Owner: Digital Doorway URL:http://www.digitaldoorway.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:40:36 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Views of life, healthcare, nursing and spirituality by a 40-something male nurse somewhere in New England. Site statistics:Click here
A Letter to My Hospice Employer 2008-03-09 20:19:12 Dear ____________,It is with regret and disappointment that I am writing to officially resign my position as a per diem Registered Nurse at ___________. Apropos of our recent telephone conversation, I now feel that, in the interest of my health, I can no longer safely work at _________ under the current circumstances.As you may recall my mentioning previously, at my interview I discussed with ______ my concerns regarding the use of strong chemical cleaning products at ___________, and I shared with him my diagnosis of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). ______ reassured me that ____________ was very interested in “going green” (his words) and he indicated quite clearly that my input vis-a-vis this process would be greatly appreciated. Subsequently, you and I had several long conversat Read more:Employer
, Letter
Mindfulness Journal #3: Depression 2008-03-09 09:39:08 Is mindfulness possible during periods of depression? Is it possible to be mindfully depressed? Can you experience depression but still remain aware that that state is only a transitory one akin to a veil draped over one's mind and heart?I do believe that this is possible, and I believe that this is what I have experienced during the past week. After decades of suffering from depression, I am hyper-aware of its effects on my life, and with my condition in relative remission at this time, it's power over me is significantly diminished and I find that I can actually observe it with some level of detachment.If I can observe my states of depression with detachment, then one would have to assume that there is also some modicum of attachment to depression as well. When the pall of depression mak Read more:Journal
, Mindfulness
Mindfulness Journal #1 2008-03-09 09:22:01 Mindfulness is so very easy to write about. It's just as easy to talk about. But it's when the mindful rubber meets the road that the going gets tough.I've been reading Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn and working on cultivating a mindfulness practice in my daily life. Sitting meditation has always been a struggle for me, and it's been something that I have particularly avoided over the last twenty years or so. Reading Kabat-Zinn's book and looking over the website of his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, he makes it very clear that a commitment to forty-five minutes per day of sitting meditation is a reasonable amount of time to devote to such practice.Forty-five minutes?I am still struggling with meditating for five-minute increments, and I am amazed at the veritable r Read more:Journal
, Mindfulness
International Womens Day 2008-03-07 21:54:49 Today is International
Womens Day, and I want to take this moment to recognize this very important day for women worldwide, a day which saw its genesis in the Socialist movement of the early 20th century. The website of the World Health Organization points out that this year's theme is "investing in women and girls". Investment can mean many things to many people. In my view, we could best invest in women's health, girl's education, violence eradication, an end to war, and socioeconomic justice for women, to name a few places to begin.As the son of a woman, the husband of a woman, the uncle of several women, the brother of a woman, and the brother-in-law and son-in-law of several women, I feel that I have many significant and powerful women in my family and in my life, and I am grateful fo
MCS Ad Nauseum 2008-03-06 18:09:23 Over the last few years I have written a number of posts about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a condition from which my wife and I both suffer to varying degrees. MCS is essentially an invisible disability, which, although recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act, is still not recognized by the American Medical Association. Thus, gaining recognition is a struggle, as is having people believe that it's even real.Living with MCS presents layer upon layer of difficulty. Having our own families truly understand what a struggle it is for us to spend time in their homes is difficult at best, and we are often symptomatic with little feeling that we can truly address our symptoms' root causes. In our own home, we find we are deleteriously affected by our neighbors' use of fragranced
The Flu Still Fits.... 2008-03-03 17:31:30 The flu is infamous for making it seem like it's on the way out, and just when the unsuspecting victim begins to expend some extra energy----ZAP!----down he or she goes once again.I am trying to avoid this pitfall by laying low, sticking to home, begging off all work, and basically treating myself like an invalid. Today's menu: a wonderful Israeli movie which I highly recommend (whether you're sick or not); a few ever-so-brief walks with Tina the dog; some emailing; some phone-calls; some computer-based work; a nap or two; another movie which I cried my way through; and an evening with Mary. All in all, not a challenging schedule by any stretch.And tomorrow? I'm afraid to even plan........
