Odd week ... hope the next one is better

Well work has been a little wierd lately. Stressful at times due to "reconfiguring" of some staff positions, makes you wonder what/who is next.

So today, I did an inservice for 10 nursing students about what pastoral care is. I mentioned things like the morgue, spiritual assessment, misconceptions that people have about our work. Just last week, a patient asked me if I sent to see him beecause he is dying. Oh no. I had to tell him. I'm part of the team. You've been here a while and I haven't been able to meet you. That seemed to calm him down. But then he wanted to know what I was... what tradition. What box did he put me in? Was I there to preach at him, I suppose is what he wondered....

This weekend was hubby's bday. We had 15 people come to the house. It was good to have all the people come. Of course there were some that didn't make it, but that is to be expected considering the large number. I didn't cry over the ones that didn't come. More cake for us.

On Friday past, I went to a patient's wake. It wasn't a funeral and it wasn't really a memorial either. It was at the family's home. The man was in his 40's and had been in hospital on and off for a number of months/years. Even spending one or two of his bdays there. It was like a big party. Just what he would have wanted. He was always waiting for the next party/family gathering. It was good to go. The family really seemed to appreciate that I came. There were a few other staff from the hospital and residence where he lived as well. But it was a hard week overall and some stress. So far this week is going better.

Wheels of Life

... and they didn't tell me!!

On Friday, I was trying to log on to the network at work.. and couldn't. Oddly enough, I could do so at noon but not at 2 pm. The IT person was telling me that I had been typing in my password wrong and so it locked me out... or that I had "forgotten" my password. I don't think so.. a person doesn't forget something like that .. well not me. Well, the reason was explained this morning when I came to work. There was a note on my desk.. FYI from the departmental secretary. Email sent from IT telling me that they changed my user name to my married name so I may have some problems accessing email if I didn't know... NO!! I didn't know. HOW am I supposed to know my user name is changed when they send it to the "new" one? and don't tell me? The thing is that I was told I have to have my marriage certificate to change all this stuff so they had sent back my form requesting this and then do it ANYways... argh!!
So that ... was cool. My new name is official. Then I went to send an email. Someone asked for a file.. so I go to attach it and ... no files!! They transferred my email and FORGOT about my files that were on a separate drive. So interestingly enough, someone from IT showed up about 30 minutes after I report the problem and fixed it within an hour of my request. I guess the "oops, I did something" reports aren't too much of a priority but the "um, where's my files? that YOU lost" speaks louder on the priority list. Wierd how life works eh?

Hearing Things that People Didn't Say

Okay, so I sometimes hear people say things that they didn't. I don't mean body language or reading between the lines.. I mean that I hear them say this ... when they really said that! For those you who don't know, I have a hearing problem. I do not hear high pitches; last eight notes of the piano, nails on a chalkboard, birds, cell phones, pagers, certain female voices drive me crazy .. Mariah Carey, for example. So I heard my colleague say something that she did not.

I heard her say... "So I hear "Jane" (co-worker whose name is changed) has a new interest. His name is Alan." really. I said. Oh yeah. Oh yes, she went on. "For at least 6- 8 months." Really? I go. Is this person staff? My colleague gives me this wierd look and says "Who's Alan?" She goes.
"Her name is Anne." Oh really ... I say. For 6 months you say, hmm. That's interesting. (To myself, I'm thinking. she's dating a WOMAN?! Oh my, that's different. Oh well, everyone has a right to their own preferences." ) "Who's Alan?" She repeats. I looked at her and realize I have no idea what has been saying for the whole conversation. I'm sorry," I said. "Could you start over?" My colleague then said " She has a new intern. Her name is Jan". I was so embarassed. Then I told her what I thought she had said. We had a good laugh.

CBC News In Depth: School Shootings

CBC News In Depth: School Shootings The world is going crazy it seems. A few days ago, all the news would talk about was the trauma of 9/11 (01) and now we are hit with another trauma in the Canadian news. How do you make sense of these people that do massive.. well massacres? Columbine comes to mind... Montreal massacre, the shooting of the women... Crazy world we live in. Makes my job necessary.

We're pastoral care... we don't do those kind of things.

Yesterday, my colleagues and I were having lunch and one of them said "We're pastoral care. We don't do those things". I forget the context but I remember one of them laughed and said that should be our new motto. What those things might be we aren't sure, but we liked the irony, because we seem to do so much.

Later that day, I had 2 of my staff ask me 20 minutes apart, if I had lived with my husband before we got married. I replied, "in the words of one of my colleagues, 'we're pastoral care. We don't do those things." Good for a laugh, so every once in a while you may hear us say.. "we don't those things! We're pastoral care!"

