I was having dinner with one of those friends last week. She had just accepted a job at Arkansas Children's Hospital and I knew this was going to be a big conversation piece when we got together. For those of you who know* me, know that ACH holds my heart. In all reality,I have a beating heart today because of that place. I LOVE everything about that place. When I hear a single negative word spoken in regards to Children's, you better get ready for my claws to come out.
Quite the irony is involved with my strong-rooted love for that place. I was a different kind of patient. I wasn't the cute little baby being pushed around in a red wagon with balloons, and family. My friends weren't allowed to come visit me and tell me what was going on with high school life. My grandparents were given passes to see me every weekend. I was in my bed. All day. My outings included going to hospital school (yikes!), get tests run on most of my body, and the occasional stroll outside for fresh air. Seven weeks total in this place, I didn't walk more than 2 feet until I got released and went home. A nurse pushed me in a wheelchair anywhere I went. I covered my entire body with a blanket and kept my sweatshirt hood up anytime I was out and about. I was disgusted. So, so, so angry with my body. with myself. with the nurses. the doctors. everyone.
I wrote in journals for hours and hours each day. Filled up 6 journals, I believe. Wrote how mad I was. How ridiculous and stupid this hospital stay was. How I was going to go home and run for hours until my heart just stopped...because there was no way anything was really wrong with me. I was FINE. I lived in anger and fear and I targeted it at a place I now credit with giving me life.
On the way to dinner with my friend, I had decided to not spend time on asking her questions about ACH job, and instead focus on things that didn't cause me to look back to those memories. but.
She told me about the job. the interview. how happy she was. this is her "dream job". she was all smiles. I had chills. my entire body felt like it was about to explode. I was so, so full of joy for my friend. for the amazing opportunity she is about to begin. I told her, "you will go to work and leave having blessed every single person you come in contact with". Because she will. every one of them. You cannot walk in to that hospital without feeling a sense of overwhelming blessings. well...I can't.
My best friend started her pediatric residency at ACH this year. This girl stood by me throughout every second I was a patient at this place. She even tried to sneak a visit to me (alongside her phenomenal dad) one day. She was denied (Talk about heart ache seeing your best friend outside your room but not being able to talk to her!) but ended up in the elevator with a doctor who runs most of ACH. Her dad let him know that she wanted to be a doctor one day. In fact, wanted to work at ACH as a neonatal doc. Well, this guy took my friend and her dad on a tour and wished her well in her journey. Ten years later, she is living her dream. ACH blesses people.
When my OT friend and I were discussing the cool things about her new job at ACH, my heart was beating so fast. I was having such a rush of emotions. I couldn't decide if I should tell her about how much I love that place or if I should push it all away like I always do and move on to a new conversation piece. After she started telling me a story about something that went on at her interview, I couldn't hold it in. I had to tell her what a gift she has been given. Let her know that even though her badge will read "_____, OTR/L" she will be so much more than an OT. She will be a nurse. a social worker. someone's family when they don't have visitors. someone's life saver.
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Two hours later, I got in my car and just cried. It was one of the most refreshing experiences to open up and share how much i LOVE the place that I once despised. To tell stories that I will never ever ever ever be able to forget. Share experiences that have shaped me to be who I am today..10 years later.
If you've ever been a patient at ACH, you know the blue towels. They stink like chemicals, they feel like sandpaper, and they are as thin as a page in my journal. Every AM, I was woken up by the "vampires" as I liked to call them. Give them that good ole blood. In the beginning of my stay, I would shower and then put my hopital gown on and step up to the scale backwards so the nurse could weigh me. Untilllll, they found out I was soaking my hair with shampoo and not rinsing it or the water out so it would appear that I had gained a pound or two....oops!?! I had lots of tricks. That got me no where. However, that time I slipped a chicken strip in my bedside table when the nurse wasn't looking was pretty funny. Especially 2 days later when it was discovered and I smoothly said, "oh, thank goodness! I have been saving that to give to ___ (one of the nurse techs who would bring fried chick in her pockets and eat while she sat and watched me eat)!" hahaha, talk about bussteeddddd. While in the shower, I would run in place and do whatever I could to burn calories. .I was desperate. I placed the thin, blue towel ever so precisely so it would hide my shadow and the nurse couldn't see me jumping around. Until that damn towel fell and I was caught! Talk about embarrassing. It was pretty cool having to get a shower with the curtain open after that. Ummmmm, not.