Sweet Relief and The Great Unknown 2008-03-02 15:47:35 I am currently reveling in the reality of no longer being a case manager. Spending time in both my former workplace and in the visiting nurse agency where I work as a per diem nurse, I was clearly struck dumb with pleasure yesterday as I realized the reality of my new professional standing. Working in this manner, I feel completely in control of my work life, calling the shots each week and making decisions with my own best interests in mind. What sweet relief!The down side of such a situation is that I am no longer in relationship with any of my former patients, and am processing some feelings about having "abandoned" some of them. Also, coming and going from the hospice only intermittently does not afford me much continuity, and from one shift to the next I am generally in the dark as to Read more:Great
, Sweet
, Unknown
If the Flu Fits....... 2008-03-02 15:40:12 Woe to anyone who suffers the flu this season, and I can now count myself among the chosen who have been visited by this most hard-hitting of viral illnesses. Arriving home from a trip to see my parents, I began to feel unwell on the train as I traveled through New York State. By the time I arrived home to New England, a fever, chills, and unbelievable muscle aches had taken over, and I moaned my way through the night as my amazingly patient and solicitous wife tended to my every need. Now I'm lethargic, with a head that feels like it's filled with cotton-candy, and muscles that ache unceasingly (although a hot bath worked wonders this afternoon).According to the Centers for Disease Control, the week of February 23rd---the 8th week in this year's flu season---saw widespread reporting of in
Thoughts and Happiness 2008-03-02 09:33:28 We are what we think.All that we are arises with our thoughts.With our thoughts we make the world.Speak or act with an impure mindAnd sorrow will follow you As the wheelfollows the ox that draws the cart.Speak or act with a pure mindAnd happiness will follow you As yourshadow, unshakeable.----THE BUDDHA
The Nurse as Ogre 2008-02-27 22:47:44 I enter the exam room with a tray in hand and a smile on my face. The tray holds four vaccinations, and my smile is a nervous one, since I know that in a few short minutes, the child squirming in her mother's arms will hate me."The doctor sent me in to give your daughter her shots," I say."Yes, she told me. Can you give her some Tylenol too?" the mother asks."Oh, yes, I have some here for her." I give the baby some Tylenol, and already she's eyeing me with suspicion."Here's some information on the vaccines. Do you have any questions?" Sometimes I hope the parent will refuse the vaccines, just so I can be spared the trauma of administering them, but my trauma is nothing compared to the child's.I ask the mother to lay the child on the exam table, and now the baby starts to cry because she kn Read more:Nurse
Mindfulness and Mindlessness 2008-02-23 12:24:10 In this new iteration of my life, one of my most sincere areas of focus is the development of mindfulness, which Jon Kabat-Zinn simply describes as "knowing what you are doing while you are doing it". He also states that mindfulness "is cultivated by purposefully paying attention to things we ordinarily never give a moment's thought to. It is a systematic approach to developing new kinds of control and wisdom in our lives, based on our inner capacities for relaxation, paying attention, awareness, and insight."Interestingly, when I began writing the previous paragraph, I rose from my chair in front of the computer to search for my copy of Full Catastrophe Living in order to find the quotes by Kabat-Zinn that I wanted to use. Apropos of the subject of mindfulness versus mindlessness, I ended Read more:Mindfulness
Afraid to Die and Barely Living 2008-02-22 18:51:42 "I'm so scared to die." She lays in bed and barely looks at me."So, what's most scary to you?" I ask."I'm scared that I'll look dead, and they'll think I'm dead but I really won't be. Then they'll take me away and bury me alive. That's what I'm really scared of---being buried alive."I take a deep breath."Well, first of all, I'm going to tell you something. One day, when you die---and we all die---they will make absolutely sure that you're dead. I promise. Now, what do you think they'll do when they take you to the funeral home?""They'll make me up and and comb my hair and dress me in the clothes my daughters give them.""Well, yes, but I'm gonna take a risk here and tell you something that someone else wouldn't tell you. The only reason I'm doing this is because we know each other so well a Read more:Barely
, Living
A Visit 2008-02-20 21:12:15 As a part-time visiting nurse, one often enters a home blind, without a notion of what will wait behind the door. Often, the outside will tell a story one tries to quickly decipher before even entering the home. And then the story unfolds.As I approach the stoop, I notice a shopping cart filled with returnable bottles and cans to the left of the crumbling steps. I climb those steps and look into the yard to the left. Detritus of urban life litters what could have been a yard at one time: hub-caps, an eviscerated washing machine, the fenders of several cars, rotting lumber, moldy carpets. What looks like it may have been a cage for a few dogs now holds bag upon bag of trash. I hate to think how this will all smell in the summer heat.I knock. I knock again. And again. I'd rather this person
Eclipse 2008-02-20 21:11:55 Lunar eclipsewhen the rust-colored orbgraces the sky---so three-dimensionalas it dances in the shadow of Earth.I wander the neighborhoodcatching glimpses of the starsand planetswhich hang in the cold airlike distant lanterns.Sunlight on the moon's edge,a glowing fingernail---luminescentand fleeting.What powerand mystery,even to the modern mind---Imagine the terror, theignorant blissful terrorwhen humans first saw such a sight,primordial fearsrushing from gut to evolving brain.Now its poweralthough explained by scienceand critical insightis by no means diminishedas its beauty and stark glowlight the sky with wonder.
