Perhaps

can·cer

ˈkansər

noun

-Disease caused by the uncontrolled division on abnormal cells.

-DEVASTATING Disease affecting almost half of my patients on a weekly basis.

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I prefer surgical patients. Surgical patients come to me with an abundance of "access" (term nurses use to describe how many IV's a patient have available to use.)  Many surgical patients even have a special line going right into their artery so we know EXACTLY what their blood pressure is at any given second. PLUS the line can be used to draw blood, painfree & needlefree in a matter of minutes.  Surgical patients usually have a "foley," catheter in their bladder (sorry, some people might cringe at that word if you have ever had one in).  Basically surgical patients are an OCD ICU nurses' dream come true because of the control we encompass with all those lines not to mention cardiac monitoring.  To top it all off surgical patients equate to evading one shift without having to clean up excessive and massive BM's due to anesthesia and pain meds working their magic to plug up the poop shoot (just being honest.)

Some surgical patients undergo surgery knowing that the hurt of the procedure is a hurt to heal process (i.e. getting a hip replacement or getting an appendix taken out,) so really my surgical patients should be rejoicing when they have finally made it to their room post-operatively. They have survived anesthesia! The have no where to go but up (especially as they start receiving cocktails of morphine or fentanyl or oxycodone or dilaudid!!!) 

But...this isn't always the case as you might expect from the heading above. Waking up from anesthesia doesn't always mean you are cured from cancer. No longer does the care I provide have a happy, easy peasy lemon squeeze attitude floating about the room.  The reality of this disease hits harder than a four ton load. 

I had a patient this week who had "beaten" cancer once but it came back again. This time with vengeance landing himself in the ICU with a really, really bad infection.  This time surgery wasn't even an option. This time he knew how much chemo and radiation sucked the life out of him. 

Towards the end of my night shift the hospital starts buzzing with life again as med students and residents come flooding back for another day. I stuck my head into my patients room as his team of doctors started to inspect his wound. As they wrapped it back up, they started discussing the day, the plan,....and prognosis. 

"You have about six months to live in my medical opinion...........has anyone ever told you how long you have to live, sir?" 

....silence....."nope"

As the doctors awkwardly shuffled out a few minutes later, I decided to stay. I could tell they had said a few confusing doctor things to him so I offered to answer any questions he might have. He agreed that it was confusing but declined. I truly did have a few tasks to accomplish before the next shift started but I also knew my patient was hit...hard...four ton load of reality hard.  

I worked silently for a few minutes. Finishing, I found a stool so I could sit down.  He didn't even have family in town, let alone with him in the room. He started with a light hearted joke then talked about living, living with cancer, and dying. He ended with a glean in his eye and he expressed his sadness that the shift was ending and he would have to teach the next nurse his flavor of sarcasm. He shook my hand and thanked me. The shift ended. 

My heart could not break harder on a Friday at 6:30 am. This was not a simple surgical patient. He could no longer be hurt to be healed. He was fully broken. 

It is easy to loose track of why I wanted to be a nurse but this week God reminded me in such a saddening way.  It is even easier to loose track of the fact that God created me for his plans and for his purposes.  I tend to think that God's plan for me revolves around me and the "progression" of my life (being a super smart nurse, totally in shape, super stylish, with an abundance of friends, getting married to a smoking hot dude who loves me only second to Jesus, & having the most amazing, athletic kids, etc, etc,!!)  

Perhaps not all those things will happen. like ever.  Perhaps they will. Perhaps my patient will pass away in six months. Perhaps he will live another year. Either way God is still good.

But perhaps God has even better plans for us. I have no doubt that it was in His plans that I walked into my patient's room that morning. 

Recipe // Turkey Burgers & Quiche

There is a Saint Louis hidden treasure near me called Jay's International Foods.  Righty tucked in around all the fantastic international South Grand eateries, Jay's offers everything from Vietnamese to  German to Mediterranean cruise products.  The best part about Jay's is the amazing selection of produce and more specifically all the HERBS.  I will never again buy sweet basil, parsley, cilantro, etc. any where else in STL.  At Jay's you get a BOUNTY of herbs (seriously) for a half the price of a itsy bitsy container found a Schnucks.  This week I bought dill & chives (totaled maybe $4) and found two great recipes to use my bounty (I still have so much more leftover!) 

