Random and more random

It's been a while since I've been on here. Why? Well, I shouldn't have to tell you that. I have a LOT of reasons. Five of those reasons breathe...six if you include myself. I realized two things today: the first is that I've fallen off the radar. The second is that I just REALLY want to write. So what better avenue than this?

I didn't write much during the summer. There were a few reasons for that. The most important is that I was just UBER busy with summer classes...I had to schedule in time to breathe. Really. Another reason is because I just didn't have much I wanted to write. I learn so much in clinicals each semester and summer was no different. The only thing that was different was that I wasn't in DIRE need to share what I learned. I can sum it up in pretty much two sentences. Birth is amazing and I want to hold and cuddle babies for the rest of my life. And I was dumb to think that every parent loved their child the same way I do mine. That's about it. It was a tearful semester: tears of joy and sorrow. It's one I will never forget.

But now we have started the Fall semester (joy joy joy). I am happy that it means only two more semesters...but I'm sad to be back into the hectic swing of things. I've come to think of myself as a time ninja...I have to balance my time so well and to be honest, I'm becoming an expert at it. Between the five kids...oh, I mean four kids and the husband, school, Devin's karate, Larissa's dance, Jacob's tantrums and Masons cuddling needs (yes, this is a real need of his - especially when I'm trying to prepare dinner), you'd think I'd be over my head. But wait - we can add on volunteering weekly at the kids school, preparing a presentation for the Brownie girl scouts on First Aid, leading a group project, planning Jacob's birthday party, grocery shopping, cleaning - you name it, I'm doing it. I have to admit, I'm proud of myself. Sometimes I think to myself NOT EVERYONE can manage as well as you can so you should be proud!

Now, I can't give myself too much credit. There have been a few adult tantrums...by adult, I mean mommy tantrums. Probably just one...well, maybe two....it's possible there has been three. Like the other day when I longed for a little peace and quiet and nobody was listening to me and Manny walked in the door and I screamed, "I just need to go away for a minute!" and ran into my room. What did I do in there? I just stood there. I listened to myself breathe....and then a minute later I walked out like nothing had happened. Perhaps I had another tantrum during Jacob's tantrums...three hours of ongoing screaming have me just watching my hair fall out. I'm pretty sure he added a wrinkle to my face the other day. I literally found myself talking out loud, in the middle of the living room, saying, "Is this normal? God? Is this normal? Is this child okay? Does he need a therapist?" It's normal, I know. But it doesn't make it any easier. I'm pretty patient (I think) but there has been a time or two (or four) that I've chased Jacob down the hallway into his room. It scares him...which gives me about two minutes sans screaming.

One thing I have realized is that the time pressure has given me a no-nonsense approach to life. Tell it to me like it is. I don't have time to play games. It may sound mean but it isn't meant mean...I just don't have the time! In fact its amazing I even have time to write this blog....that's just how amazing I am! (No, not true. Realistically, I will be up late tonight studying because that is what I should be doing now but I'm not. What's wrong with a little written therapy?)

Now on to the most important moment of this whole blog, Jacob is three! Three! And the worst part of it all is that he tells me he's three. When he can tell me how old he is, he is too old. This morning he wakes up and he's like, "Good Morning mommy. I slept good. Where are my toys? I need to go potty. Did you sleep good? I love my mommy." I'm pretty sure he didn't know half of those words last week. I'm pretty positive of it. It's a proud moment...but it's bittersweet. My little monster is growing up....too quick. Today I dropped Dev and Riss off at school and he told me he wanted to go with Devi and Sissa and I, out of immediate fright, screamed NO! YOU'LL NEVER START SCHOOL! I'm not fooling myself...and Larissa checked me pretty fast anyway. "In a year you'll be in preschool" she tells him. "They have preschool here." Mmmm hmmm...thanks Riss. I used to think the September cutoff was the pits....now I'm lucky it exists. He's seven days off of the cutoff Riss so jokes on you! LOL.