Banished 2008-02-18 12:01:26 On Tuesday, February 19th, the new film Banished will be showing on many public television stations across the country, under the auspices of Independent Lens.Between the 1860s and 1920s, 12 counties in 8 states expelled more than 4,000 African Americans from towns which to this day remain mostly white. The film depicts several descendants of those excommunicated African Americans who return to their ancestral homes to learn more of their unsettling history. The film further explores the ideas of reparations and racial cleansing, subjects which even in the 21st century hold very contemporary significance worldwide.Banished was co-written by our dear friend Maia Harris, a gifted and award-winning film producer, and we urge our friends, families, and colleagues to watch this ground-breaking
At the Hospice 2008-02-17 11:56:06 "There always is an answer," he says, as I spear some pasta bowties and hand him the fork. "I just don't know what it is." I hand him another forkful of food---chicken this time---and he eats it with relish, relinquishing the fork only when he has licked every bit of sauce from the four long prongs. His puzzled mind seizes on one thought, and then the fork and its contents become his universe once again.I visit another patient in her room, not having seen her for several weeks. "So, what's new?" I ask, as I sit on the edge of the bed. "Nothing that's good," she replies with a sigh. "Can I get you anything?" She reaches out her hand. "Just some black coffee and ice water. That's all." She's lonely, but chooses solitude as her health continues to decline, staying in her room throughout the d
Pain and Depression: An Unfortunate Partnership 2008-02-16 08:37:29 Living personally with chronic pain and chronic depression, I am seeing manifest in my own life how these two conditions so frequently feed off of one another. These insidious parasites will, if not paid a fair amount of attention, bleed the joy from one's life without a second glance, and anyone who suffers from either knows how, from one moment to the next, life can indeed be turned on its head.As far as research goes, the jury is in: depression actually can cause pain, and chronic pain can lead to chronic depression. According to some studies, up to two thirds of patients with depression who are interviewed will report moderate to severe pain, with the back, the joints, the head and the abdomen as the most common areas of complaint.For me, the depression has been life-long, as far back
The Table 2008-02-16 08:26:57 A story to share, written during my weekly writing group........The table is made of chestnut. Its sturdy legs are graceful and slightly curved in such a way as to make the table seem much lighter than it actually is. At more than one-hundred and fifty pounds and seven feet in length, it is a bear to move. More than once it has scraped against door-jams and the corners of walls while being maneuvered by frequently reluctant suitors, leaving marks in its finish which tell a tale of decades of use by family, friends, colleagues, movers, shakers, children, and ghosts.Many have sat here at this table. Many a meal has been served on its surface. Can you see the water rings created by errant glasses sweaty with the cold of summer lemonade? Or how about the spot near the far corner where a pot of Read more:Table
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Lesson in Perspective 2008-02-15 10:36:31 On occasion I am profoundly moved by a film or a movie which actually causes me to look at life differently. These moments are few and far between in actuality, but last night on a Valentine's date, my wife Mary and I experienced the profundity of The Diving
Bell and the Butterfly
in all of its cinematic glory. It is very rare for me to walk out of a movie theatre and feel that what I've just seen has changed me in a dramatic way, and this experience was certainly of that caliber.For those of you as yet unfamiliar with the story, the film is an adaptation of the book by the same title which was written by Jean Dominique Bauby, a former publisher of Elle Magazine who experienced a massive stroke in the prime of life. Bauby was diagnosed with Locked-In Syndrome, a condition in which the affl Read more:Perspective
Tonglen: Giving and Receiving 2008-02-15 09:25:40 Of all the practices I know, the practice of Tonglen, Tibetan for “giving and receiving,” is one of the most useful and powerful. When you feel yourself locked in upon yourself, Tonglen opens you to the truth of the suffering of others; when your heart is blocked, it destroys those forces that are obstructing it; and when you feel estranged from the person who is in pain before you, or bitter or despairing, it helps you to find within yourself and then to reveal the loving, expansive radiance of your own true nature. No other practice I know is as effective in destroying the self-grasping, self-cherishing, self-absorption of the ego, which is the root of all our suffering and all hard-heartedness. Put very simply, the Tonglen practice of giving and receiving is to take on the suffering Read more:Giving
The Power of Compassion 2008-02-11 07:47:35 Your compassion can have perhaps three essential benefits for a dying person: First, because it is opening your heart, you will find it easier to show the dying person the unconditional love he or she needs so much. On a deeper, spiritual level, I have seen again and again how, if you can embody compassion and act out of the heart of compassion, you will create an atmosphere in which the other person can be inspired to imagine the spiritual dimension or even take up spiritual practice. On the deepest level of all, if you constantly practice compassion for the dying person, and in turn inspire him or her to do the same, you might heal the person not only spiritually but perhaps even physically. And you will discover for yourself, with wonder, what all the spiritual masters know: that the po Read more:Compassion
