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Who Says You Can’t Have Fun at Work

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In just two short days it will be FIVE years since I started in endoscopy. Say what? I vividly remember thinking what in Sam Hill are they going to talk about for a week in RNO (RN Orientation). I’m so happy this was pre Covid and all the classes were in person. Now days you sit at home behind your computer and it’s done via zoom. Anyway the entire week was like a review of everything I had learned over the past thirty years of my nursing career. I found it very interesting and learned a lot. After that week, I started the actual job.

The first year was total hell. For starters I left the floor I had worked on for eighteen years. I knew everyone, I could do the job blindfolded, and I had the most seniority. I found myself in a foreign country not knowing anyone or the language. I came home every night mentally spent because I had to think about what I was doing every second I was there. Then Covid hit and I felt called to go help in ICU and so I did. It was better for my mental health to know I was doing that every day then be sent to other areas of the hospital to help or screen people as they came in. This also greatly improved my self confidence.

As I reflect over the past five years, all of my original co-workers have left except for Chris who is now semi-retired and works on Mondays only. Somehow I now have the most endoscopy experience which is both comical and scary. Because I only work part time, I am not at work enough to fill the role of the highest seniority. Luckily Sarah and Kelly fulfill this role perfectly and I often go to them when I have no idea how to fix something or do some random rarely done procedure. They are both amazing and if they leave to further pursue their careers I will be screwed.

The current group of girls I have worked with for over a year now are so much fun. It’s like working every day with my own daughters. Halloween the past two years have been a lot of fun in endo. I was off last year when they decided to dress up like the doctors as a surprise. They sent me photos and it was amazing.

This next photo cracks me up every time I look at it. No, it is not a real patient on the stretcher. I think it might have been Sarah pretending. But anyway Clare has Dr. Heavey down perfectly and Dr. Heavey has us down perfectly. Although we don’t have ear buds in when working in the room but if it is a boring colon we may be messing around on our phone. Dr. Heavey never wears scrubs so seeing him in our scrubs is a hoot.

This year Dr. Aymerich decided we should dress up as Pirates for Pirate Booty since we deal with butts all day. Everyone was sure that he would get up late and not participate but he did as well as everyone. We had quite a good time. For the first time ever Dr. Aymerich was actually hot and had the endo room set at 65 instead of 75. He needs to wear his costume every day. Here was our set up outside the room. The treasure chest had pirates booty snacks inside it. Now that has always been a hot commodity in the snack bags for Big Stuf camp. It also worked perfectly with our theme.

Because of the day and how our cases fell we all couldn’t be in the same picture at once. Also the weight loss doctor decided to add an out patient case to our schedule on his non block time so we made him participate as well. Of course I snuck and took his picture while he was busy scoping so he looks super serious.

We are still waiting to hear if we won the Halloween costume contest. I mean I know we should have. However even if we didn’t, we are the most fun unit at St. Clare. We certainly had a great day and I am not going to lie when I came to get the patients for their procedures the looks on their faces when they saw me was priceless. When I sent these to our family group chat my husband immediately responded Big Red (that’s me) looks like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.

I took one look at this and absolutely could not stop laughing. My husband can be quite funny.

Mole Moral ~ If you don’t have fun at your job, perhaps it’s time to find a new one. Hopefully these girls will stick around until I retire because it will be the best time ever.

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Follow Your Dreams

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Three summers ago my dad had just passed away, Brian was at golf so I decided to watch Americas Got Talent. The last act of the night was a girl called Nightbirde. While talking to the judges she revealed she had cancer and had a two percent chance to live but two percent was better than zero. She also said, “you can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore until you decide to be happy”. I was blown away and then she sang It’s Ok, an original song. She received the golden buzzer from Simon Cowell. I listened to that song on repeat most of the summer as it helped me cope with the loss of my father. Sadly, she became to ill to compete and past away the following February.

