Not Just Another Nurse

I always wanted to become a teacher so when I completed year twelve of my schooling I was looking for courses available , but somehow I was advised to take nursing as a course of study as it was a faster option for becoming a teacher . However to cut the long story short and ten years down the line with five of them and still going on as a nurse I don't regret one bit about my decision. Anyhow recently my brother finished his schooling and so I was looking up colleges where he can study some Arts courses but he kept on insisting that he wanted to study nursing. At first, I was hesitant and I told him it's not easy being a nurse .It's not something you can do unless you like it and enjoy it. But he kept on insisting , so I finally gave in and enrolled him in a nursing college.It took me two of my four years in nursing school to accept my chosen vocation after the initial shock of having experienced the hospital firsthand in the first year of my training. If I knew then what I now know about nursing , I wouldn't have opted Nursing as a career choice but thank God I didn't know . Like me ,after high school , many people do not know what exactly a nurse does other than giving injections. So let me elucidate some of the things we do and what nursing is about.

1. The First and the Last : Being a nurse I realised that we are involved in many the firsts and lasts of people who come to the hospital. Nurses are the first people you encounter inside the Emergency and the last one to see when you go home on being discharged. It is the nurse who is the first point of contact when you come in.Also having delivered babies in the labour room and given multiple death cares I can say that nurses are the people you see but don't remember when you are born and the last people who respectfully deal with you when you die in the hospital before your family comes in . So yes we see you in your problems , we see you go home safely ,we help bring you into this world and see that you depart this world with dignity and respect.  
2. Hawk Eye :  Having worked in the emergency and ICU/ITU, I can say that when things go downhill it happens in the blink of an eye .Nurses are the ones that have a hawk eye over the sick patient that is in their care . Once all has been said and done and the doctors have decided what they want to do after changing their orders over a gazillion time and left , it's the nurse in the ICU/ITU that has to keep watch over the vital signs to ensure you see another day. In other words ,we make sure your condition doesn't deteriorate on our watch and if it does we do everything we've got to bring you back to see another fight.
3. Body Fluids: Anything said about nurses is incomplete without body fluids ..It's almost synonymous. We've had vomits ,poops , urine, amniotic fluid , saliva everything being splattered at us and each time we grimace and do what we have to do. I believe nothing can gross out a nurse ,having seen it all, they can carry out a perfectly normal conversation about poop at dinner time with you provided you don't gag . Yea you can call it code brown or whatever colour you want but it's what we do: clean you when you are unable to ,move you when you aren't moving and feed you when can't yourself.
4. People : Last but definitely not the least , it's the people that we meet daily.People is what makes nursing different from other professions and each one is to be treated  in the same way as the other with dignity and respect irrespective of their cast , colour , creed or gender. Every day at work we meet different people , each with his/her own story , their problems and troubles People come to us at their lowest , when they are dependent on us especially when all their life they were fiercely independent.So we meet people angry , frustrated anxious and vulnerable .It is then that this job tests your character , your patience .Someone once said the character of the nurse is as important as the knowledge they possess. 

Nursing is a combination of skills and knowledge and character .So finally to conclude I would say that nursing is easy as long as it remains in the books but add a little uncertainty of life and an eclectic mix of people and their emotions then it becomes a different ballgame altogether. 

Belated Birthday Musings !!!

So the other day my younger brother went on overdrive liking almost all my pictures on Facebook . Some of the picture I couldn't even recognize , for some I cringed wondering how on earth did it reach there. Anyway long story short the picture on the right is a childhood which my brother liked. {I won't tell where I am, you might as well try guessing } However seeing both the pictures and having had my birthday almost a month back I went into retrospection mode and matters didn't help when one of my friends wrote "happy birthday, enjoy the last year of your 20's". I had nearly three decades of my gone, poof !!So here are 3 principles from The Book of Life  that I have learnt and would like to share with you all..

