thoughts at 4:30 am

It occurs to me as I begin to write this post that my blog has two recurring topics: heartbreak and my job is awesome. Luckily {for all of us} this is another one of those my job is awesome posts. 

Working as a CNA is interesting because in some ways it's actually kind of crappy. When I tell people what I do for work they generally find it quite cringe-worthy. My shifts the past two nights give a beautiful picture of why I love being a CNA and why I really can't wait to be a PA.

Last night I was sent to the medical/oncology floor to sit with an elderly man. The simple version is that he was very confused and disoriented. He had been agitated and combative and needed constant supervision. His wife talked to me briefly about how difficult the situation was for her, and I was able to reassure her that I knew what to do and we would be fine when she left.

Sitting with a patient is something that generally drives me crazy, but sometimes it is amazingly rewarding. Being stuck in a room for 12 hours, often with a difficult patient, is not my idea of a good night, but some of my most memorable moments at work have come on these nights. The man I took care of last night was very confused and very emotional. I spent a lot of time holding his hand, and as I did I reflected on the many nights I have spent sitting at a beside holding my patient's hand.

When that old man, looking so small and sad, reached his arm up and asked me to hug him it brought back a flood of memories of other patients I have cared for. Being a CNA is a lot about body fluids and tedious tasks, but it is most importantly about giving hugs and encouragement and holding hands when people are scared. Last night my patient grabbed my hand and asked me to let him know when I get married and have cute babies. Obviously I'll never even see that man again and he was very confused, but for last night I was his friend when he was alone and scared. That is a feeling that is hard to beat.

Tonight my patient has a gun shot wound in his chest. How Grey's Anatomy is that? I just want to say "We've got a GSW to the chest" while running through the hallway with Meredith Grey. The great thing tonight was having a PA from the trauma team come in to remove the chest tube. I got to see the entrance wound from the bullet and the spots where the surgeons cut. Plus I got to see him pull out the chest tube, which was seriously cool and kind of bloody. Night made!

And this is why I want to be a PA. I need to be able to do more-- like chest tubes, for example. I think the thing that makes great PA's {or physicians} is that they go beyond being great at procedures and prescriptions and diagnosing illness. The great ones also excel at making their patients feel safe and heard and important. With medical stuff people really need reassurance, encouragement, and hand holding because medical stuff is often hard or scary, or both. The fact that I get to be a part of all of this is what makes my job seriously awesome.

And now as I try to stay awake while sitting in a dark room for two more hours I will think happy thoughts of traumas and chest tubes.

it's a musical monday

I have a lot of songs that I just can't stop listening to lately, but here are a few:

Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey

Darling Dearest by Xylos

Windows Are Rolled Down by Amos Lee

Something Good by Alt-J {Also Breezeblocks & Fitzpleasure}

Big Jet Plane- Acoustic by Angus and Julia Stone

What are you listening to on repeat these days?

pain/beauty

"It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value."

I just started reading The Architecture* of Happiness, and this is one of many passages in the book that resonates with me. I have spent a good deal of time searching for meaning in the pain, disappointment, and loss I have felt over the past year and a half. This is a big one. In the midst of the chaos and the hardest trials of my life, the world has become more beautiful. I'm inclined to feel more gratitude and satisfaction in the small things around me. {Most of the time, at least. I do still have relapses of the why-me?'s and seriously?!'s} I'm finding truth in the statement that you must know the bitter to know the sweet. When we experience pain our interaction with beauty becomes more meaningful- whether that beauty is in the form of art/architecture, or of nature, or of the people around us. My heart is somehow empty and full at the same time, and this is a very strange and beautiful feeling.

We all want to avoid pain. I myself was recently complaining, "Couldn't life just be easy for a little while?" But maybe the pain is worth it. Because even though sorrow often feels like it is breaking you into small pieces, it is actually making you whole. Pain helps you feel the whole human experience; it helps you love more fully; it helps you turn to and rely on God; it helps you to truly learn who you are and what you want and what kind of stuff you're made of.

*Did you know that I am a great lover of architecture? I very nearly chose to become an architect.  I was vacillating between health care and architecture, eventually choosing healthcare. But architecture! Oh I love it so.  And this will likely be another post for another day.