Well, I could keep writing forever but truth is, I have to go pick the kids up from daycare and then head to martial arts with Devin. So off I go.

Til next time....

The Life of the Virgo Nursing Student

One of the girls in my clinical group has opened my eyes to astrology. I find myself venting to her day after day because she has a similar life to mine…in fact, her daughter is only two weeks younger than Mason (I joke that maybe they will get married…only, that would entail that Mason IS going to get married but I’m sure he is just going to live at home forever). One day we realize that we both are “September babies” and she says maybe we are so much alike because we are both Virgos. And, she says, being a Virgo is tough work. So that got me thinking…and researching. I wanted to know all about Virgos and the more I read the more I realized that while the nursing program is tough by itself, being a VIRGO in the nursing program means we escalate that toughness to …let’s  say…the 10^th degree (and that’s putting it lightly). In fact, just being a Virgo is tough work. I’m exhausted from it. Really.

If you don’t know much about the Virgo, let me enlighten you: Virgos are perfectionists (and that’s to say the least). Virgos are worrywarts (and if they don’t get that under control the worry-warting turns into full blown anxiety). A Virgo is highly-discriminating (highly!) and analytic. They like to plan things out – no spontaneity here! We’re the kind of people who look into everything: for example, we read every review before we make a purchase (3 out of 5 stars? We’ll pass). We can never please ourselves - which means the exhaustion that we blame on everything else going on in our lives is probably partially caused by us …just being us. You see where this is going right? As one astrology site claims, we have “an eye for detail”. Generally, this would be a good thing. Unless you’re in a nursing program – where sometimes you have to let details slip (by saying this I am not implying that I have EVER let any details slip. I’m just saying that I should…maybe). But let me be honest in my true Virgo fashion – if I do anything less than perfect or less than acceptable to me, I will not sleep. And that’s not a metaphor: I truly will not sleep. Or I’ll have nightmares of that less-than-perfect job I did on my paper. I can never study enough, never prepare enough, never do good enough – you get the picture? 

So this is where I am at – trying to be a mother to four children, a wife, and a student in a nursing program from hell when BAM! I realize I have to be a VIRGO mother, VIRGO wife and VIRGO nursing student. First off, let me mention that I am VERY grateful to have a mostly-Pisces husband. He’s a martyr sometimes and I’m so grateful for him.  I know he gets tired of my Virgo-tendencies sometimes but he does a good job dealing with it for the most part. So now, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am going to to figure out how to “let go” of some things to make it through this program…but how do you “let go” of some of your Virgo? It is innate…it’s who I am. If you are waiting for some grand answers here, don’t read any further: I don’t have them for you. I haven’t quite figured out how to “let go” and not be so hard of myself (what does let go mean anyways? I think it means to settle – I’m not good at that). I guess realization is the first step in this process or maybe it’s the last step for me. I’m not sure realization is enough for change but at least I know what I’m dealing with here. It’s not a pretty picture.

But let me shed some light on some other things: the Virgo will not only be a great mother, wife and student because she’s striving so hard to be – she will also make sure the bills get paid on time, the house is clean (generally clean, not impeccably) and that everyone is taken care of. The Virgo mother will go out of her way to make things easier on everyone else – even when she’s stressed out.  She’ll stretch her dollars, her time, her sanity. The Virgo will always help if she can: she gives and gives and expects nothing in return. The Virgo will call you two weeks after she received a card from you in the mail because she isn’t sure if she said thank you. The Virgo is neurotic – but she’s caring also.

Which means – in the long run - the Virgo’s patients will be WELL taken care of if not just because of her caring and thoughtfulness, because of her NEED to do everything to perfection. The Virgo will always be on top of her game. The Virgo will make sure her patient is comfortable and cared for. The Virgo will be an amazing nurse.

It’s just getting through school that’s the big Virgo problem here.

