GRRRRR

Posted on October 5, 2017 by hafong

At this very moment I’m not handling stress very well. But I am here. I’ll try to tap it away. I probably shouldn’t have had my tea. It’s not coffee but it’s still caffeine. When I’m like this, it is difficult to sit and be still. I’ve gotten up and played with my new toy, the Dyson V8 Absolute Stick Vacuum. At least my floor is clean. No dog hair everywhere.

I hate this feeling of aggitation. I’m doing the best I can, trying not to jump out of my skin. I’m staying in the chair, feeling the sensation. I’m focusing on the keyboard, tapping out each letter. Sheba has finally settled down on her cushion. She was also aggitated, twirling around me wherever I went. She was probably feeding off my energy and wanting to go for her walk.

We could probably both use a walk but if we leave, SHE would probably call. That’s the thing. I might as well sit and wait till the guy gets home in half an hour or so. The SHE is the insurance adjuster. I’ve been dealing with my parents’ insurance since end of June, July. You have to make so many phone calls, just to make sure they got the phone call. If they don’t return calls, how do you know anything? Then they say they will email you. But you have to email them after 2 months before you get anything. They want you to have a pleasant experience with them. They give you the steps. Then you get automated emails saying they are not in the office and they will answer emails in the order they came – again and again. GRRRR?

I think I’ve tapped out most of my aggravation. I’m feeling my bodily sensations. I have an ache behind my eyes. My jaw is not clenched nor my shoulders bunched up. I’m sitting erect. My feet are crossed though. I’ve found assistance through the insurance broker. He phoned her. She was not taking calls. He did assure me I have 2 years to work on this thing. And they’re there if I need more help. Whew! Maybe that’s why I’m not clenching anything. What I need is time to settle down and chill.

How do you handle stress? And how do you chill?

MOTHERS, GIRLFRIENDS, THERAPISTS

Posted on January 15, 2015 by hafong

There’s reasons why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions any more. I’ve felt the allure of new beginnings and a new year. It’s easy to be pumped with the spirits of the Christmas and end of year celebrations. I feel I could conquer the world but experience has taught me a thing or two.

It’s easy to make resolutions, those promises to do better in the glow of the holiday season. But come the cold dark days of January, your resolve melts, exhaustion and sometimes depression take over. You have to rally all your resources just to get out of bed on some days. What I don’t need is the pressure of those New Year’s Resolutions looming over me.

What I do is I still get up, dress up and show up for my life. I try to do the best I can. On cloudy days when I am filled with anxiety, I do slow laps in the warm water of the pool. I concentrate on my breathing, blowing bubbles out my nose and mouth as slow as I can. I keep my body in alignment. I don’t try for 2 more laps when my legs are heavy like lead and I am sinking. It’s okay to sit in the whirlpool and let the jets smash away my tight spots.

On days like these, it’s helpful to have a therapist smash your tight spots that the whirlpool jets can’t get at. Good friends are equally if not more beneficial. They can reach those tight spots unreachable by jets or therapists. There’s nothing like girlfriends except maybe your mother’s chicken soup to make you feel valued and loved. Treasure your mother and girlfriends. They will always be there for you if they can and even when they can’t.

LIFE IN SMALL TRICKLES AND WHIMPERS

Posted on October 11, 2014 by hafong

I’m showing up this morning, dressed but I’ve dispensed with brushing the hair and teeth. I’m straight into the Chai. I’m a little sleep deprived.

The trouble with our flight booking and prepping Sheba for boarding got to me last night. Mostly it was Sheba’s whimpering and whelping. We’re getting her re-acquainted with the crate as the boarder keeps the dogs in their crates at night and when she’s not at home. Sheba had been crate trained as a puppy and spent time in one when I was at work.

I didn’t think there would be trouble re-introducing it. But she is terribly spoiled. She had slowly inched her way out of the crate and into cornered off spaces. Now she has the run of the house and sleeps in our room and wherever she pleases. She has been re-acquainted with the crate and will go into it for her meals and at night. But during the night she starts whimpering, escalating into little yelps. She knows how to get to me. I’ve been letting her out after a couple of hours the last 2 nights.

I’m hoping she is just testing us and will behave better at the boarding place. I’m trusting that everything will work out. I’ve done the best I could getting things ready. Now I have to trust and let go.

I’m doing well, despite feeling like hell. It’s the sleep or no sleep the last couple of nights. And to think I’ve lived like this for over 30 years as a nurse. I slept 4-5 hours a working- day/night for all those years. I see clearly now the why(s) of my problems.

