipate the treatments and protocols for many disease process and conditions. I freak out less and just do: fix the problems.

2. is a continuous infusion of adrenaline natural: a constant heightened awareness, elevated heart rate and general angst good for me? I think it would be ok to have a stable assignment: take one blood pressure for shift: not have to worry about the continuous heart monitoring and no cardiac drips to titrate!  And I might even get a real lunch break!

3. the heart is a great pump and so much more: but there are other things that drain my mind with wonder and memorization and that is the function of the kidneys.

4.  it should not have to be so rough: I think that I am more team work orientated and would do well in emergency nursing.

Lexi, Will and I went to eat in Melati on Great Windmill Street (I love it there) and I had some origami paper in my purse leftover from some birthday card I made.

Walking through China Town

Sam and I went on an adventure afternoon to Canary Wharf.

Rawwwry the lion!

I went to see All’s Well That Ends Well at the National Theatre during the week with Lexi and some of his lovely UCL friends. Here we are waiting on the balcony to go in!

For my friend Tara’s birthday, Lexi and I bought her a lifesize cardboard cut-out of David Tennant.

I’m feeling quite sad at the moment because we’re moving out of the flat in Bloomsbury on Wednesday. It’s the end of an interesting chapter that I’m quite happy to leave behind, but I will miss our little nook off Russell Square. London won’t be on my doorstep anymore. I won’t be able to walk to Soho or go to Nando’s more times per week than is strictly healthy.

I won’t complain. I leave for Mexico on Thursday for two weeks of awesome, fun-filled times with Steph. And before you say it, no I’m not particularly afraid of contracting swine flu. Everyone and their mother is warning me about it but neither my doctor nor my vaccination nurse had any worry whatsover. Although the nurse gave me quite a scare about rabies. She’s a very stern and motherly woman from New Zealand and the conversation went something like…

Nurse: You can get rabies from a bite or a lick.

Me: A lick? It would have to be quite a hard lick.

Nurse: No, just a lick.

Me: Really?

Nurse: Okay, a lick on an open wound.

She is also ‘very passionate about Hepatitis B’ so gave me a looong lecture about it. I guess it’s better to have a scary nurse who cares than an inept nurse who hasn’t got a clue (like in my last GP practice).

This week, as you may have guessed, is filled with packing to move and preparing my suitcase for Mexico. I have so many new summer dresses, I’m tempted to dedicate a post to them…

Hi dears, 

I decided to write one of the many posts on breastfeeding, because I found how much underestimated is nursing still from practical point of view. I think that I do not have to mention here that nursing has one of the most important reasons and it is healthy diet with all the needed nutritious features which your baby should obtain. 

Just shortly you can learn more about breast milk:

• wikipedia
• Nutrition and Diet Therapy – Mother’s Milk – Breast Milk
• Scientist breakthrough – Breast milk contains stem cells!!

But what I found really beneficial for practical life is this:

1. when nursing you do not have to care about the preparation of formula, if your baby is hungry you just give him your breast whenever and wherever. No preparation, no warming up process, no checking whether you have prepared enough for some trip, nothing.
2. it is much more economical. Some babies eat more some less and in nowadays the formula costs quite a lot. 
3. nursing creates closer tights between mom and baby, it boosts their relationship forever
4. nursing helps to shape your body back to the previous state, because by nursing your baby it creates stimulus and your uterus is working and shrinking faster than it would do without this stimulation
5. since nursing especially for mom with smaller boobies, like I had , I got some extra Cm’s to my perimeter and extra beauty points
6. milk brings the most important nutrition to your baby, boosts his stamina and create important base for his whole life
7. nursing makes your hands free to do some other things , by using nursing pillow you let your baby drink and like right now I can keep writing this post and have dinner in the same time.
8. nursing gives you control over entertained baby………for example you can cut his nail, clean his eyes, ears.Hugs him, kiss him just to enjoy and he will not move so you will not cut more than you wanted
9. when breastfeeding you have time to rest, I used to lye in the bed, pull my son closer to me and keep feeling and enjoying our common time
10. nursing has also calming effect, if your baby has any pain or just can not fall asleep than by chewing your nipple and little of mothers milk will make him sleep like angel and than you have time for yourself and your partner

So I am strongly encouraging every mom to keep breastfeeding at least 6 month till the baby starts to eat also some small finger food (weaning food).

Breast milk ROCK THE WORLD
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