Realistic Self-Talk

These past few weeks have been really hard for me. I have been trying to find a good balance between everything but I am starting to doubt that a balance truthfully exists. Some days I just feel like quitting. Some days I DREAM of quitting. But I know that in the long run, this is what is best for me. It's the getting there that is the hard part...and it has definitely been hard. I found a quote the other day that said, "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." I think that is my new motto. I'm not sure it truly makes me feel any better, but it does give me a bit of encouragement. Last weekend I had another Mental Health clinical. As part of my care plan for my patient, who was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, I wanted to provide some resources for positive self-talk. In the back of one of the books in the lounge I found a paper titled, "Realistic Self-Talk" and I started reading it. Maybe it's what I needed as much as my patient. Here is what it said:

Realistic Self-Talk

1) This too shall pass and my life will be better.
2) I am a worthy and good person.
3) I am doing the best I can, given my history and level of current awareness.
4) Like everyone else, I am a fallble persona nd at times will make mistakes and learn from them.
5) What is, is.
6) Look at how much I have accomplished, and I am still progressing.
7) There are no failures - only different degrees of success.
8) Be honest and true to myself.
9) It is okay to let myself be distressed for awhile.
10) I am not helpless. I can and will take the steps needed to get through this crisis.
11) I will remain engaged and involved instead of isolating and withdrawing during this situation.
12) This is an opportunity, instead of a threat. I will use this experience to learn something new, to change my direction, or to try a new approach.
13) One step at a time.
14) I can stay calm when talking to difficult people.
15) I know I will be okay no matter what happens.
16) He/She is responsible for their reaction to me.
17) This difficult situation will soon be over.
18) I can stand anything for a while.
19) In the long run, who will remember, or care?
20) Is this really important enough to become upset about?
21) I don't really need to prove myself in this situation.
22) Other people's opinions are just their opinions.
23) Others are not perfect, and I won't put pressure on myself by expecting them to be.
24) I cannot control the behaviors of others, I can only control my own behaviors.
25) I am not responsible to make other people okay.
26) I will respond appropriately, and not be reactive.
27) I feel better when I don't make assumptions about the thoughts or behaviors of others.
28) I will enjoy myself, even when life is hard.
29) I will enjoy myself while catching up on all I want to accomplish.
30) Don't sweat the small stuff - its all small stuff.
31) My past does not control my future.
32) I choose to be a happy person.
33) I am respectful to others and deserve to be respected in return.
34) There is less stress in being optimistic and choosing to be in control
35) I am willing to do whatever is necessary to make tomorrow better.

Narcotics Anonymous

"Lord, please bless those that are suffering from addiction. Please help them to find an outlet for their pain in You, rather than in needles. Please help heal their suffering: take away the pain that many of them are feeling from the loss of their friends, parents, children. Please help those recovering deal with the pain of addicted children and addicted spouses. Help them become a rock and give them power to overcome these things. Please help us find out more about this disease so that we can help treat and take away some of this pain. And please Lord never let me find myself in this situation with any of my family. Protect my children from this type of exposure. Keep them healthy in mind, body and spirit. In Jesus' holy name, Amen."

That's all I have to say about that.

10-4 God. Loud and Clear. Over.

God works in mysterious ways. We hear that all the time but now…I know. He really put me in my place yesterday and you won’t believe that He used my patient to do it.

Before I start I guess I should give you a little background on the situation. I have been running on fumes for the past few weeks. I’ve been working to meet the demands of school and my family, have been fighting a double ear infection for the past few months, and to be quite honest, I haven’t been sleeping well no matter how early I go to bed. All of this has left me…well…cranky and emotional the past few days. Wednesday night (I won’t get into specifics) I turned into a cranky maniac with Manny. I snapped at him for who knows what (I think he was asking me too many questions or something…) and then, even though I knew I was totally out of line, I refused to apologize.  “I’m just tired and overwhelmed,” I said. To which Manny replied, “If that’s the way you apologize, I don’t want an apology.” Ouch. But I deserved it…truthfully, I did. But was I going to tell Manny that? Um, no. I like to think of myself as the perfect breed of Besecker/Strauss that has this innate unwillingness to admit when I’m wrong because, let’s face it, I’m not usually wrong (you see what I mean?).  So I went to bed in a huff and woke up in a puff and was out the door without saying goodbye or whatnot. I never do that. I was trying to prove a point. I think I was doing scientific research to see if you act mad enough if you could make the other person apologize eventually regardless of who is truthfully wrong. I’m not sure…I was too tired to think rationally and was testing the boundaries of common sense.