India

People selling flowers in Old Delhi

Market day in Old Delhi 

The Taj Mahal

Mr. Sheva, our rickshaw driver, and Gandhi, our Taj Mahal guide

 View from our tuk-tuk ride in Agra.

Jaipur train station 

Feeding monkeys at Galta

Hindu worshippers leaving Galta

Elephant ride

Train ride

Leaving Delhi for our flight to Kathmandu

My dad and I mostly decided to go to India so we could see the Taj Mahal, and I would say it was worth it. We started out in Delhi, and I could hardly believe how huge and crowded it was. We spent Sunday on a tour through Delhi, which was perfect because it wasn't too crowded. The sights were interesting: Gandh's cremation site and memorial {Rajghat}, Old Delhi's Red Fort and the Jama Masjid mosque, the President's house and India Gate in New Delhi, and Humayun's Tomb, which was a precursor to the Taj Mahal. 

The next day we were in Agra for sunrise at the Taj Mahal and then went to Fatehpur Sikri in the afternoon. The Taj was incredibly beautiful and seemed completely out of place in dirty, frenetic Agra. We rode all the way out to Fatehpur Sikri in a tuk-tuk {about 40 km}, but getting out of the city was the best part. The driver took us through parts of the city that we never would have seen otherwise. We ended up in a traffic jam with tuk-tuks, bikes, rickshaws, people walking, cars, and a herd of cows. There were no other tourists to be seen. Trash, animals, people everywhere. As we traveled through India I realized that I didn't care much about the tourist sites. Fatehpur Sikri was interesting enough and pretty, but I enjoyed the ride through the city so much more.

We took a train to Jaipur early the next morning. I love riding trains. It's so fun to look out the window, and to watch the other people on the train.  Jaipur was more calm than Agra, but still there were animals everywhere. We went to Galta, a Hindu pilgrimage site outside the city. The setting was so beautiful, and it feeding monkeys was both awesome and creepy. I loved seeing the people worshipping and studying. We also loved exploring the Amber Fort, which seemed to have passages and new rooms going on forever. Here we also rode an elephant, which was actually a strange experience and very typical of India weirdness. Jaipur had some of my favorite sites and favorite food. 

We made the trip back to Delhi on the train and spent our last day taking a very slow, congested drive into Old Delhi, and then only having time to get lunch. Our destination was a restaurant called Karim's, which is tucked back on a side street near Jama Masjid and has been there for over 100 years. At one point it was named on Time Magazine's list of the ten best restaurants in Asia, and the food was phenomenal, authentic Mughal dishes. This was our last night in India and we weren't very hungry after our amazing lunch, so we got a little pizza from Domino's by our hotel and watched Modern Family for a little slice of America before heading to Nepal. 

India was fascinating and definitely an experience. Even though I had seen poverty like that before, I don't think it's something you can ever get used to. It assaults all your senses, and it's a lot to deal with emotionally. The thing I missed in India was interaction with people. Everywhere we went, people were constantly trying to scam us or get money in any way. We found we couldn't talk to anyone without being expected to give them money, and that was disappointing to me. We kept ending up with drivers who told us it wasn't safe to walk around in the markets, which was something I really wanted to do. Even people, like these drivers, who put on a guise of trying to give help and advise all seemed to be working an angle and we had very few interactions that felt sincere, except maybe a couple people at our hotel in Delhi and from people on our flight. 

I didn't experience any of the Indian hospitality that we kept hearing about. I'm sure this is not the experience of everyone who visits India, but it left me feeling somewhat ambivalent about the country. Still, it was an adventure and an experience. I always think there are things to be learned from seeing how different people live, and it hurt my heart to see the state of desperation in which most of these people were living. I left feeling very grateful for my life. 

change

The question is:

Do blondes, do they, like, really have more fun? 

{I will love you if you know the movie I'm quoting here}

Side notes:

1. This was my first time dying my hair. Eek!

2. I never {ever, ever} thought blonde would touch my hair, but I am loving the change.

3. I can't seem to get a decent picture of my hair that also includes my face, so that is awkward. But these pictures are really about the hair.