Episode #24 Blessings of a Nurse Practitioner
In the spirit of Thanksgiving this week, I want to take this episode to share a few of the things I am thankful for, specifically, my foundation, my career and my patients.
I have been so blessed in my life and in my career that I have no choice but to give thanks and credit where it is due. And to acknowledge the need to pay it forward. I get great joy from lifting others up and helping them to find their own success in any way I can. I also like to help others take ownership of the path that leads them to their success. You see, we all have had struggles in our lives. We all have had let downs and setbacks.
It is how you handle them that makes you who you are.
And the choices that you make help to determine the success you have in any endeavor. You know the whole half empty/half full discussion.. I like to say you make excuses/ take action. I am a supporter of the take action side. Every acton you take leads to an outcome. That outcome can be for the positive or the negative. But taking an action towards a goal or a dream or a positive gesture can never be removed. It’s a stepping stone to whatever the next step may be. You can never know it all so you just have to keep moving forward and doing the best you can.
I would like to share with you just a peek at my many blessings and how they have shaped me to be here right now, doing what I do for my colleagues and for my patients.
I was raised to be very self sufficient. I was also raised to have a heart and compassion for others in need. No matter how little we had, my father made sure that we had everything we NEEDED, no matter how many hours he had to work to get it for us. He would never see a child go cold, hungry or without a toy for Christmas. That, is where I believe my heart for the needs of others came from and my work ethic. My blessing of being uplifted was the fact that my father always said I was to be allowed ample time for reading and mind development. His wish for me was to be the best at whatever I should choose to do. My mother made many sacrifices as well and always worked hard, physical jobs. She was, is and will forever be my biggest fan. She will always believe I am the greatest at everything I do and no matter what happens in life, I will succeed. She gave me that gift of knowing what it means to be the support someone needs to have when things might get a little tougher than they’d like. So #1 I am thank for my parents, the love they gave me and the moral compass they instilled.
As I advanced in life and my career I was able to identify and appreciate every person who had ever taken the time to teach me, guide me and help me. The ones who never asked for anything in return. It was just their sincere and genuine nature to share knowledge and help someone else. They were paying it forward. I can see a lot more of that generosity as I move forward in my career and often wish I had known at those times the true impact they were having on my life, to have shown them the gratitude they deserve. Yet, I also know, being who I have become, that they knew it all along how they were helping me. They knew they didnt have to and yet they did it because they wanted to. From those who have taught me and supported me, I have learned the type of person I want to be.
Now, don’t think there haven’t been plenty who have tried just as hard to pull me down and block any success or ambition I may have. I have learned just as many lessons from that. Not all people are kind. Not all people have good intentions. It has taken me a long time to understand that and to let it go and not take it personal. Most often those people have more misery in their own lives than they will ever inject into mine. And from them, I have learned I don’t want to be that kind of person. So, #2, I am grateful for those from whom I have learned life lessons, both good and bad.
I am grateful to God for always showing me mercy and kindness and for using me to do His work. I have had many terrible things happen in my life. I have had to work hard for every advancement I have made, so don’t think I have been paved this blessed golden path to success without many lessons along the way. No matter if situations were good or bad, I kept faith and I still hold my faith that there is a reason for my existence. I have been placed in many situations that retrospectively I know only a Divine Intervention could have put me there just when I was needed. That is a very humbling realization. Through such experiences, I have become very well aware that I never know what impact I am having on a person at the time I am placed in their life, but I know that I will always do the best I can for someone . So, #3 I am grateful for my faith and my God.
With all of these lessons and the impacts they have had on my life, I move into my patients. I am grateful to and for each and every patient encounter I have had. Patients think they come to us for help and guidance, but most never give a thought about the impact they may have on us personally and professionally. I have been given the honor of holding the hand of someone as they pass and listening to their last wishes and messages for their loved ones. I have sat bedside to a patient fearing they will not survive their MI, having them come back to me every year to thank me for being there for them, when they did indeed survive. I have worked a code with dignity and respect to have the patient survive and come back to tell me they saw the whole thing and to thank me for the way they were treated, even though they were technically deceased. I have been forever altered by the loss of a teenage child that suffered in silence, hiding shame and such deep internal pain that she put a gun to her head and we couldn’t save her. There are people who suffer unnecessarily because no one cared or took the time to try to care and to try to make a difference. These lessons learned so early in my nursing career, empowered by the solid morals and values I was raised on and the mentors that lifted me up and my faith have brought me here.
I take those lessons and apply them now as I take care of my current patient population and bring lessons to my colleagues. I will forever go above and beyond in everything I do to hopefully, in some way, repay all for whom I am thankful for that have shaped my life and helped to develop me as me and the provider I am, in hopes that I am in some way making a difference for someone else. So, #3, I am am thankful for my patients that don’t realize what they do for me or who they are in m life.
As I have went through this journey in obesity management, functional medicine and even aesthetics I have been impacted by the perceivable joy I can bring into someone’s life that had been down on themselves, felt shamed by weight or just feeling hopeless to every regain health and vitality again. I am so dedicated to helping these people, that I know my career is my calling in life. In this part of the journey I have celebrated achievements like being able to lose enough weight to lay in bed instead of a recliner. I have been the one patients share their deepest secrets to as they release the thing that has for so long been the shame they manifested as an eating disorder. I get to make people smile! I get to fix relationships by restoring health to a person, which allows them to be an active apart of their life and family again. I get to be the person that lifts up another human being when they feel they are all alone in the world. I give them the tools, the insight and the power to make changes in their own lives. Often just by being present and listening, offering support based on the patients own information. I love what I do EVERY SINGLE DAY of my life. It is who I am and for that I am thankful.
I hope that you are able to take time to asses what you are thankful for in your life and in your career. Don’t underestimate the impact you have on the lives of your patients and your colleagues. Know your purpose and follow it. I wish you a very BLESSED Thanksgiving. And I thank you so much for making me a part of your life and your career.
Have a great week! May it be filled with many Health Interventions!