Hope for a better life

Today, I was sitting by the elevator waiting to go for lunch, when one of my former patients got off the elevator and told me that she was getting a transplant. They told her while she was on dialysis and so she wasn't prepared. Just showed up at the hospital with what she had and checked in. At first I wasn't sure what she said. I thought she was just there for short stay. That is common, I didn't think that she would be there for a transplant. I haven't seen her for a few months as she has dialysis at a different location now. So I walked her up the hall and we were escorted to a room right then. So when I left a few hours later, she was about to go to surgery for her transplant. I wonder what people go through with that. I mean, they spend months or years waiting for a transplant and when it happens.. are they really prepared?
So we talked about what she would go through. Was she nervous? Had a prayer and then I left. Her surgery was to take about 4-6 hours. So that'swhere she is now and I will see her in the morning. Usually, I don't know the people before the transplant. I meet them when they are admitted to the hospital for treatment or when they come as outpatients for dialysis. So this was a bit different for me even. Despite the transplant, there is not always a guarentee that the kidney will be okay, not be rejected.
There are two ways that kidney transplants occur; through living donors, or cadaveric. Because we can't plan on the cadaveric showing up when you need it, most transplants are through living donors -- family members or friends. There can be issues with both. We hope that the transplant takes, but when it doesn't I can imagine the guilt that some people feel. Having a person give up a kidney that was working for them. and now it doesn't work for any one. I can't imagine how hard it would be to face the other person.

Gifts in our lives...

I have a somewhat motley collection of friends. I met most of them at church, which is also where I met my husband (I'm still amazed at that!), and we have done many outings together. Formal outings organized as part of the church group that I am in, and informal ones too, such as hanging out at PNE or playing blitz. (The girls and I haven't done this for a while. I will have to organize a get-together or at least brunch to visit since the move ...)
I first came to Vancouver in November 2002 and joined in activities at my church pretty much right away. That is just how I am. I was a member of an organizer/leadership team for the social group that we have for our age group, but dropped out earlier this summer. With the wedding, becoming the secretary for the executive board of CAPPE BC, and starting my next level of certification, I decided that this year I really would scale down my extra activities. I have said that I would but this time I dropped from the leadership team. Partially because I was frustrated by the politics of the team as well. As you may know from social theory on groups, that the more people and characters you add to a group, the harder it may be to communicate effectively.

character roles : joker, rule-keeper, sloppy, defiant, worrier, peacemaker, self-pityer, apathetic, clever, devious, hypocritical, sports player, uncertain, outgoing, impatient, generous

When you have too many of the different characters, it can get messy.

The thing is that my husband is still in the leadership group and it is hard not to jump in with my traditional organizational skills and my desire to be invovled. The question is .. what is the point of a group? or activity? Some people are good at planning for the long-term (I am not one of these people) a go with the flow type person. This can be like at work. In the hospital, we spend our time focused on the one goal: helping our patients to be healthy, have good quality of life and all that. We do this from our perspectives/or bubbles. Hence, everyone has a different idea of what the end result should look like.

Physio, dieticians, nurses, medical teams, pharmacists, and spiritual care all have their own way of looking at the situation and even though we use the same terminology about care, we may have very different meanings about how the "work" should be done. This is the frustration as there are many voices to listen to and depending on who yells the loudest, that is what the team will follow and some people are left feeling that they are shut out or given very little opportunity to demonstrate what they can offer to the patient.

Let me get back to what I was saying about my friends. I met most of them at church. Some I am closer to than others, some come and go, but in the end, they have given me a wonderful gift. I am "Kathryn" to them, not "Reverend", not "Chaplain", but just Kathryn. I am allowed to be myself when I am there... I am thought of or introduced as "This is Kathryn. Oh yeah, she works at the hospital as a chaplain." The fact that I am ordained as clergy, to which they all witnessed in October past is not really a big deal to them. I was not ordained when they met me, and I am not their chaplain. Not expected to have an official role with them. This is something that came about because of who they are, but also because I worked at it. I was training at a different school and when certain people in the area found out "where I was from", I was classiifed as "one of those". I did not want that here in this new city/province. And it has worked out well. While my church has ordained me, they set me "aside" to the work of chaplaincy. I am not required to "do work" in the church for them, but I will offer what I can. They free me to attend and give as I am able and to be fed by the Spirit, and fed socially. There are those in my church who give me special treatment because of my role, but not as many as if I had been living where I grew up. This is very freeing. It is a part of the psalmist statement "Be still and know that I am God" A lesson that I have struggled to learn. To be instead of to do. It is very hard in this society at times, due to expectations, but also due to personal expectations as well. A gift that many are not able to embrace.

Enlightened Religion?

Bruised ego

Yesterday as I was on my home, and fell on the subway escalator near the bottom. I was so embarassed. I was wearing strappy shoes and one came off my foot, and the other was partially off. I fell flat on my butt and had scrapes and bruises up my right leg and right arm. People asked if I was okay, I said yes, I'm jsut wearing the wrong shoes for this. Just silly shoes.