Just Stay

(Another touching email arrived today worth sharing.  I hope you enjoy.)

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside.

"Your son is here," she said to the old man.

She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.

He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack; he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength.  Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.

He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.

Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.

Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.

Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.

"Who was that man?" he asked.

The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.

"No, he wasn't," the Marine replied. "I never saw him before in my life."

"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"

"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here.  When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed."  

The next time someone needs you ... just be there.  Stay.

We are not human beings going through a temporary spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings going through a temporary human experience.

Have a great day and bless someone else in some little way today!

God is so good, all the time.

Healthy Habit No. 13: Plan

"Failing to plan is planning to fail"  

~Proverb quote

There is, perhaps, no better word in the English language to better illustrate how you can incorporate healthy habits into your everyday life.

Planning

A little planning goes a long way.  Eating healthy never happens by accident.  For the most part, neither do fitness, skin protection, healthy teeth, weight loss, and social ties. Many of these habits take effort that need to be scheduled into busy lives.

To eat healthy, for example, it would help to set aside time to draft a menu, make a grocery list, go to the store, prepare meals, and pack breakfast and lunch.

A friend teases me each Saturday morning at breakfast while I do our calendar list the planned events of the week, coordinate with my wife on our dinners for the week and write out our grocery list before heading to the store.  This was one of the tough life lessons learned.  We still make changes to our menu, but we can accommodate those quickly and reschedule meals. 

Another part of the planning is getting healthy recipes and scaled to a more reasonable number.   With just the two of us, that can become a challenge in books, back of boxes, etc.  We found some excellent sites online that make it really easy to figure out what ingredients we need and how much, just by simply put in 2 for the number of servings. And, bless their hearts, it also provide the nutritional information, for those of us tracking such things.  While there are several sites available, I use All Recipes more often than the other sites.  I enjoy reading the comments on how other people make adjustments to the basic recipe and the outcome.  Cooking light, Weight Watchers and Spark Recipes are also excellent sites, along with The Pioneer Woman.

One additional note regarding cooking and planning – we discovered last year a wonderful invention – Steamer Bags for the microwave! Not only does it make steaming your veggie a snap, it is also great for cooking meat.  All in just a fraction of the time it would otherwise take.  That’s especially good news after one of those long, hard days in the office or the terrible commute home or both.

This article concludes the 13 Healthy Habits for Life, we will continue to update and expand upon these healthy habits and others in the coming weeks and months ahead.  Please feel free to submit your comments and recommendations – we always enjoy hearing from our readers.

The Green Thing

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.  The woman apologized to her and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

That’s right, they didn’t have the green thing in her day.  Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store.  The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled.  But they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an elevator in every store and office building.  They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.  But she’s right.  They didn’t have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind.  They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.  But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house – not a TV in every room.  And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana.  In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you.  When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn.  They used a push mower that ran on human power.  They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.  But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water.  They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.  But they didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into 24-hour taxi services.  They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.  And they didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But that old lady is right.  They didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

His Mysterious Ways

by Diane Forrest, RN

Sixteen years ago when I met my husband, he worked for Coca Cola.  5 months after we got married he was injured on the job and he was paralyzed.  Being a nurse, I stayed home to take care of him.  He became bedridden 3 years ago and without warning became septic and died in less than 24 hours.

Before my husband died he promised to always watch over me. Two weeks after he passed away, my sewage line collapsed...the day before Thanksgiving. While I was watching the plumbers dig up my whole front yard looking for the septic line I  wondered what else could happen.  Then they struck something in the ground about 4 feet down. When they jumped into the hole to see what it was they discovered a coke bottle. If that wasn't sign enough that he was there with me, on the bottom of the bottle was printed, McComb, MS. 

This is the city where he was born and lived most of his life, and where he bottled coke until they closed the bottling plant! I have no doubts that he is with me, and is watching over me just as he promised.

Grief

by Diane Forrest, RN

Nearly everyone has lost someone special in their life, either expentantly or unexpectanly.  With thr recent tragedies that have occurred in the world we sometimes have trouble understanding why.  There are 5 stages of grief that have been defined by Kubler-Ross in 1969.  They are as follows:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Not everyone goes through all the stages, and there is no time frame to move between stages.  This is a very personal process and should never be rushed.  As a nurse, you experience death and bereavement constantly. A nurse's role is to be supportive to the patient by talking with them, praying with them, if they wish, listeing, offer to call family or friends.  It is very difficult to say the right words.  Phrases like "they are in a better plance" and "they aren't suffering anymore" may not be comforting to someone who has just lost a family member.  Saying that you know what they are going through because it happened to you is also not as helpful.  Each person's feelings are different.  Sometimes it is just best to listen, let the person know that you are sorry for their loss and assist with calling the funeral home and packing the belongings.

Suggestions to assist in dealing with this loss include: crying, talking with family members and friends, visit support groups. Loss of a loved one is a difficult thing to overcome, it takes time.  Don't rush it, and it will get better each day.

Textbooks and Stethoscopes: Decubitus Ulcer

By: Sunny Hon

If you didn’t know what decubitus ulcer, or pressure sore, was, you ought to look it up.  It was one of the first things I came across in nursing clinical, and I promise, it would not disappoint.  Up until that moment, I was fairly oblivious to the subject.  I’ve heard the term “pressure sore” before, but I’ve never really connected all the dots.  Like all sobering realties, the lesson here was like cold rain in a summer day – the dots were quickly connected.   

Eight of us had spent the first eight weeks of our clinical in a nursing home.  Because most of the residents were immobile, decubitus ulcers were common sightings.  In a nutshell, decubitus ulcer is the breakdown of the skin and/ or its underlying tissues over boney prominences due to the shortage of blood supply over time.  How much time?  Not as much as you’d think.  For older adults with thinner skin, ulcer can develop quickly over a period of merely hours.  The classification of ulcer is broken down into stages with Stage I being the most superficial to Stage IV having necrosis extending into the muscle, tendon or even bone. 

There I was, standing no more than two feet behind the wound doctor watching the treatment procedure as he described it.  “You have to cut till it starts to bleed.  That’s when you know where the dead tissue ends.”  And bleed he did.  In order to treat decubitus ulcer, the dead tissues must be removed because of its susceptibility to infections.  Depending on the stage of ulcer one has, different methods are used to rid of said tissues.  A diet high in protein and Vitamin C is encouraged to help with the healing process.  Like any other ailments, prevention is the best treatment.  Making sure those immobile patients or loved ones, be turned or have their positions readjusted every two hours will prevent pressure sores from developing.  Trust me, it’s not a pretty sight.         

Healthy Habit # 12 Daily Walk

Cute couple enjoying their walk

After meeting with my dietitians/nutritionist (Mary) a few years ago, the topic of walking more each day as part of my daily routine so I purchased one of many pedometers since then. I track how many steps taken each day and enter that number into my tracking worksheet. 

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator;
• Walk to the store;
• Window shop at the mall;
• Leave your desk and visit your co-worker instead of sending him an email.



Good shoes help



Some benefits from walking:

• Lowers your risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, colon cancer and diabetes;
• An opportunity to clear your mind (some days I take two or three);
• Allows you to look for something beautiful (I take pictures some days – flowers, birds, etc);
• Spring and Fall are my favorite times of year to walk outdoors;
• Helps you handle stress;
• Helps you feel more energetic; and
• Improves your self-esteem.

How do you add walking into your daily routine?  What benefits additional benefits do you get from walking?