Fast forward to this summer when once again Brian was golfing and I turned on America’s Got Talent. This year was a fifty-five year old janitor named Richard Goodall on stage. He shared that he had been a janitor for twenty-three years and sang in the hallways to pass the time while he was cleaning. The kids at school encouraged him to audition. He was shy and nervous till he opened his mouth and sang Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. I felt like I was transported back in time and was instantly amazed. Heidi Klum gave him a golden buzzer and not only was he crying, I thought he might faint from shock. Of course his girlfriend was not surprised and he revealed it was the first time he was ever on a plane.

Richard is in good health so it has been pure joy for me to follow his journey all the way to the final results later tonight. I don’t think he cares if he wins, he is beyond thrilled to make it to the finals. He is so humble and such a good person. I often wished I had a janitor like him in school. Although I will always remember the lady that took care of the dorm floor. I cannot remember her name but she had red hair. She always talked to us like we were her own children. She was super funny as well.

I have looked forward to tonight all week. Before the results are revealed Richard will be singing with one of the band members from Journey. I’m pretty sure when he stepped foot on that plane, he never envisioned this is where he would be tonight. What an incredible journey for him and his friends and family. If you have never watched this show, you are missing out on a lot of good things and good stories. You can also find his performances as well as Nightbirde’s on YouTube.

Mole Moral ~ Take the risk, follow your dreams, you never know where you will end up or who you will touch along the way.

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What’s in a name?

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As I finish up the week with Camp Kesem at Notre Dame, I feel compelled to share Peter Pants story. Peter Pants is on the admin team. The admin team consists of anywhere from 5-10 college students who are in charge of running camp. They do things like set up for activities, actually make the camp schedule, round everyone up when it’s time to change activities and so on.

The first day someone asked Peter Pants what her name meant. Apparently when she was in grade school she had an accident and was called this. I didn’t ask how long because it broke my heart. Why are human beings so mean to each other?

I’ve thought about this a lot this summer. If everyone would treat each other the way they do at camp, the world would be a much better place. No one here cares what your sexual orientation is, what gender you identify as, if you are a male and let the girls French braid your hair, if you let the little kids put make up on and paint your nails. The outside world is so judgmental and ridiculous.

I’ve written about empowerment in the past. One of my favorite activities is the step in, step out. Step in if you have ever been bullied was so powerful. Every single person including yours truly stepped in. When they said step in if you ever lost a parent, it hit me really hard. I had fifty-four years with my dad, some of the kids that stepped in were under ten. It was even mentioned how hard it is to go to school activities where everyone’s dad is there except for yours because he’s dead. Empowerment is hard when you realize how much these kids are dealing with. Kudos to Camp Kesem for giving kids a week with each other!

Mole Moral ~ One should think long and hard before they say mean things. Words do indeed hurt people and can last a lifetime.

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A week in Wisconsin with Camp Kesem

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Nurse Red finished yet another amazing week with incredible college kids. I guess I’m going to write about this every camp because it is truly mind blowing.

So I had no idea when I signed up that Wisconsin has the biggest chapter in the country. They have three weeks of camp with about 80 campers each week. They also have at least forty counselors. The college has around thirty four thousand undergrads. So a good size pool to pull from as the camp needs that many to run smoothly.

Camp Kesem has strict ratios as well. I think it’s 2 counselors to every seven kids. They also strictly enforce the rule of three. This means no camper is alone with a counselor or no camper is alone with another camper. There must be at least one counselor per group of three. This is strictly enforced at all the camps I have been a nurse for. One camp that I have observed and would never volunteer for is terrible about keeping an eye on the kids and following the rule of three.

Urba and Brick were the camp coordinators. Both did an excellent job. I must say the organization at this camp was top notch. From pre made name tags to pre selected teams for color wars, to all the tie dye t-shirts being in bags and labeled with camper names before we even started the project. And if that wasn’t mind blowing, the shirts that we wore for check in needed to be washed to wear for check out. I went to put my name on the tag and it was already there. I told Urba today with her leadership skills, organization and personality she should be president. She informed me she’s too young and has no interest in politics. I forgot to mention she’s extremely smart as well.

I loved Minnow as she was the other nurse. She did adults for less than a year and then switched to pediatrics. I say bless her as dealing with parents of sick kids is extremely challenging. It just so happened her floor gets all the GI patients. So the kids that couldn’t poop this week were in great hands.