• One of the principle I learnt was in the early formative years of my life when I was being brought up with 25 other boys , I found people can be fun ,compassionate and kind, they can also be viscous and hard at times,they have the capacity to be unpredictable, and the only way I could make sense of it is by following a principle which I found in the Bible,"For whatever you want men to do ,do also to them .." This is also called the golden law in the the bible.This was an answer for me because as long as I followed this principle I noticed that people became kinder, respectful , easygoing and fun .It's not that everybody changed, some were just mean by nature but upside was that life became easier to deal with .This could never be more relevant to us than the present . The problems of war, illegal immigrants, hate, discrimination. For everything it would be an easy answer if we did exactly how we would want people to deal with us when faced with a similar situation as theirs. This world would be a safer , better place for all those inhabit , only if we cared. 

• " And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."  Love is something I learnt the hard way,by falling flat on my face a couple of times, and each time I learnt something. But when you finally meet the ONE , you know that she/he was worth all the wait. You look back and think , Gosh what was I thinking then, thank God it didn't happen. I know love has many dimensions but I just wanted to focus on one aspect only. Love is truly the greatest gift that one can ever get.It's in our design to love and be loved. To revel in the feeling that someone truly ,really loves you, your flaws as well as your perfection.  But sadly we can be confused by lust, especially when we get carried away by butterflies,tinglings and a racing heart. But that's not the way to discern love , here's the list" Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;  it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (RSV)". I wont add anything else as it couldn't get clearer than this.

• "It came to pass." The phrase occurs again and again in the Old Testament in the Bible. "It came to pass after four hundred and thirty years that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." This verse really sums up the latter half of my life. It came to pass. Life is never easy ,it has it's up's and downs , more like a roller coaster. So through all my struggles I have learnt one thing, that no matter how hard or precarious our life might become, never , ever give up because the problem didn't come to stay, it came so that it could pass. It came to build your character and pass, it came to challenge you out of you comfort zone and pass , it came so that you push yourself to reach you potential and pass. So remember no matter what you are facing right now , no matter how low you might have fallen it's just a season that will pass. Yes as it is written" it came to pass ...."

Salt and Light !!!!

Since my time here in UK there is one thing that I have come to value and that is salt. I don't know about my other friends here but I have found that the British are very stingy when it comes to salt in their meal.I still remember among my first few meals in my early days here was fish and chips, [chips : my Indian friends is what they call french fries here but bigger in size] and to my distaste neither of the two had any salt. Since then I have a greater respect and appreciation for Indian food. However food is not what I am going to write about today.

 Recently as I was reading Matthew I came to these verses that I had read innumerable times, "you are the salt of the earth , you are the light of the earth ".  Usually it is taught that we need shine the light of the Word into the life into others,but in reality it's the other way round.  Light is something that we can't ignore in the dark .It will draw our attention. We might get irritated when someone flashes light on our face or we might be thankful that someone has flashlight when we are searching something in the darkness , whatever may our reactions be , we can't ignore the light in the darkness. It pulls us towards it like trapped miners trying to scramble through to the sliver of light at the end of the tunnel. So if Jesus wanted us to be light and salt it means we need to be a people that the world is either attracted to us or hates us but whatever may happen it shouldn't ignore us.Just like salt and light,  love them or hate them you can't ignore them.

From a very early age I was taught all about Jesus and being a christian.I went to a christian school and christian college , so for me to be a "christian" was second nature , just like breathing .But over the past few years living outside the Christian sphere of influence , I realised that being a christian is more than what I am used to being. I had become so comfortable in my own skin as a christian that it was okay for me to be a christian as long as I didn't gain any attention or have people ask questions about my faith. I was more like a closet christian to say the least. Many times people realised I was a christian only after they asked me about it in a conversation regarding religion. And the funny part it never struck me odd that people had to ask me to know whether I was Christian. It is easy blending in the world.

So maybe we need to slow down and let people notice us , just like Jesus says "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify God in heaven ". So in other words it's not necessary for you to be a preacher to make people know God. Let's make people sit back and want what we have. Just like a food without salt this hurting world doesn't realise that a this world is tasteless , dark and empty without God . The recent upheaval all over the world makes us realise that the world is bitterly divided like never before, hate is the word of the season. But as we approach the Christmas season , tis the season of love , the reason we celebrate , so let's be light in someones life and flavor their life with a pinch of salt. So here's me wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas season.God bless!!!
P.S I know it's early but Christmas always makes me excited , can't help .