Saturday, December 20, 2008

Christmas Hope

In these dark and very cold days, when we are reporting the first wind chill factor I can ever remember here, the bulb yields a flower.This is going to be a real stunner. I don't need the lights and tinsel so much. We have a hydro electrical warning because so many Christmas lights are being compounded with turning the heat up. I like my flower. I alos have some really beautiful fake ones to encourage the real amaryllis to shine her best.
I worked another set of shifts. My instructor asked me if I had been to the lab. I said, "Not this decade, not this century. Did they move it?" I met a few nurses that I worked with in the early 90's. It's fun freaking people out.
The nurses decorated the nursing station and patient lounge with a hodge podge of lights and ribbons. It really looks pretty. But it makes me sad because we have several dying patients, and we lost 3 last week. Now I look in the obits of our Chilliwack Progress and see not only seniors from my church and parents of friends, but people I have cared for. That's the real measure of nursing. There is the one giving the care and the one being cared for. I really like what I'm doing. I'm not getting a lot of emergency work because our patients are doing pretty well. I'm learning good assessment skills and trying toget my organizational skills up to scratch in a heavy workload. But someone will lose a mother, wife, dear friend today or tomorrow. I hope that they can draw on each other, too.
I always buy a flowering plant for someone who has just had a close death.




Yesterday, in the few hours between sleep and return to nights, I swatched some Marks & Katten aran that I can't even remember when I bought. This is for nephew #5. The best pattern for this sweater, from my wish list, is the Age of Aquarius by Kathy Zimmerman and Lisa Carnahan in my beloved Knitter's Stash, edited by the amazing Barbara Albright. As much as I look forward to new books, I have so many patterns waiting for me to explore. As I am returning to my old skills of nursing, I am working with patterns and wool that may have been waiting from that same era. The dark wool is not a problem in the harsh light of the charting station. And the funny stories make me feel closer to the other nurses.














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