My Saving Grace

I am currently enjoying a long weekend thanks to SLCC's Fall Break. I didn't go in to work today, and I don't have school tomorrow morning. This is very welcome, as next week will be my last at the University of Utah Hospital and I will immediately jump into my next facility the following week.

For some background knowledge, my instructor has clinical spots lined up from Ogden to American Fork. For those of you who don't live in Utah, Ogden is about 1.5 hours north of Salt Lake City, while American Fork is about 30-45 minutes (depending on traffic) south of Salt Lake City. So the range of possible facilities for him to send me and others to is pretty diverse; it includes both hospitals and outpatient surgical centers. And, according to him, he always sends his best student to Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC). This hospital is nationally ranked and treats only pediatric patients. He only has one clinical spot there for the next rotation.

Well, this past Wednesday he called me (on my cell phone - how cool is that!?) and asked me if I would feel comfortable at PCMC; he does this only for this facility because he knows that not everyone is comfortable working with children. I told him that I am all for it; it is an Intermountain Healthcare (IHC) facility after all. (I need to get hired with IHC to be able to transfer up to Logan Regional Hospital while I am going to school at Utah State University.) Also, I don't mind working with children at all. While I am not sure yet, because I have never worked with them, I suspect that I may actually prefer to work with children. I get this from my mom; she is a Registered Nurse and has worked with children all her life. In fact, she did a clinical rotation at PCMC while she was in nursing school and was hired there after she graduated.

I regret not sounding excited enough about this opportunity on the phone with my instructor; I tend to communicate more mechanically than emotionally.That's just part of my personality and, while I certainly try to balance things out, it will probably always be that way.

However, I feel so grateful for this opportunity. The fact that he and his assistant instructor (who is freakin' awesome as well) feel like they can trust me enough to send me there is an amazing feeling!

To have my instructors' faith and backing gives me a much-needed confidence booster. I, like everyone, second-guess my skills and abilities at times. And because of the nature of the University Hospital, I haven't gotten alot of feedback on my progress. The reason my instructor sent me there was because it is a clinical site where students are expected to police themselves and act independently. For example, most facilities assign their students specific rooms for the day; the University Hospital expects its students to assign themselves to rooms. In fact, I was once scolded by my nurse educator for waiting for her to assign me! I wasn't able to gauge where my skills were at until the assistant instructor communicated some information to me at one of her random weekly clinical site visits. She communicated to me that my nurse educator told her the following: "Drew is doing great, and here's how I know: No news is good news, and I've heard good news about Drew." Now, I know that that quote probably doesn't make sense at first, but I'll explain. My preceptors (Surgical Technologists whom I train with side-by-side during cases) are free to communicate absolutely anything about students (whether negative or positive) to my nurse educator. The reasoning is this: if they have something negative to report to her, they report it. But if they have something positive to report, they either say nothing or they report it. And if they elect to say nothing, it is either because my performance was just average or because they are lazy. My nurse educator assumes that if nothing is reported to her then she has doesn't have to worry about me because there are no major complaints. However, she has heard "good news about [me]." This means that I have impressed my preceptors enough that they were compelled to communicate about my progress to my nurse educator. Up until the assistant instructor communicated this to me about two weeks ago I had nothing on which to base my progress.

I feel like the past seventeen months have been worth it and that all my hard work is finally coming to fruition. All I have done is put forth my best effort, and I am glad that that best effort is good enough for my instructors, for my facilities, and for me. However, by no means am I perfect. I haven't always completed my homework 100%; I haven't always stayed awake in class; I haven't always made it to the University Hospital every day that was expected of me. However, I feel like I have put forth the best effort I could, especially given the issues and situations I've faced the past seventeen months: I was seeing a therapist at LDS Family Services nearly the whole time; my family took in a foster child just three months into my schooling and we are officially adopting her in mid-October; I have had to go through the repentance process (more than once); and I have "come out" to several people during this time period...

And I know that I couldn't have done all of this had Heavenly Father not strengthened and sustained me and my efforts. I owe it all to Him. He has blessed me even though I have made major blunders in the past seventeen months. He stuck by my side and knew that, at times, all I had to hold on to in this life was the completion of the Surgical Technology program. Yes, I have had suicidal thoughts in the past seventeen months, although those feelings have come and gone. There was one time this past spring when I came extremely close to following through on those thoughts, but I didn't because I at least wanted to see myself through the program; it has been a Saving Grace for me. It was the one consistent thing in my life besides therapy. Looking back, I suspect that I subconciously knew that, and that's probably why I've put more effort into this than into anything else in my life. All I can say is that I'm going to have an extremely difficult time when it all comes to an end in early December, even though I will stay involved through being on the program's Advisory Committee.

I'm so grateful that I was accepted into this program. The competition was and is apparently tough, something I didn't really grasp until after I was accepted and my instructor was reviewing test scores and applications for the next group of students. It is truly something that I was meant to do. And Heavenly Father knew that. He has guided me, directed me, and enabled me to get to this point. I feel blessed and loved by Him. But most important of all, I feel that He cares about me and my life, and it feels overwhelmingly sweet to be able to call Him my ally.