You will have to excuse the grammatical errors and the disjointedness of my thoughts. I am not operating on full cylinders. I have trouble with tenses at the best of times. I am happy that I can still tap out some words and thoughts this morning. It is not easy but it is also not difficult. I put my fingers on the keyboard and look at that one-inch picture frame in my mind. The words come out in little stuttering trickles at first. As my mind clears, the sentences come. I have not experienced a flood or deluge yet.

That’s all I ask for this morning – a trickle, a beginning, a foot into that space of serenity beneath Buddha’s Bodhi tree. And I’m here, in that space. I have a beginning into the day.

SMILE THE WHILE – my postcard from the edge

Posted on October 7, 2014 by hafong

I am ready, sitting here with my morning Chai. I’m still wearing my bed head. It brought me luck yesterday. We, the Chinese, are very superstitious. The Mad Hatter in me has helped me to rant and chatter – to let loose.

Today, I am going to be brave. I am going into that one-inch picture frame that Anne Lamott speaks of. I am going to look at my life when I was a nurse.

Yesterday I came upon a blog about the death of Sophie Yin, a 48 year old veterinarian who died of a suicide. Was the death a result of compassion fatigue? That is the question. More importantly, what is compassion fatigue? Here’s what wikipedia says:

Compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatic stress (STS), is a condition characterized by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among individuals that work directly with trauma victims such as nurses, psychologists, and first responders. It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s. Sufferers can exhibit several symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, sleeplessness or nightmares, and a pervasive negative attitude. This can have detrimental effects on individuals, both professionally and personally, including a decrease in productivity, the inability to focus, and the development of new feelings of incompetency and self-doubt.^[1

I have already recognized and acknowledged that I ~~might~~ am a sufferer. I am sure that I am not the only one among our staff. As I look at the long list of symptoms in individuals and organizations on the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, I’m nodding my head and going uh huh, uh huh.

It was a bit of a surprise to me that I didn’t ‘fall apart’ till after I had retired. I had no time while I was still working. The show had to go on. The tread mill ground on ever so steadily. I HAD to perform, however broken I was. There was always tape to bind me up. See! Smile the while….

I was prepared for this business of ‘retirement’, or so I thought. I knew there would be an adjustment period. But after a few weeks, a month, I would be basking in the land of the happily ‘retired’.

How naive I was! The ‘breakdowns’ that I never had time for found time and me. Anxiety claimed me. Life became HARD. And I didn’t know how to explain it – to anyone, including myself. There was always that STRESS theory. Who wouldn’t be stressed after being immersed in saving lives and slinging bedpans for over 30 years? 30 years of STAT, Code Blues, ringing call lights, patient abuse, doctor abuse, managerial abuse, 12 hour shifts, night shifts, day shifts…..Or so it seemed.

Am I ranting? So sorry!

I had not understood stress at all. I had been asleep behind the wheel all those years. My post retirement meltdown was probably the best thing that happened to me. I finally understood. It stopped me cold. I had no more emergencies nor Code Blues to run to. No one to rescue but myself. I had to get out of the fire.