I felt like that place was the reason I was so overweight. so lost. so scared. so angry. When I discharged, my mother left all the paperwork with me and went to talk to my psychologist about what to do with me (please, I was never any trouble...hahahaha). Oh, hey, discharge weight! Good to see you...said I, NEVER. The number * couldn't have been typed any bigger. I started crying hysterically. I fell on the floor and threw anything in my reach. Pretty sure they would have admitted me to a psych floor if I hadn't already been there so long. That number ate away at my entire being. It was a number. I was terrified of that number. People were going to tell me how HEALTHY and how much better I was! "Good for you!" Well, good thing I had no rationale of reality or else I would have been tremendously embarrassed at my behavior.
"Shampoo is better; I go on first and clean the hair! Conditioner is better; I leave the hair silky and smooth! Oh, really, fool?! Really! Stop lookin' at me, swan!"
I got to watch a movie, go to the teen room, or listen to music if I was "good" and "followed the program" during the week. Well, I only recall watching one movie the entire time I was at ACH...and it was Billy Madison. I had never seen it. and I laughed for the first time in weeks as soon as I put the movie in. I had to take a break to eat my night snack, and I'll never forget what they brought me that night.
490 calories. Oh, I mean they brought me an ice cream cookie sandwhich. I laughed. like. hysterically. it was a joke. someone got my snack mixed up. No way they expected me to eat this. "Can't I have my usual nutrigrain bar...?!?!"
WRooooooooooooong. Conveniently, the scary, retired drill sergeant (maybe?) was my nurse that night. She also thought it funny. "no ma'am. I have written orders to give you this tonight." After lots of debate, she let me watch Billy go to kindergarten as I ate the disgusting (um, not, these are AMAZING) bowl of fat and sugar.
"Hey, kids it's me, I bet you thought that I was dead! But when I fell over I just broke my leg and got a hemorrhage in my head! Ha-ha-ha!" -Clown at Billy's bday party
When my heart monitor kept me up all night because my heart rate would get below 25, I was irritable. Angry. Completely out of touch with reality. I complained about my finger being sore from wearing the clip thing (I should know what this is called before I take my boards maybe), said I never got any sleep from being woken up. Complained. Didn't have a clue. I truly did not know that I was in the hospital because I was sick. I was convinced I was being punished. Not saved.
Looking back, reading old journals, seeing old pictures, talking to old friends, flashbacks, and what have you, are such blessings to my heart. I can't drive past this place without looking to the 2 windows of the 2 rooms I have stayed in. Thinking about the nurses who stayed extra hours to sit with me after meals to scratch my back and braid my hair. The residents who sat down and showed me my charts and explained to me why I was in the hospital. Why I couldn't walk. How they were going to help my heart get healthy...how they were going to keep my alive. The child life specialist who spend hours talking to me about her dog, how she keeps her hair from frizzing, and sitting. Just sitting with me. Telling me I was going to get help. I was going to make it.
I am studying for boards and my stomach is in knots. lots and lots and lots of them. I have been coming up with ways of calming myself down and remembering.....I am going to make it. Thinking of the memories I hold in my thick skulled head have been helping. Remembering how grateful I am to even be able to study. To be at a different place. To struggle, but to also have good days. To be able to feel the blessing that ACH was/will always be to me. The endless amount of health professionals that have brought me to where I am today are the reason I know I have to be the best OT I can be. The other patients. their families. I want to bless them with the blessings I have been given.
I went towel shopping yesterday......
and I bought blue (but lighttttt blue) towels. I never use blue towels. Ever. Until now.
"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!"-Bob Marley
-Cortney
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