The light inside.

I am reminded on an almost daily basis in as a hospice nurse that these "things" that make us who we are, well they can go away. Life is unpredictable, and "who we are" is probably not the things that we do. I've learned that it's a kernal of something much greater. It's the light that we put in to the world. We can make that light as bright and shiny as we can, but I'm also aware that one day the light will dim. I watch people struggle so much with the dimming of their light, with the loss to do and be all that they once were.

I hike, because it makes me feel strong. It brings me to places that fill me up with beauty. It makes me feel at home when my heart and brain start feeling lost.

I knit and craft and write, because it puts a piece of me out in to the world, something of myself that even I knew not existed before it was created. 

I am a hospice nurse, because as hard as it can be sometimes, I get to a part of the most poignant moments in a family's life. I get to give love and instruction in a time when life is filled with grief. 
I took this picture last Thursday when a lovely patient of mine lost her battle to brain cancer. I was touched by what it's going to mean for her husband to walk by this sign every day.

I run, because it takes all of the hard, emotional stuff that is stored in my body and it releases it into the universe.

I love, because I can, because I've been blessed, and because it is the truest direction for my heart to follow. I love because it envelopes me in the most gorgeous , heart wrenching sweetness. I love, because as scary as it can be to feel so vulnerable, I'm stronger, and more beautiful in that place.

This is what I have come to believe. I believe that light will never go away. I believe there is something unique and beautiful in each of us, something that will shine, some way, some how, far into eternity. Maybe it's in the way we touch each other's lives. Maybe it's in the tangible things we create. Or maybe it just is. Sometimes you just can't explain it. You just feel it. 

Why I will never be on Iron Chef.

Greek yogurt you creamy little bitch. I don't trust you. You're too tasty to be good for me. I can scoop you out like ice cream and see I don't think things that are that good for you should suspended from my spoon midair like a Dairy Queen blizzard, all thick and rich. But see I do eat you, a lot of you, and see if it were ME, and me ONLY, I would probably consist of you and granola for 3 meals a day.

You guys, I am soooo culinarily challenged.

I do not like to cook. I don't follow recipes well and the tweaks that I make are almost never for the good. I make a few standard items. Macaroni and cheese. Ravioli. Spaghetti. Oh and I do make a mean overnight steel cut oatmeal crockpot dish that my husband hates but that I adore.

Fortunately for me, Mike likes to cook. And he does a pretty good job I must say. But Mike gets home around 530pm. By that time I've picked up Ellie and need to get something started. Mike is a good cook but he is not a quick cook. And me, well, granola and yogurt, right?

I love my husband but one thing that this marriage of ours lacks is menu planning. Mike finds it incredibly frustrating, mostly b/c he likes to put a LOT of time and thought into what he wants to make. I just want to whip something up. So now we do things like pizza (homemade,..ok boboli crust but homeade enough for me!), veggie quesadillas, burritos, and breakfast for dinner. Those are our staples. Then we have our little aforementioned pasta dishes to fill in the spaces, but are they anything to write home about? Uh, no.

Today I went to the grocery store and said screw it. I bought some of those little stirfry family meal packs, a frozen veggie lasagna, a frozen pizza. I felt shameful buying these things when really, I want and try to eat fresh and good. But I just can't stand the stress of getting home from work and standing in the middle of my kitchen like some doe eyed teenager learning to boil water. I need some SIMPLE recipes. Things that don't have 20 ingredients. Things that use staple ingredients. And oh yeah, things that are good for you. Any suggestions?

The details make the goodness.

A weekend at home in Denver, with no agenda

and chocked full of gorgeous little moments.

Sweet little girl, full of a million hugs and squeezes

who finds such joy being with her mommy and her daddy. 

Please God, let this never end.

This photo by husband

Screw you, cancer

I have a large amount of sadness in my heart right now.

This job of mine, it can be so damn intense. Of course I knew it when I chose to be a hospice nurse, and my skin has been relatively thick for most of patients' passings. But today I feel depleted and tired.