Anyways, so now it’s Thursday morning and I am at my clinical site where I have been assigned to “Joe” (for privacy’s sake). Joe is an 80-ish man who has just suffered a stroke. While his long memory is intact, Joe has lost his short term memory. And by losing his short term memory I don’t mean he forgets what happened yesterday…he forgets what happened every minute. I told him my name about once every 1-2 minutes. Well, Joe has a habit of walking around naked and what not so I have been assigned to him to kind-of distract him. 

The first time I meet Joe he says, “Did I have a heart attack or a stroke?” I tell him that he’s had a little stroke. “Are you an RN?” he asks. I’m on my way there I tell him and he looks right at me and says, “Did I have a heart attack or a stroke?” He doesn’t remember what I just told him. So I spend my day working with Joe and trying to help him re-train his memory. But he asks the same questions over and over. I have to point out that Joe has long term memory. He can tell me when he was married, what his kids names are, he brags to me about his wife and when he was converted to Catholicism but once he is done telling me a story he asks again, “So did I have a heart attack or a stroke?”

A really quick sidenote: This guy is officially one of my favorite patients thus far – so sweet and really entertaining. Asking him what year it was he quickly stated, “It’s 2010.” I said, “No, Joe…look at the date I’ve written on the board.” “2012?” he gasps. “Oh my God, I’ve been in a coma for two years?!?!?” Seriously funny.

Anyhow…we do the dance around the heart attack/stroke question for almost three hours. All the time I am talking to him I am fingering my phone in my pocket going back and forth between texting Manny or not…it’s at this point that I’m starting to hate my Straussecker stubbornness. I want to text Manny but that would entail saying I’m wrong and that would make me weak or who knows what I was thinking. So I didn’t. I just kept checking the phone to see if he text me because we ALL know that whoever texts first is the loser. Right? Ok maybe not but, like I said, I was tired. 

Anyhow, I take Joe’s vital signs, go to chart them and come back to spend time with him. When I come back in I am expecting the now-routine adage of “Did I have a heart attack or a stroke?” but he looks right at me and says (and this is the dead honest truth)…”Do you know what makes a marriage work?” I ask him to tell me. “You have to know how to say sorry,” he says. “You have to apologize when you’re wrong no matter how much you want to be right.” And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he continues. “Sometimes we are so stubborn you know? We just don’t want to admit when we are wrong and you have to know how to do that to make a marriage work. It’s not love, although that’s important. It’s knowing how to say you are sorry. It’s that simple.” Wham! Gasp! Ouch! I had to catch my breath. I seriously wanted to ask him, “Did my husband put you up to this?” I half expected to look over my shoulder and see Manny standing there, laughing. But I knew what was going on…God was putting me in my place.  When he told me that, I knew I needed to text Manny and apologize. And I did.

Well, he didn’t stop talking. He told me about the four H’s that are the key to life: humility, honesty, humor and happiness (who knew we could boil it down to that). He told me that raising your kids with God is the right way because they will be strong, faithful and true. He told me about caring and that you can’t expect everyone to care for you if you don’t care for anyone else. “Peace be with you” he kept saying. He then started to talk to me about how he had sinned and how he knew that God forgave him and that God loved him. He started to tell me about his wife and how great she was to him and how much of a better mother she was than he was a father. And he even started telling me how he hoped people didn’t remember him in a bad way once he passed. 