The stress had been built up over the years of caring. I had lost sight of myself, always looking outward at others’ needs. I felt others’ pain but numbed my own, as if I was not worthy of my own concern. It was not good. I prided myself on how much I can handle, how little sleep I needed. How foolish I was!

~~~

I’m losing my concentration. My right brain is clamouring at me. I feel my dendrites rising on end. Perhaps it’s best I close off. Tomorrow is another day. With a fresh left brain I might be able to talk about my year of recovery. Till then – smile the while, but care for yourself.

LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE

Posted on May 30, 2014 by hafong

I was so envious of Sheba this morning. There she was, asleep on the rug, not a care in the world, not a tense bone in her body – at perfect ease.

That’s the state I am seldom in. But I am improving. I’m reading Lissa Rankin’s book, Mind Over Medicine and becoming more aware of how I am living and my un-ease. It’s not all about doing the proper things like diet, exercise and genetics. There’s much more.

There’s our attitudes, moods and a thing call happiness that affects our health and our ability to heal ourselves. I did not know that I was living in a constant state of distress until I left the world of nursing – code Blues, stats, call bells and bedpan alley.

Now I know and it is the next morning.

I listened and heeded my body and went to bed instead of finishing this post last night. I needed sleep and knew if I stayed up, sleep might escape me. And I have slept well in the night and up early this morning. I drank my lemon water and did my qigong routines, guiding my body and mind into ease for the coming day.

The birds are singing, the sun is shining. Sheba is resting after our romp in the park. I will leave her sleeping self be. I could learn to relax myself watching her.

I sipped my tea, thinking of how I will weave my story for the Friday Fictioneers post. Life is good. I can relax. It is okay.

COMING TO OUR SENSES

Posted on June 19, 2013 by hafong

It is another overcast day. The greyness wraps itself around my shoulders. It seeps through my pores, clouding me, slowing me. I do not let it drag me down. I hear the traffic whooshing down Preston Avenue. Life is busy as usual and I must move with it, however I can, as best as I can.

It’s a good time to get into the moment, this moment, the present moment. I have been listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medicine, an expert on stress and mindfulness. Something he said in his book, Coming to Our Senses, twigged something within me. We have the five senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. But how aware are we of them?

I often turn a blind eye to many things, a deaf ear to the sounds around me. I try not to feel, afraid of the unknown. I eat to fill my stomach, not savoring or discerning the different tastes of food. My nose wakes up only to the pungent odours. I am ‘out to lunch’ too much.

On this day, I am coming back to my senses. I am trying to come back home to me. I am staying here to feel the grey. It does not hurt me. I see the sun trying to come through the layers of grey. All is well with the universe. I stay here in this moment, to feel the wind on my cheek, to smell the fragrance of the rose, to hear the birds sing and to taste the raindrops on my tongue.

NURSE, CARE FOR YOURSELF

Posted on January 15, 2013 by hafong

Sometimes things happen in a blink of an unthinking eye. You wonder what led to this? And you ponder and ponder until your head and heart hurt. You still don’t under- stand. You obsess about it, making yourself feel worse and worse and still you beat yourself about it. At least it is what I do. I am humble enough now that I know I am not that much different than anybody else. I am not better or worse. I am just human, with emotions.

And so I cried a little at work yesterday. I cried, not the big boo hoo hoo type with the sobs and crocodile tears, but just the tiny ones at the corners of your eyes, the break in my voice and runny nose. It was very weird. My nose never runs except when I’m eating soup and when I cry.

There really is not one thing that led to the moment of tears and frustration, but many little and not so little things over time. I recognize it for the frustration and helplessness that I feel. In that instant I see how I am harming myself with how I speak and do in the face of helplessness and powerlessness. I feel anger inside and I say I do not care. I take those habits home with me. I behave and say the same thing to my partner in difficult situations. Is that good for me?

Of course not! I say good for me because I can only control what I do. I ask not what work or anyone else can do for me. I only ask of myself what can I do to make it better for me and for my work. And so I remind myself of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements again.

agreement 1

Be impeccable with your word – Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

agreement 2

Don’t take anything personally – Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

agreement 3

Don’t make assumptions – Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

agreement 4

Always do your best – Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

I remind myself of the teachings of Caroline Myss, HeatherAsh Amara, Tara Brach…..I remember The Power of Habit. It is a tough road we human beings are on. I want to feel empowered, enlightened. I am empowered and awake. I am not a victim.

I spent a restless, sleepless night though I prepared myself with a warm relaxing bath, took some medications to help me sleep. I got up and made a cup of ginger tea but the only one that slept the night in our house was Sheba. By about 3 am, I made the decision that I was not fit for work. My shoulders ached from hugging myself, my throat sore. Please don’t let it be Strep throat! In my condition, I would not be an asset at work. If I can’t be a solution, then I will not be a problem. Since I am professionally licensed to assess others’ physical condition, I should use my skill to care for myself.

There’s five months before my big day, the big RETIREMENT. I am hoping that I will leave nursing in a grand style, for it is a grand profession. It is helping ourselves to become better human beings by service to others. And we are richly rewarded spiritually and financially. I would be very grateful for any help towards a graceful exit. I am not a crazy Asian woman. I do not need to act nor talk like one, for it is not who I am.

I will stop obsessing and crying now. I am released from my negativity. There is much out there in the world. I will become an explorer of it. Everything is interesting. I just need to look closer. It is good to alter my course. I am retiring from nursing, not life. My partner is leaving for Ghana next week for six weeks. I will not go with him this time. Sheba and I will tend the hearth at home. We will miss him and ESCAPE3POINTS but space and time apart is not a bad thing and maybe I will learn to appreciate them both better. Here’s his video of ESCAPE3POINTS:

SO I AM EATING AGAIN

Posted on October 13, 2012 by hafong

I am eating again, consuming, filling a void, filling in time, keeping awake. It is marvelous how good it feels. The night is endless.

I’ve often wondered how healthy our profession is for us….nurses, the caretakers of bodies and souls. How conscious are we? We care for our patients, but do we care for ourselves? Do we eat properly, get enough sleep and exercise? Are we kind to each other and our love ones? Do we have a life and friends outside of work?

Sometimes I am afraid to think about these things and answer truthfully. I just live with this uneasiness that things are not quite right and somehow the world has left me behind. Sometimes I am lonely for those days before I entered the world of hospital corridors, bedpan alleys, and twelve hour shifts. It is disturbing that I feel relief and a sense of homecoming when I enter the underground parkade of RUH. It is scary. I am like a rat in a maze!

So these are my ramblings this morning after a twelve hour night shift. I probably sound crazed and senseless. It is good that I am in my sun room. I am surrounded by windows. I can look out and see the wintry sun peeking through the evergreen trees. Are those snow flurries, or is it just my tired eyes? I’m feeling a bit hungry so I’m going to eat….again.

SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE SIGNS

Posted on August 15, 2012 by hafong

Do you realize that no matter where we are, we are surrounded by signs….man-made or in nature. Quite often, we are oblivious to them, walking right by, paying no attention. That’s how we are, always in a hurry to the next event, even though we have a million and one ways of saying we should stop and smell the coffee.

We rush on by not wanting to be left behind, not wanting to miss something important. But we miss the sign to paradise.

And it is so for myself, too. I am also guilty of being blind to the many signs around me. It is difficult sometimes to finally see and admit that a change is necessary. And so we delay and delay and justify and justify….afraid to let go.

I am seeing so clearly now. There are so many signs to show me the way…. that work is not fulfilling me, that it is not healthy for me to continue at the present mode. I see that in the patients that we have been getting in the last few weeks. They are truck drivers even younger than myself. They all present the similar symptoms – overweight, diabetic, poor circulatory systems…in short – heart attacks on wheels. And there are good reasons for their conditions…long hours behind the wheel, eating to keep awake, eating at truck stops, etc., etc. They have to make a living.

All those things are applicable to my profession, too. I am often too tired from 12 hour shifts, from night shifts. I am often too stressed to do even necessary things or things for enjoyment. At other times, I’m so used to be stressed and tired, I’m uncomfortable being rested and not stressed. Try to understand that! And lately, I’m coming home angry. Sometimes I need a big fat example of what I could become to get the message. There’s a life outside hospital corridors. There’s a whole wide world out there. There’s other ways of serving. Thirty plus years are enough.

LIFE WITHOUT STRESS

Posted on August 2, 2012 by hafong

I have now come to the conclusion that life without stress is like asking for jello without gelatin. It is not possible! It is now day one post three 12-hour shifts of work on your not so typical hospital ward. I am not complaining that the work is not satisfying. I am just saying that it is very challenging to be in a caring profession where you are immersed in peoples. You are in a cesspool of human interactions as well as being up to your elbows in human feces sometimes. It is very well to start the day with good intentions and noble goals, but soon those fall with the patients or your first confrontations with your coworkers. I’ve been told that I have high standards and though I try not to hold others to them, I do. But…here I am, intact after three days of headache and gut burning angst.

I felt quite badly about myself during those three days. I’m thinking I am such a terrible person to have all these negative feelings burning and churning inside. But then this 92 year old patient told me that I’m very pleasant and so happy. She enjoyed me very much. She told me that every day of those three days. I did thank her but I will have to learn not to discount myself by telling her that it was a facade.

Then her nephew came to visit her. He recognized me as soon as I walked into the room. He greeted me exuberantly. I was very puzzled as I did not recognize him at all. I told him he must have me mixed up with someone else. No, he knew me. He held up his finger and ask me how many do I see. He was quite enjoying himself. It didn’t work. I still did not know him. So he pointed straight ahead and ask me which is better, this or that. Well, that failed too and I was starting to feel that one of us must be crazy!

He told me his name. I said: No! You don’t look like you. You don’t sound like you! We had such a good laugh and a good visit. It was as if God knew that I needed something to lighten my day and sent him. The nephew was my first ever optometrist when I came to live in the city. I was his patient from age 19 to 42! And I left him because he could not fit me with contact lens anymore. I had to show my appreciation by telling him that he always had good bedside manners. That produced some good laughs from his relatives. Well, he did! He was very patient. When he moved to a new office, I had a hard time finding it. He gave me directions and told me he would wait outside so I could see where he was. Well, I took too long and he had to go inside, but I did eventually find his new office.

I did not remind him of my last appointments when nothing went right! I became frustrated and found tears trickling down my face after many fittings for my contact lenses. I have a high prescription and Asian eyes so my lids are tight making it difficult. He was very kind, saying that we cannot continue our session with tears. He would cancel his other appointments the next day and give me the whole afternoon. How many optometrists would do that?

I did have to part company eventually but I could obviously see that I had left a good impression with him. And I’m thinking that I am not a bad person…..not as bad as I have been thinking and feeling about myself anyways. I am all talked out now. The burning in my stomach is gone. I am rested and at ease. Sometimes you need a little stress so you can appreciate the jello. Raindrops are falling gently on the roof of this special private space. Life is good.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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