I've been very close to this one patient. She was only 44 and she had ovarian cancer. With her, there were tons of nursing tasks that needed to be done, like continuous infusions pumps and home paracentesis and an absolute ton of medicine management. So my point is, we've spent a LOT of time together. She was really just so loveable, and I know she loved me. She called me Summer Wummer whenever I came over. She bought me my own chest of drawers so I could organize all of my medical equipment. She was so kind. I became really close with her and her entire family.

She had tumors that literally looked like fists protruding out of her abdomen. Literally. It often reminded me of "Spaceballs", the scene at the end when the alien climbed out of that guy's stomach (I never told her that). She had intense pain that just got worse and worse. Yet she was such a fighter. She never wanted to admit that she was dying...never. When I told her last week that she was going into kidney failure I felt like I burst her hope. That look on her face, the way her lower lip trembled; it was a terrible conversation but when I look back, one that needed to happen and I said it as kindly and gently as I could. She was in kidney failure. (Those conversations are one of the more challenging aspects of this job.)

When I arrived on Monday morning something had shifted. She was in agonizing pain. She was crying and had a sheet over her eyes because the pain was so bad. As a hospice nurse this is exactly what I NEVER want to see. We have tools for that! How had it gotten so bad? So I worked my butt off in there. We had her on medications that would have killed 10 elephants. We got it relatively controlled, but on this day she knew she was dying. Here was a woman that never would never before admit that she was dying, yet on this day, as I stood above her bed, she leaned into me, so sweetly, so tenderly, and said "Summer, I can't fight anymore."

I literally sat at her bedside for 8 hours on Monday and 11 hours yesterday, keeping her medicated, doing everything in my power to manage her symptoms. It was shocking the amount of medicines that she required, and any ICU or ER nurse would be surprised that I was administering them in the home setting. And that her pain was still not fully managed!

This patient had terminal agitation, and I knew she was going to get it all along and really geared up her family for what that would look like. But still, you're never really ready for terminal agitation (when the patient is restless and agitated and appears so uncomfortable). As a nurse it broke my heart. I loved this patient and no amount of medicine that I gave her seemed to do the trick. Last night she was finally sedated enough to be calm, but at 5 this morning the agitation started again. I got there at 9am and tried everything I could think of to keep her comfortable, and I was working with some big guns. Oh how she struggled. Her breathing became gurgle-y (death rattle), her legs were mottled and cold, and she would flail her arms around like she was trying to get out of bed. And then, around 1045am today the room changed. She became calm. Her breathing sounded better. Myself, her mother and her sister were all at her bedside. At 11am she took her last breath. When I said "I'm so sorry, she's gone now" her mother looked at me with the most frightful eyes and starting bawling hysterically. The world lost this really wonderful woman. 

As the nurse I had to be as professional as I could. But I couldn't contain the tears that fell from eyes this morning. This patient had become such a part of my weekly routine, of my life. So I let them flow, briefly, and behind bathroom doors. Then I had to get to work: calling the coroner, mortuary, cleaning her body, all that stuff. It was hard, because what I really wanted to do was curl up on the couch and cry. She really got past that clinical boundary of mine, big time. Man I miss her so much.

Cancer is a terrible, horrible, good for nothing asshole of a disease. 

Scenes from a stock show

I'm at a loss for words these days. Life feels full and busy and simply doesn't enough hours in it.

But that said,  we always have time for some National Western Stock Show! Yeeeee hawwww!!!!

Alpaca!

Not quite sure. 

Ellie would have been more than content if she just sat on tractors for the whole event. She was obsessed with them, and there were a LOT.

Cousins!

You guys, bees are SO COOL. I learned so much about bees and was completely fascinated. I had no idea!

Maya spinning her first yarn.

Maya and Ellie feeling a big basket of wool.

I thought this guy was so cute!

Cowboy culture is so cool. To me it seems so simple, and efficient, and so appreciative of the laws of nature and the beauty of the earth. I gotta say, I'm darn proud to live in Colorado. This is a special place.