A New Year...A Fresh Start

Have you ever been so caught up in life and the day to day struggle of what feels like just trying to survive whatever rocky, unpleasant life circumstance you find yourself in that you start asking "How the heck did I get here?!?"

The details of what led you where you are start to seem very fuzzy as you try to evaluate/assess the process and determine what needs to happen next which can be very dizzying and confusing, causing further frustration!

This was me a portion of 2020 and the good first half of 2021!

I started feeling overwhelmed by hopelessness for a period of time as the fogginess seemed to be the only thing I could consistently expect to experience despite all my attempts to clear it!

I have always enjoyed that the New Year generally provides a pretty natural opportunity to make a fresh start, refocus, and set our aim towards a new goal or try to get back on track with the things we say are priorities for us (or at least want them to be)!

I'm not super keen on New Year's resolutions because I don't like to set myself up for disappointment/failure or set goals that aren't realistic for the long term! However, I have been known to take advantage of this season to reflect on what I've learned in the past year or so and set my intentions/purpose in a specific direction!

I enjoy getting a new day planner and /or journal for the year and attempting to organize my thoughts and general timeline of events for the upcoming year! My sister generously gifted these to me this year for Christmas. 😊

We especially have a lot to look forward to as a family this year as we prepare to welcome our third and final baby into the family (sometime this month)!

A friend and former co-worker of mine were chatting New Year's Eve, and I was reminded of how thankful I am to not be reliving the last day of 2020! I assisted in the delivery of a newborn in a very rural Emergency Department last New Year's Eve as I worked night shift as a traveler! That alone is exciting enough, but what I didn't mention yet is that the mother was meth positive, had limited prenatal care, and presented hemorrhaging! Pretty much most ER nurses' worst nightmare!!!

I was extremely thankful that I had just finished 6 months of intensive OB training at another rural facility which made the knowledge I needed to utilize fairly readily accessible!!! I was also grateful that both mom and baby had a good outcome. This was especially a huge relief because we were unable to transfer the mon and baby to an appropriate facility with a higher level of care for 10 hours after delivery because of the snow storm that was preventing a speedy arrangement for adequate medical transport!

However, the mom and baby did both have complications during their time awaiting transport. The mother had a retained placenta that had to be manually extracted and had elevated blood pressure that needed to be closely monitored and treated. She lost more blood than she should have and it took us several hours to get the bleeding controlled and stabilized. All the while, the newborn had difficultly maintaining its blood sugar because the mother declined to breastfeed due to her recent history of drug use, and there was no infant formula to be found in the hospital or tiny community that had no open store after 10pm on New Year's Eve.

I was one of 2 nurses working in the ER that night. I assumed care of mom and baby, along with the EMS crew members located on site. The other nurse, also a traveler who had been working there for less than the 3 weeks I'd been there, took care of all the other ER patients that night. Thankfully, one of the other local and well seasoned nurses came into help as well! That New Year was one I am unlikely to soon forget! And yet, it almost seems like ages ago or a far off distant dream at this point.

This year I was grateful to not be in labor myself. My body is continuing to heal after having unexpected surgery at the beginning of December, so the more time I have to finish healing before the stress of labor the better. We're also preparing to move to a new property sometime in the New Year when our house sells (and the stars align 😂). My husband will hopefully be able to successfully get his business off the ground from our new location. We initially had great ambition to accomplish that over 2 years ago before we knew how much COVID would prevent all the necessary steps to starting a new business from taking place.

I can say that the challenges of the past couple years have yielded a lot of growth, personally and collectively as a family unit. I think it's true that most of us wouldn't willingly sign up for the journey ahead if we knew in advance the pain and sacrifice that might be involved along the way. However, it is clear to me that moments in life that include the most pain and struggle, often lead us to experiencing better outcomes in the future.

So, I'm determined to be much less afraid of the unexpected circumstances that are sure to lie ahead. I have proven to myself that hard things are worth enduring, and I'm now better equipped than I used to be to face the harder things in life! I'm also

unwilling to be robbed of the little joys of the day to day and appreciate the breath I have in my lungs in this moment to focus on the present task at hand and people surrounding me that deserve my attention, free from the distraction/worry of what comes next.

I'd love to hear about any nuggets of wisdom you've gleaned from the past couple years that you intend to apply to your life in 2022!

Happy New Year!!!