Because this chapter does three weeks many of the kids do all three weeks. This says so much about their hearts as it is an exhausting but rewarding week. They give up doing their paid job. I just can’t put this into words.

The camp advisors can make or break a camp. They are usually graduated but not always. Our advisors this camp were Sprout and Stiles. Ok Sprout still in college but I really thought he was 28 with the way he carried himself. Stiles is 28 and a high school math teacher. I would have loved to have him as a teacher even if his goal is to teach calculus. They were calm and very professional. If they were stressed over anything that happened they hid it well. If I’m lucky, I’ll work with them again in a Kesem of the future.

Mole Moral ~ If we treated each other every day the way we treat each other at camp the world would be a wonderful place. The socially awkward were just as included as the popular kids.

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Empowerment

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I’m not sure if I have ever written about this part of camp Kesem but it’s the most important and emotional part of camp. It usually occurs on the second to last day of camp.

It starts with all of camp designing a paper bag with why they Kesem. Kesem is for kids whose parents have or have had cancer or are no longer on earth. This year Wildflower (who is the camp director, I worked with two years ago when I did a different Arizona camp and then ran into last year at Arkansas camp) handed me one so here is what I came up with.

Yes I still draw like I’m five years old!

After this activity everyone gets in a circle and we do step in and step out. The leader reads a statement such as step in if you’ve ever worried about your parent. Step out. After just a few of these it’s obvious that everyone has felt every one of these things and it screams you are not alone and you are not weird.

Then two circles are formed and inner circle closes their eyes. The narrator then reads statements tap someone who made you laugh, tap someone you made as a new friend etc. The circle reverse so everyone gets tapped many times. After this the sharing circle begins. The kids have a choice if they want to share their story. I would guess it’s usually about fifty percent that will talk.

After sharing is finished a skein of yarn is passed around and each person wraps it around their wrist and passes to the next thereby connecting everyone. Then the string is cut and you are left with a bracelet to remind you that you are not alone.

This is the magic of Kesem. The college kids pour so much time and energy into this camp that it is mind blowing. They are all trained to assist with the big feelings this brings up and do a really good job.

After this hard emotional feelings a fun activity is planned for the evening. Every camp has done a dance party except WI is planning a happy hour. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited and can’t wait to see what it’s all about.

Mole Moral~ If you know any parents with cancer or who have passed and they have children 5-18 set them up with this camp. It’s amazing and the kids love it.

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Big Stuf Homecoming Wrap Up

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I did not write as much this camp because I couldn’t stop talking to my roommate Kristin. The one who is just barely older than Emily. I had a great week with her and hoping she not only comes next year but stays with me. She was a great help with removing splinters, cleaning scrapes and applying bandaids. She said but “I’m not a nurse.” I informed her she’s a mom and can handle 90% of the kids issues.

I missed session five which is almost always the accept Jesus into your heart night. We had thirty kids stand up for the first time to accept Jesus. There was more talk about the prodigal son so by missing it I thought I was safe. Wrong answer! It continued through the last two sessions. I did not take notes for seven because after the fire alarm and evacuating the building for almost an hour, my mind was not there. Plus the speaker was so engaging I decided to give full attention.

Meredith is the first girl speaker I ever remember and she started off a little slow but had the audience fully engaged rather quickly. On a side note last year my church implemented a rule that students hand over phones to leaders before session starts and get them back after small group. No one seemed to even complain about it this year.

House Rules of God

1. We have a good Father who meets us exactly where we are. In the story he meets the younger brother right in the mess he is in and accepts him the way he is. He also met the older brother where he was on the straight and narrow path. Home is the place we come and stay when it is safe to be real. So many people don’t even have a place where they feel safe to be their real self.

2. In God’s house we must address our obsession with self. The average American touches their phone two thousand six hundred and seventy times a day. Mine is probably five thousand. The world is curated to feed self. Just think of social media which this obsession is not working. America has dropped out of the top twenty for happy people. It’s almost impossible to be happy or content with what is fed to us on social media. Everyone looks perfect, only posts perfection and happy stories and seem to have everything they want. It’s all false and destructive. God loves us how he made us, not how we compare to everyone else.