I have to tell you that at this point I’m getting a little worried. I’m appreciating and truly soaking up everything this man is telling me, but I can’t help but realize how much of a change it has been since this morning. I’m starting to get scared. Yes, scared. Is this man telling me his last words? Are these his last reflections in life? Now, I’m starting to bargain with the main upstairs…“God…please, if you are ready for Joe to come to heaven with you I totally respect that but please PLEASE wait until after 4 p.m. Thank you. Amen.” That's the last thing I need right now.

 Anyhow, Joe soon came back from the reflection period…he asks me, “Are you married?” I tell him yes and tell him I just got married in October. “Are you pregnant yet?” he asks and laughs. I tell him I have two boys, a 2 year old and one that is going to be one next month. “Wait a minute!” he says, “When did you say you were married?” I tell him October. “Oh it’s ok, God will forgive you.” LOL…Thanks Joe…for someone who can’t remember the last minute, he remembered that. I’m sure that was God putting me in my place again. I laughed, to which Joe responded, “Did I have a heart attack or a stroke?” Thank goodness…

On another note, Joe’s wife came to visit him in the afternoon. Joe kept repeating his questions to me and his wife kept leaving the room because she was getting irritated with him. When she came back in she told Joe to stop asking me questions over and over because I have things to do and he was keeping me (I didn’t mind at all). He was sure he didn’t ask me that question before and asked me again. She became angry with him. Then he asked me again. She became more frustrated. I know she is having a hard time dealing with the situation. “Stop it! She doesn’t want you asking her the same question over and over!” she yelled. Joe apologized to me and seemed visibly upset. “Don’t apologize to me,” I said. “I enjoy every minute with you and you can ask me the same question over and over and it won’t bother me at all.” And then I turned to his wife and said (in a very pleasant voice), “Joe was telling me all about you this morning…how lucky he was to have you as a wife and a mother to his kids. He loves you very much. I’m really happy that Joe has such great memories of you. Even if he lost his short term memory, he will always remember you and your family. He remembers everyone’s birthdays and names and  ages and even your anniversary date. And not everyone that suffers a stroke is that lucky. Imagine if he didn’t remember you at all…if he didn’t remember the last 59 years with you or your children or your family.” Now THAT is something to think about isn’t it?

Alcoholics Anonymous

Today I had the opportunity to attend a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. No, I just didn't decide to go. In fact, it was a class assignment. Needless to say I was very nervous and apprehensive about the experience. I had no idea what to expect and to be honest I was -in many ways - scared. How would they feel about a nursing student attending their meeting? Would they be upset? Or would I be able to blend in? Would I have to talk? Would they single me out? Would they be mad? Would they be happy? I just had no idea what to expect and the unknown was wrecking my nerves.

First off, let me tell you the first thing I noticed: if you aren't an alcoholic or if you've never been an alcoholic you AREN'T going to fit in. It’s as simple as that. It’s not that they all looked the same: they didn’t. There was a range from those business-dressed to those that looked like they couldn’t afford any clothes at all. In fact, I was amazed at how many homeless find their way to AA every week. But it wasn’t the clothes that singled me out: I simply couldn’t fit in because of my face. Those recovering addicts wore something on their face that I didn’t wear…and I really couldn’t put my finger on it at first. The only thing I knew was that I just looked…different. It  wasn’t until the end of the meeting that I realized these people wore hope on their face.

I don’t want to get much in to the specifics of the meeting. I found the meeting to be kind of, well, sacred – and I don’t want to ruin that feeling for me. I will tell you what I did come out of there with though – I came out of there with so much respect for these people. They appreciate every day and live their life with such belief and conviction. Why don’t I live my life that way? All of them attribute their reverence to the twelve steps of the program and to their recovery. Maybe some of you are familiar with those steps, but I never was. I found myself reading and re-reading the twelve-step plaque on the wall. Let me tell you something – we might not be alcoholics, but if EVERYONE followed some of those steps the WORLD would be a better place.
Steps 2-11:

WE:
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.