Grad School Update #2: Internship Week 1

At this rate this will be my second and last grad school update because I'll graduate in April!

Oops!

I started my first internship this week!

I'm working at Intermountain Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center in Murray, Utah. I'm on the NeuroRehab Floor, and I absolutely love it. 

I leave every day excited to go back the next morning and I don't think it can get much better than that!

I'm so impressed by IMC and my supervisor.

I joked to my roommate today that I want to be my supervisor when I grow up, and I wasn't entirely kidding! :) 

I wanted to write down some of the crazy things I've seen and experienced this week so I can look back years from now and remember how new and exciting all of this once was. 

Hopefully it can reignite a fire and passion for my work on a day that I need a little boost. 

On my first day some of the things I saw and worked with were respiratory failure, a fairly severe intracranial hemorrhage, a below the knee amputation, a patient with gunshot wounds, and I felt a fistula in someone's arm and could feel blood freely pumping and flowing from the artery to vein. 

It was incredibly amazing and incredibly overwhelming!

On my second day I started working with the patients I mentioned, and I started to feel some sense that I could and would get the hang of this whole thing at some point, so naturally, the next day put me back in my place ;) 

On the third day I realized just how much I still have to learn, and how much of that comes with pure experience. 

A patient on our floor coded while working with Occupational Therapy, so I watched as the entire floor went into Code Blue mode. One of the nurses (an older gentleman who is close to retirement, and about whom multiple people said they feel safest when he is on the floor!) jumped on his gurney and began performing CPR. That was the first time I've seen CPR performed on a live person.

I was amazed at how everyone handled the situation - it was chaotic, but the most calm and organized chaos I've ever experienced!

The patient was stabilized after about half an hour and they were able to get him down to ICU again. 

Lastly, today we had a patient with a traumatic brain injury from an unhelmeted motorcycle accident.

That was the first thing that got to me this week. 

I've never liked motorcycles, and after seeing this patient today I stand by that opinion. 

I've said it before and I'll say it time and time again - if you choose to drive a motorcycle, don't EVER do so without a helmet.

This week I've seen a variety of patients with a variety of personalities and quirks, which always keeps things interesting...

Overall, I could not be happier with my internship!

It's been quite the week and for the first time in my life a part of me is sad to have a four day weekend ahead of me! :) 

One week down, nine weeks to go! 

Human Beings are Destined to Radiate or Drain

(I wrote this back in June but couldn't decide if I wanted to post it. I just read it again and ultimately decided that I want it here as a reminder to myself from time to time!)

Well, it's definitely been a quick minute since I was here last... oops! :) 

Over the last few months I feel like someone upstairs has been trying to teach me a very obvious and pointed lesson. 

It's come from so many aspects of my life that there's no chance it's all been coincidental!

Someone recently came into my life who can only be described as an energy vampire (apparently that's a legitimate term - I just discovered it via the all-knowing Google). 

Every interaction with this person seemed to drain all of the energy from the room and I would leave these interactions feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. 

This got me thinking about the energy we all bring to relationships and interactions, and how easily they can impact others. I began to realize the importance of taking responsibility for our energy.

As I was going through this experience and thinking about it, there seemed to be things reinforcing this concept coming at me from all directions, so I thought I would share a few.

First of all, a few months ago I heard someone somewhere mention the power in changing apologetic statements, or, "I'm sorry's," into "thank you's."

For example, instead of apologizing for arriving late, you can instead thank your coworker, friend, or family member for waiting for you.
This is such a simple, yet important and powerful shift from an inherently negative statement to one that is uplifting and full of gratitude. I can only imagine how that type of simple gratitude can impact our lives in even bigger ways!

Second, in a talk I heard recently about happiness I was reminded of three important points:

1. Happiness is not dependent on other people

2. Happiness is not an eternal state

3. Happiness is a choice

In other words, we do not need to be happy 24/7 in order to be a happy person. That isn't sustainable. But finding happiness where you are, despite situations and circumstances, is. 

Third, I follow one of the sweetest, most genuine women on Instagram - Jenna Rammell, AKA, Jenna's Kitchen. Each day in June she's been sharing an affirmation as part of her 30 Days of Affirmations. Here are a couple that stood out to me:

Last but not least, and you have my permission to chuckle a little at this... I was listening to Ed Sheeran today and his song, "Save Myself," came on. I've only listened to it a couple of times previously, but one part stood out to me today:

"I gave you all my energy and I took away your pain,

Cause human beings are destined to radiate or drain.

What line do we stand upon cause from here it looks the same?"

I think this brings up a very important point - that it can be so difficult to determine if we are radiating and spreading positive energy to others, or if we are draining others.

Over the course of the last couple of months as I've thought about this, I reflected back on the last year or so of my life and took a hard look at whether or not I had been radiating or draining.

Unfortunately, I think I was draining more often than not, and it's easy to make excuses for it, too!

I was so overwhelmingly busy with classes, clients, my thesis, maintaining a social life, finding time to exercise and sleep, and on and on. January to April was easily the hardest semester of school that I've ever faced, and it was easy to let that translate to becoming an energy vampire.

Luckily, one of the greatest conditions of our existence is that we get to change.

So I've tried to actively work on changing my energy from that of a drainer to a radiator.

.....annnnd this just got too cheesy, even for me. 🙄😂

Moral of the story, we have the choice (within reason) and the responsibility to take control of our energy and choose to be positive and radiate, rather than drain.

It's impossible to be perfect at it - no one is - but the best we can do is try.