Babies and Grandpas

Where am I now?

I am in the hospital. It is 3:28am and I am awake, caring for patients, and am currently blogging cause the night is treating me well and I just have one patient to care for right now.

I work at Children's Hospital. It's my new career. I didn't get much peds experience, or any really, in nursing school and it seemed pretty impossible to get into the pediatric world, especially a peds hospital. I love my job. I really do. Sometimes I have that feeling of "ughhh I don't want to go to work." Mostly though it's just if I feel lazy or tired or if I'm on hour 50 of my 54 hour week (for example, tonight?). When I'm here I feel really valuable, busy and I can see outcomes to my work in such a short amount of time. I love the tasks of starting IVs and drawing blood, I like when parents leave the room for something and I have to hold the babies until they get back, I like suctioning ( I'm kinda obsessed) I like teaching the families and kids... and often times learning from them about their unique and complicated medical histories.

Time flies here. Here, as in Minnesota. It's been almost half a year that I have been living here. How did Haiti slip from my fingers? I think about it daily. Not anxiously, not obsessively, but it is always there in my mind. How do I go back? Or how do I keep going back and keep my job at Children's? How do I incorporate Haiti into the rest of my life? Do my trips continue looking the same as when I was 20 years old? Who is going to do this Haiti thing with me? Is this a solo mission? It's scary, exciting, ambiguous, unknown.

I am in the works of planning a 3-week trip to Haiti this summer. I am so excited to go back. I can't wait to see everyone, practice my Kreyol and immerse into the culture again. I can't imagine what it will be like to see little Michelet again. Sometimes I daydream about it. What he might look like, or giving his family members hugs and sitting and talking with them. I think about the kids I used to meet on my daily walks through Milot and wonder if they'll remember my name. I hope they do. I hope I can pick back up right where I left things, but I have a lot of fears that it will feel different -as if I have lost my place that I worked so hard to get.

On a different note... it seems like life just isn't as much as it's cracked up to be. Sometimes life feels really hard. My own struggles seem so small in comparison to some of the hard stuff I see people dealing with each day in the hospital, but even the small struggles can take a lot out of ya. Coming back to the USA is still a hard process. It's hard to reconnect, and it's hard to start a new life. I feel like I am in the process of even defining what my life is now and what it should be or the things I should be working for. What things are necessary to have as goals in my life? What am I saving for and why? How can I be focused on planning for my future when the "now" is enough to handle on its own?

You know what's funny? That something I learned in Haiti is still so relevant here. I learned that focusing on others and taking care of others makes your own life a lot better and brighter. In Haiti it's so easy cause the hurt is so obvious, the need is in -your -face. Here, sometimes I make a mental list of others that need my love or attention, just to get the focus off of me and self pity. My favorite on that list is Granpda. 94-year-old Grandpa. Always in his nursing home; the same boring schedule. I'm so glad I have him. The constant friend and family member. I always know where to find him, he always has time for me, and each time I visit him I think that both of our spirits are lifted. Last week I visited him and he wasn't feeling good and I was tired and on my way to a long shift at work and we just cuddled in his little bed together.

So there you have it, an update on these last few months and a sneak peak into the upcoming ones. I was looking for a quote to end this blog with. Thanks Dr. Seuss, I think I should realize this simple wisdom a little more often, espcially as I am notorious for asking lots of questions ;)

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”


― Dr. Seuss