Finding My Way 2008-02-08 21:38:01 This new life of not working full-time presents many of its own unique challenges. When one does not simply need to report to work every day at the same time, then one must realize that a great deal of thought must be given as to what one is doing when. Juggling various employment responsibilities and home-based business ventures then becomes one's full-time job. The problem with not "punching a clock", as it were, is that the self-employed person must then make choices as to when one is actually "working". The temptation is to always be thinking about work, planning work, making up invoices, drumming up work, and otherwise focusing on it 24/7. If this is the case, then it begs the question, "So, what's better about this scenario, anyway?"For myself, I'm finding that I actually need to sta
Calling All Nurses! 2008-02-05 23:09:11 Call for Stories from NursesTrue-life stories from nurses who knowKaplan Publishing, the #1 educational resource for nurses, is launching an exciting newseries of nonfiction books that share the stories behind the relationships, experiences, and issues nurses encounter on the job—whether they work in a hospital, clinic, home setting, hospice, private medical practice, or elsewhere.These slice-of-life stories are written by nurses from all walks of life and provideunique personal insights into powerful universal truths. Entertaining and educational,inspirational and practical, each book will feature 20–25 true stories about the experiences and relationships that inspire and enrich the lives of nurses and all those who come into contact with them.We are now accepting stories for the foll Read more:Calling
Everything Counts 2008-02-04 14:33:43 Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.---Sogyal Rinpoche Read more:Counts
, Everything
A Brief and Pleasant Exchange 2008-03-12 21:03:00 She's waiting for me in front of the tired clapboard house on a busy city street. I'm doing a visit for a colleague (in my new consultant position), dropping off some meds and checking in on this very lively couple with whom I am totally unacquainted."Hey! Thanks for coming over with the meds!" her partner yells. He is jovial and talkative, slapping my back and shaking my hand.The house is a boarding house: shared kitchen, office downstairs with staff during the day. Pretty clean inside, a little rough around the edges. Their room is one large bedroom with a bathroom and a closet. A little small and dark, I think."How long have you been here?""About a month," she says."It's great. You both seem really happy. Can I check your blood pressure while I'm here?" I hand him his prefilled medicati Read more:Brief
, Exchange
Mindfulness Journal #4: Grief 2008-03-14 11:46:49 Grief moves like a subterranean stream through my life, and its liquidity is a constant yet frequently unconscious presence. Days can pass wherein I dip nary a toe in the rushing waters. Yet other days, the waters rise, and the briny fluid reaches the wells of my eyes.These past few weeks, that subterranean tributary is quite less than subterranean. Its level has risen, and the melting winter snows seem to have swelled the stream, feeding its depth, its breadth, and its velocity of movement.This month of March brings with it the dying breaths of Winter, as well as the birthdays of three dearly departed loved ones. Grief is natural at this time of year, and the lack of sun in this New England late winter only adds to the challenge.So, what to do in the face of grief's rise? Watch, breathe, Read more:Grief
, Journal
, Mindfulness
Pain: The Unwanted Hitchhiker 2008-03-14 01:18:17 Chronic pain is so very inconvenient. It is so limiting and restricting, like a belt worn unnecessarily tight.Pain effects one's sleep, one's ability to exercise. It can curtail the enjoyment of sex, and even the most burgeoning appetite. It restricts one's activities, precludes some activities altogether, and can be a demoralizing agent whose influence cannot always be ignored.Pain is like a hitchhiker who has worn out his welcome but cannot be extricated from the passenger seat. Perhaps his first appearance was not overly worrisome, and he exited peacefully when requested to do so. Maybe he was even helpful that time you had an emotional flat tire and needed an excuse to rest. But months later, thoroughly ensconced in the back seat, wearing an iPod, drinking a Coke and ignoring your ever Read more:Hitchhiker
, Unwanted
Three Minutes 2008-03-17 10:03:48 "And what do I owe you?" she asked."Five thousand francs," he answered."But it only took you three minutes," she politely reminded him."No," Picasso said, "It took me all my life." Read more:Three
The Ides of March 2008-03-16 06:43:55 "Beware the Ides of March
" was the soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar prior to his assassination in 44 B.C., and the saying was apparently ingrained in the English language by William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar as a warning of impending doom.According to Wikipedia, "the term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other 8 months" (in the Roman calendar).In my life, the Ides of March signifies one of the most difficult times of the year. Living in New England, mid-March generally manifests as a blustery and damp time of fickle weather, fluctuating temperatures, chilly winds, and a deep longing for a Spring that is painfully slow to arrive. In the latter portions of March and early April, "mud season" arrives as the
Recommend Site To A Friend