3. We need to see one another as brother and sister and label each other this way. Labels matter and I’m going to be real it can be quite fun to label those that are not like me. It makes me feel better about myself but what does it do for the one who is labeled. I should know better as I was teased horribly in middle school. Brother and sister not dork and dork junior. God gives us all a label and it’s quite simple. Child of God.

4. We see ourself as son or daughter. That’s our label.

This was by far the best camp since my very first. Maybe because they had a song that matched the theme. I recommend listening to Homecoming by Bethel music. It is a great song and the entire theme of camp went along with this. My first camp was Broadcast and it also had a song. I just felt this year was intentional from start to finish and once again the best week of the year.

Mole Moral 30 kids accepted Christ plus 27 were baptized in the ocean equals an amazing week.

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The Prodigal Son

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This mornings session talked about the story of the prodigal son. The kid who asked for his inheritance early then left home squandered it away and ended up cleaning pig pens. Upon his return home to ask his dad for a job he was welcomed with open arms and a big party thrown for him. The older son who stayed and worked the farm and did not spend his money was mad and refused to join the welcome home party. Basically no matter what we do or how far we wander God welcomes us back with open arms.

This story always sends me back to a certain Christmas Eve. If I had to guess the year I’d say it was 2015. This would be the last year my mom and dad celebrated Christmas Eve together as they had done every year since I could remember. Looking back on it my dad purposefully picked a fight with my mom and threw this story in her face. It got so bad my mom left and I retreated into myself. After this my dad would come in the afternoon and my mom in the evening up until 2019, the last time I saw my dad alive.

So I veered off course, no surprise there. The question was raised which son are you. The speaker admitted he was the wild one and high school left him with regrets. I am the one that stays behind that does it all right and then gets annoyed that the rule breakers are in the same spot as me. However if I’m really honest my life has been a lot easier than the crazy folks. My favorite line from this morning, sin comes prepackaged with consequences you often don’t see coming and sometimes it’s years later. As for me way too afraid of those consequences so pretty much stayed the straight arrow course. If you don’t believe me, ask my husband. He’s called me square and lamo all our life. He will never admit this to me but it’s the way he really wants it.

I’m hanging with a kid tonight and missing session. She feels bad and I said nah I know what tonight is about so no need to feel bad. This is what I’m here for and it keeps me needed.

Mole Moral ~ The straight and narrow path may be a tad boring but it sure is a thousand times easier than the crooked wide path.

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Big Stuf

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I just finished session three and haven’t written a thing until now. This years theme is Homecoming. The first night was name three words that come to your mind when you think about your home. Mine were safe, comfy and crazy in that order. Interesting choice but could also add loud and noisy although now that the birds are out of the nest it’s not as loud. But I also thought of the kids in the room whose adjectives would be more like lonely, stiff, harsh, stressful, unfeeling and then I stopped myself because life is so freaking hard for kids these days.

Ever since my first camp in 2008 when the theme was Broadcast, I have said I wish every teenager could attend this camp just once in their life. Tonight I was reminded of why I feel this way and felt all over again what makes me say this. I went to camp originally because Kayla was so shy and barely talked. The song How He Loves was new and was written for a best friend that was killed in a car accident

Between Big Stuf and that song I was hit by a ton of bricks and smacked upside the head by God. Prior to this week, I had never FELT love. I knew people loved me but I never felt it. I remember getting home from camp and telling Brian this and him telling me that was the stupidest thing he ever heard and I was wrong people loved me. I remember thinking in my head actually you are the one who is stupid. You don’t even know what feelings are much less how to express them.

So tonight when the band sang it, they sang the original version “and Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart beats violently inside my chest when I think about the way he loves us.” When David Crowder recorded it he changed it to “when Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss.” I always preferred the sloppy wet version. The song is about how messy life really gets and yet God is there unchanged. It actually fits in perfect with the theme this week.

