Here’s a pretty common scenario that came up while I worked in the hospital. An elderly patient in her late 70’s, let’s say her name is Shelby, comes into the hospital with a fever, lower abdominal pain, and confusion. One of her kids, Denise, found her on the floor of her living room at home …
(If blood makes you squeamish, there will be descriptions of and an image of blood donation later on in this blog. You have been warned!) Recently, I read an article on the current shortage of blood donations we’re experiencing here in the U.S. (Here it is!). I haven’t donated blood since nursing school (for a …
My goal in reviewing some of the works I’ve read related to health ministry is to have a record somewhere of what helped and what stirred my heart and imagination, and to gather some ideas. They might not necessarily be about how readable, well-written, or “good” a book is, although those will probably come up. …
Coming to the end of the year usually means reflection time for a lot of people.I don’t usually do this, but for some reason, I feel compelled. And part of my mission here is for this blog to be a public log as I journey into health ministry/faith community nursing. It’s been difficult and rambling, …
I’ve been meaning to be more regimented and organized about what I write about and why and when I publish, but it seems life is chaos and discipline is hard when the day to day schedule requires an intense amount of intentionality in order for me to set aside time. I had also meant to …
Related to my previous post on my experience with a grief workshop at my church, the rest of this blog post will basically be the transcript of my story. I’ve deleted some parts of it, as they were mostly the teaching content that our church has and I didn’t want to just copy/paste. Some of …
My husband surprised me one night when he told me that our bereavement ministry pastor was looking for someone to help teach one of the weeks at our church’s grief workshop. It took me a little off guard for a few reasons. The first is that even though we had technically been at this church …
When I first started working in the hospital setting, I had a weird existential dilemma somewhere in the first year. The first several months, I was just trying to survive, but once I finally got to a place where I could see what my hands were doing and think clearly, I had one particularly clear …
Early on in our relationship, my now-husband-then-boyfriend and I were low-key excited to realize we shared an interest in Dave Ramsey. If you don’t know who that is, Dave Ramsey is a finance guru who has built a reputation by helping people get out of debt and live a life of financial freedom. He’s definitely …
Over the past several months, I\’ve been assessing, reassessing, brainstorming, and struggling with next steps. I feel as though there is an unfinished and unpaved path set before me that I can only see by way of flashlight, a few steps at a time. And there have been several potholes and pitfalls along the way. …