Homemade Turkey Burgers

• 1 lbs ground chicken or ground turkey
• 1 TBS fresh, chopped dill
• 3 chives, chopped
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (or 1 tsp garlic powder)
• 1 tsp dried Italian herbs
• 1/2 tsp paprika or chili powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 TBS coconut oil

Instructions

1. Place the ground meat in a bowl and add all the ingredients.
2. Combine with your hands.
3. Mold the mixture into 4 patties and set them on wax paper.
4. Heat a fry pan and add your oil. Place as many patties in the pan as can fit.
5. Cook on one side for 6 minutes and cook on the second side for 4-5 minutes.

Note: This is not my recipe. I took it from Our Savory Life

I was inspired to make turkey burgers from The Iron You 's tomato bun idea. I adapted the recipe to use what I had/what I like since I don't really like mayo. Sorry I don't really have accurate measurements below. I kind of made it up as I went. 

Tomato Avocado Bun Burgers

• large tomatos (I used roma tomatoes even though they aren't "large" because they have less juiciness/more substance to bite into...Off the vine tomatoes would work great too)
• two medium avocados (nice & soft, aint nobody got time to peel a not ready avocado)
• greek yogurt (2 Tbsp or so; can be plain but I used vanilla since that is all I had and it didn't taste weird, surprisingly)
• lime juice (MMM LOVE lime juice)
• alfalfa sprouts or bean sprouts (at least a cup) (alfalfa sprouts found at Trader Joes & bean sprouts found at Jay's. You can get a POUND of bean sprouts for $1.20 at Jay's =o)
• choice of burger (since i made my own above ^^ I made the patties smaller so they would fit on top my roma tomatoes)

Instructions

1. Wash & cut tomatoes in half (that was EASY!)
2. Mash up the avocado, add in your greek yogurt (add in a spoon full at a time, enough for your preference of creaminess), then spritz in some lime juice! 
3. Assemble tomato burger with creamy avocado & sprouts of choice! 

Ok, NEXT recipe since there still a TON of dill & chives left!  Since I breakfast food is AMAZING anytime of the day, I went for a new quiche recipe. This one I did word for word from fourteen forty 365 .  My thoughts on the recipe are in black below.

Sweet Potato Crusted Spinach Quiche

• 6 small sweet potatoes (I only used 2 medium potatoes to fill the dish I used) 
• Olive oil spray
• 1 bunch organic spinach (not going to lie, I didn't used organic) 
• 1/2 small onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup grated fresh mozzarella
• Spring herbs (dill, parsley, chives) to taste (forgot to buy parsley so I didn't use it)
• 1 tablespoon organic white miso (optional) (couldn't find this ingredient anywhere)
• 1/4 cup goat cheese
• 1/4 cup asiago cheese (to sprinkle on top)
• Sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Peel sweet potatoes and slice thinly with a food processor (I just used a knife to slice?)
• Lay potato slices out in pie dish in a crust-like fashion, spray with oil, and bake on 400 degrees fahrenheit for 15 minutes. (After crust has baked, reduce oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.)
• Spray a saute pan with oil and saute sliced onion and crushed garlic clove until lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Stir in spinach and saute until wilted and tender, about 4 minutes. Drain spinach over the sink to rid excess liquid.
• Blend eggs and mozzarella in a medium bowl. Add herbs, goat cheese, and miso. (Miso makes everything taste better, but may be omitted.)
• Add spinach/garlic/onion mix to the egg/cheese mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place the combined mixtures in the potato crust. Sprinkle with asiago cheese on top.
• In a 375 degree oven, bake until the quiche is firm and the cheese has browned, about 40 minutes.
• Tastes best a little warm

And WALA! There you have it! Next time I'll take pictures of my finished products but for now check out the websites where I found the recipes to get a good visual if you need it. 

Blog?

I can't lie. I love social media. It can be unhealthy but it can also be healthy (see what I did there?)

I mostly wanted to start something where I could share my story, successful recipes & ideas for meal planning, CrossFit fun, and health rants and woes from working as an ICU nurse.

My hope is that 1) you don't judge me by my poor grammar & sentence structure & use of "I" at the start of most sentences 2) you might relate and feel like you have a sister out there struggling together with you in similar hardships and/or feel like you have a sister out there encouraging you in your successes 3) you find that you too are fearfully and wonderfully AND uniquely made by our loving God so in response you can live a healthy and whole life. 4) you laugh at my jokes =]