Mole moral~ I’ll say it loud for the people in the back, I wish everyone could attend this camp just one time in their life.

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The God Factor

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This was the title of this past Sundays sermon. I actually applied it to myself. Tom was saying in most situations we “run the numbers” to see if something would work and often leave God out of it.

Next month it will be FIVE years since I left Mercy hospital. I took the summer off to spend with my girls as all three would be home that summer most likely for the last time. I was trying to figure out my next job when I ran across the posting on Indeed looking for a volunteer nurse for Camp Kesem Washington University. I applied and got the job. It was a great week and when I was told Maine was looking for a nurse I jumped on board. Maine was also an incredible week and I got all emotional thinking about not being able to come next year because I would be the new person, least seniority, not enough time off and on and on at the new job. I never once gave God a second thought about this.

In true God fashion he said “here Rachel hold my beer” and bam covid hit. All camps were cancelled that summer so I didn’t miss any Kesem or Big Stuf. The next summer Big Stuf was on and I got the time off. The following summer Kesem was back in session but another coworker was going to Ireland the same week as Maine so I did a camp in Arizona instead. This past summer I did Arkansas, Wash U and Maine. While at Arkansas the girl that would be in charge of 2024 camp for Oklahoma was helping out. She said to me, you must do Oklahoma next year. Then when I went to Maine, the camp advisor was one of the counselors from Arizona the year before. He also told me I must do his camp in 2024. His camp is also in Arizona but a different university. I remember saying I’m going to need a different job. They said to me let us pay you and not volunteer. I said money is not the issue, it’s the time off. I thought to myself there is no way I can have five weeks off next summer.

In January God said once again “umm Rachel, hold my beer.” I have worked in the only unit that is borderline over staffed. We have had a part time RN position on hold for six months. Three days after my surgery I found out they were going to fill it. I wanted to bang my head on the wall and say why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me. And then I realized I could do all five camps this summer. So I announced my plans to everyone. Some of the camps don’t run all week so I can do camp and still work thereby hoarding my vacation time. As Brian always says, all I do is go on vacation.

This Monday the new girl has decided we have too much staff and is looking to drop to prn. I immediately panic and think I’m not going to be able to do camp. I’m texting people about it. So at the end of the day she is telling me her thoughts and plans and I swear God is yelling “did you even listen on Sunday. How many times do I have to tell you that I have this covered?” I guess he will have to beat me over the head for me to get this straight.

Mole Moral ~ God has my back on camp and this summer is going to be amazing.

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A Quilt for my Sister

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It’s been two and a half years since my father passed. His wife gave me and my sister all his shirts and flannels. She specifically asked me not to make her a quilt out of his shirts as it would be too painful to look at. She asked me to do something with his ties so I made this pillow.

He had some ugly ties, but that’s ok he’s dead and it won’t hurt his feelings.

I decided I wanted my quilt made out of the flannels and Karen wanted the shirts. So after I cut all the flannels up my sister says to me, you saved one for Sierra right? Remember she wanted one. And in slow motion like Christmas Story the F word went off slowly in my head. So I had to go to plan B. I decided I would make her one as well and do hers first. I finished hers for her graduation from college. If you look at the solid squares you will notice it forms a C for Carty. It resembles well the way my dad makes a C. The middle square has a pocket and in it is one of my dads monogrammed handkerchiefs.

It was probably six months before I finished mine. My goal was to embroider all the Carty’s names and dates since when my father died, the Carty line ended. His dad had five sisters and no brothers. My dads oldest brother adopted a son but he passed at forty-five and did not have any children. His middle brother did not have kids. I still have not done this but here’s my quilt. It is slightly bigger than Sierra’s I have a pocket dead center but have not put a handkerchief in it yet.

