Onward and Upward Part 2

I left you hanging just a bit with the last blog with the massage therapy thing; let me pick up where I left off, but first, I want to give a shout-out to all my fellow nurses. Last week was Nurses Week and I want to celebrate the nurses in my life who have influenced me, and to celebrate what being a nurse has meant to me. As I said in the last post, I don’t love everything about being a nurse, but what is it that I do love?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The people. It’s people like my coworkers and the other team members like physical, occupational, speech, and respiratory therapists, doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants (yes, healthcare takes more than a village!). But above all, I do what I do because of my patients. I love getting to know them beyond their diagnoses and their current symptoms. I love taking time to hold a hand, to look into their eyes, to listen and learn from them. I have met so many amazing people by being a nurse that I would have never met otherwise. I love hearing the stories that made each person who they have become. But, being a nurse is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It’s worrying that I did the right thing at the right time, that I didn’t miss anything on a physical assessment, that my phlebotomy skills, my IV skills, wound care, etc are all perfect for each patient. It’s waking up in the middle of the night and wondering if I did everything I was supposed to, and trying to think if I charted everything to the best of my ability because as all nurses know, if it wasn’t charted then it wasn’t done. It’s taking time the night before a work day to look up my patients so that I know about them when I walk in their door the next day. I’m a little OCD and these are the kind of details that I stress about, that I get anxious over. For many, it’s not an issue; for me, it is. That being said, it is the hands-on, looking into the eyes part of nursing that I love, which is what led me towards massage therapy. I mean, how much more hands-on does it get?

To be able to spend 30, 60, or 90 minutes with my focus on the person, providing relief from stress, soreness, and pain is something that caught my attention about seven years ago. I’d applied to the Massage Therapy program three other times before finally deciding that if I am going to do this, then I need to. Just. Do. It. I went to a meeting at the school the day before my shoulder surgery in March 2017. I didn’t know if I’d even be able to do massage after surgery, but I thought I’d at least check it out. I knew that for the Fall 2017 semester, I wasn’t physically ready, so I was patient and then in June 2018, I took the Intro to Massage class and I knew that this was the right place for me. 

I don't believe that God has led me down any of my life’s journey without a purpose and a plan. I am grateful and excited that healthcare is so varied, and has a place for so many to find what connects with them: mind, body, and soul. I never thought I would go back to college. I never thought I’d be so excited about learning and that clinic days could be anticipated without anxiety and dread. Typing that, I am in tears. I’ve found my place and I don’t feel like a round peg in a square shaped void anymore. A round peg may fit into that space, but it’s not quite right, it is not comfortable. Now? I am a round peg in a perfectly shaped space and I fit and there isn’t emptiness on the edges.

What is ahead for me? Well, I have summer clinic in July, then back to class in August as I work towards being a licensed massage therapist after graduation in May 2020. In the meantime, I have enough hours and credits and will be able to take my MBLEx (Massage & Bodywork Licensing Examination) and to apply to be registered in the state of Maryland and Pennsylvania. This will allow me to begin working out of a spa, health club, or private business (like out of my home). Once licensed, this will open up opportunities in health care facilities such as nursing homes, clinics, hospice, and hospitals. In the meantime, as an unregistered/unlicensed student, I do Swedish and deep tissue massages at no cost, so if you are interested, let me know!

This group of people? My massage family who have become sweet friends for life!


Love as always!
Dianne

Onward and Upward Part 1

A helicopter drones overhead and I am reminded of another season in my life when flights weren’t so out of the ordinary. Nights working in the NICU were my norm and calls that might end in a helicopter flight to provide care for a sick baby were always a possibility, albeit not a welcome one. While I did not completely conquer that fear, I was able to at least contain it and do what I needed to do. Yes, it was a season, now past.

I see students over at a picnic table and I wonder how I ended up back in college. I had thought this season in my life was over as well. I have been a nurse for 16 years and after graduating at Allegany College of MD in 2003 and then Waynesburg University in 2007, I said, “ENOUGH!” My oldest daughter had informed me at that time that all I did was “go to work, go to school, and sleep.” She was right. (Except I did eat too. I love food. Not sure how she left that part out?) At that juncture in my life, I decided to set my focus more towards family and work, eliminating the school part. Did I really need the Masters degree? No.

Fast forward to 2014. I made the decision to leave the NICU and worked home pediatrics for about a year along with case management for another agency, and then did care coordination from home full-time before burning out, burning up, and breaking down in 2016. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to believe it of myself. I was ashamed and embarrassed that parts of being a nurse, a wife, a mom, a woman at that season in my life caused my anxiety to rise up unrelentingly, bulldozing and destroying who I was. I didn’t fully understand why it left me struggling to breathe, why getting out of bed each day felt like I was carrying twice my body weight on my back, why I wanted to give up. Logically, it made no sense. On the outside, I was “together”, but on the inside, a different story was being told. Anxiety and depression are sometimes sneaky like that. Or I just didn’t want to let others see that side of me.

With my family supporting me, I took time off from working 1-3 jobs at a time, and I took care of myself. I rested, I was creative, I had shoulder surgery to fix a rotator cuff repair, I started running. Yes, I was busy, but it was good. I felt like my brain rewired itself a bit, and after 7 months, I was ready to take steps back into nursing. I was cautious, maybe overly so, but I didn’t want to go back to where I had been mentally, emotionally, physically. I took a job in part-timeHome Health and in June, it will have been 2 years.

In the process of doing Home Health, I have learned much about myself. I have realized that I will always be a nurse in some sense, but that I don’t love every part of being a nurse and THAT IS OKAY! I have seen with anxiety as a roommate, sometimes loud and obnoxious and other times quietly awaiting a moment to pounce, that nursing contributed to that stress in ways I had not anticipated. In that time period of trying to learn to love being a nurse,  I learned that there is so many more ways to bring about a healing environment and that is where massage therapy jumped into my world. And there you have it.

Well, there may be just a bit more to this story and this is just the beginning.

...to be continued...onward & upward...

Love,
Dianne