After this I put the top to my sisters quilt together. I started hand quilting when my new dog decided to chew the thread. Trying to unwind it was a nightmare and it came off in little pieces. I went to replace it and they didn’t have that color anymore. So it sat in my room forever. About four weeks before Christmas I decided I was finishing it. Back in October I had done a quilt for my uncle and in one of the squares I thought it would be cool to put Love , Eddie in Eddie’s handwriting. I got to thinking if the tattoo artist could get my dads signature on my arm, perhaps there was a way with material. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I found a blog about Sulky stabilizer. Basically you can print from computer onto it. Then you peel it off and it sticks to material. Embroider over the lines and then when the quilt is washed the stabilizer disappears leaving only the thread behind. Originally I had planned for my sister to use washable fabric marker to make this little guy she always drew on her cards to my dad.

However now that I could print from my computer and my dads wife gave me every piece of paper from his work, I had a gold mine of information and creativity. So here is the quilt and then I will give an explanation of each square. This information is for my kids but feel free to continue reading if you are interested.

When my dad was in Shriners having surgery on his legs, he spent a lot of time reading as there was nothing else to do. He was an avid reader for the rest of his life. When I asked for the book Flowers In The Attic, he bought it for me but read it first. He said to me “I’m not sure I should let you read this, it may warp you for life.” I still have the book and now you all know why I’m like the way I am.

My dad became very weird about his birthday. When he turned fifty, my sister snuck over to his house and decorated his yard. When he woke up that morning, he called me and went off on me. So when I called her to tell her he yelled at me, she cancelled our birthday dinner.

We would go out, just the three of us for our birthdays. Eventually it became a nightmare to schedule so we just went for his. We were at Pasta House in Arnold one year when the waiter asked who was ordering first. The following square is what flew out of my sisters mouth. Thank God the waiter kept it on the down low and quietly brought a small piece of cake.

My dad rode a bike all of his life. I remember him riding 50 miles on the Katy trail more than once. My dad wasn’t your normal biker. He never ever wore shorts and always rode in jeans. He did not have a fancy seat either. He gave me his bike a few years back when his knee could no longer take pedaling. My sister got a bike tattoo after he passed. Ho-hum was something he said a lot when we talked on Saturdays. I can still hear him say it.

His applications for top security clearance included every address he had lived at. So I managed to scan them and then line them up so that I could put them on this quilt. They are also in his handwriting.

My dads first birthday after he passed Karen and I planned to go to Salem. We also wanted to find the farm where he grew up. Back in those days his address was John Carty Doss MO. That was not real helpful. I had only been to the farm twice. The first time around the age of ten when the farmhouse burned to the ground. It was believed to be intentionally set by the owners for the insurance. The second time was in 2015 when my dad took Emily and I to Salem and to the farm. I reached out to a person on ancestry but they never responded. However I found a newspaper clipping about it being sold thirty-five years ago and it’s location. It was in the Carty family for almost one hundred years.

One time on the way home from seeing the grandparents I had the hiccups pretty bad. When my dad said this to me, I fully believed him. It scared me and I didn’t hiccup again the rest of the trip.

The quilt wouldn’t be complete without my dads handwriting and his favorite car. He was obsessed with corvettes all his life. One of his work buddies still has his corvette he owned in the 2000’s.

I was at Arnold park about a week before I started all this embroidery when a guy was smoking a pipe. My dad smoked one for a while when I was in grade school. As for the saying below it, it’s a classic. My sister was having a crises in December and when she called my dad to tell him, he said these words and hung up on her. So now anything we don’t want to deal with we quote our dad.

The next two squares are his brothers and their wives and wedding dates. As well as his parents signature and wedding date. It was awesome to find them in all of the stuff I have. And also my dads phone number when he lived on Cavendish Ln. This was before the area code had to be dialed.

And the very last square. The words are from a card my dad gave to my sister. The car is his first roadster that he had custom built back in the day. My sister loved that car and it was TOD to her if he died. He ended up selling it and getting a new one for a total of four old looking cars. This car was also the picture on his funeral card and what we glued onto his parents tombstone in Salem.

Although this is my sisters quilt I must point out something. My dad was a huge KSHE 95 fan and looking at the shirt I realized his first daughter was born in 1967 (me) and his first granddaughter (Emily) in 1992. That must be why he kept the shirt all these years. Hahaha.

Mole Moral ~ Good things came to those who wait, and this gift is worth more than any amount of money!