St. Patrick's Day!

Yes. They really do dye the river green. It turns into a neon green. Potentially radioactive? Let's hope not!

As you've probably guessed by now, I went downtown for St. Patrick's Day. Rebecca came to visit (to celebrate no more CPE for me!!!). We decided to go downtown on Saturday. When walking to the Metra station, we found a few of my classmates and ended up walking around with them for a while. They dyed the river at 10am.

How do they do it? Well, there's a speed boat (not the boat in the pic) and a guy sits on the back of it with a grass-spreader type thing and dumps red powder into the river. When it hits the water, the water turns bright yellow. And then it turns neon green. Then the boat, and another behind it, drive around in the neon water to spread it out until it's all neon. Very weird. Yet very cool. I think I heard someone say they've been doing this for around 50 years.

Then we walked to the parade, stopping for Subway lunch on the way. The longest parade ever. We stayed for an hour and a half and still didn't see it all. And couldn't see much anyway because of all the people.

One of my CPE friends was also going to the parade and Rebecca wanted to meet him. I texted him before the parade to see where we should meet and he told me he was going to be in the parade! I didn't see him, but he was on a float. After the parade, he sent a text that he was at a friend's house downtown so we walked there and met up with them. The friend lives on the 22nd floor...REALLY nice downtown views! I'm sure that condo costs more than my house. Although I'd rather have the yard :)

Anyway, we chatted with them for a while and they decided to go out, so we went out with them for a few hours and had a great time.

Sunday, Rebecca and I went to a UCC church where we know the pastor (I needed to visit a non-Lutheran church for a worship paper). We then went back downtown and walked around the parks and just had a really good, leisurely day. Monday I had class and then we walked to the lake. Tuesday we went back to the lake before she went home.

All in all, St. Patrick's Day in Chicago was lots of fun!

Play Day!!

Today was an awesome day! The morning started at 8:30 with Graduation
Breakfast. There is a reception-hall type room at Rush where it was held. Eggs,
sausage, bacon, tater tots, fruits and pastries. Yummy!

After eating, at about 9:00, Mary opened it up for anyone to say anything
about us or us about them. Many of the staff and residents spoke about us,
individually and as a group. It was great to hear feedback from them. A couple
of the comments were about the fact that we will be forever known as the "Tower
Move Interns." Rush moved into the new tower four days after we started. The
department head told us that ususally, interns are broken in gradually, over
about two weeks. But that we had three days and then a new hospital! One of the
residents said something about normally, you're thrown into the deep end, but we
were taken to the middle of Lake Michigan and left there! Another staff member
said that this unit flew by - and that meant that we had fit into the fabric of
the department very well.

Mary then had our certificates to give us and each one of us came up and
she said a few words and gave us the certificate. We then got in a tiny circle
and everyone gatherered around us and put hands on us, and said prayers.
Afterwards, we gave hugs, said our goodbyes and had our picture taken.

We were to meet at the Kidston elevators at 10:30. I went to get my parking
stamped at Volunteer Services. The volunteer made me show my badge, then told me
I needed to be wearing it if I was in the hospital. This is only the second time
I've been 'carded' and I've never been yelled at for it! Oh, well.

Went back to the office and turned in my pager, lab coat, booklet and
nametag. We could keep our nametag if we want to be on the on-call list for if
people are sick. Yeah......don't think so! Eleanor commented "I don't think Jen
wants to be on the on-call list...."

We then walked to the Pink Line and got a train ticket. We took it to the
Sears Tower. Oops. It's now actually the Willis Tower. Whatever. Mary bought our
tickets to go up. We went up, walked around, took some pictures. We went out on
the ledges and it was awesome! Had people take our pictures. The picture above
is of our feet on the ledge. We also had the professionals take a picture and
Mary bought one. The department has pictures in the hallway of all of the CPE
groups since around 1980. So the one she bought will be the one on the wall.
We're the first ones to have it taken there!! Awesome views, awesome
experience.

We then got back on the train and went to lunch at Ed Debevic's, a
50's-style diner where the waitresses are rude (they're supposed to be). But the
food was really good. And I have leftovers :) We stayed there, talked and ate.
Had a great time.

We then walked back to the train station and said goodbye to Mike, as he
was going to go home from there. Mary, Nick and I got on the train and went back
to Rush. Nick and I said goodbye to Mary then walked to the parking garage,
where we said goodbye. Though we are planning to meet at the St. Patrick's Day
parade on Saturday and I'm going to try to come back to Rush sometime next unit
and have lunch with him. He is doing another unit starting on Tuesday.

Although I am not going to miss CPE, I am really going to miss these three
people.

Final Evaluations

Tuesday, March 13 was Final Evaluation Day. We had to complete a self-evaluation. The document had the specific CPE goals. After each one, there were four levels, and we were to check one of them, where we thought we were. We then had some questions to answer to elaborate on why we checked what we checked. The original document was 4 pages long. My completed one, after nearly 3 hours at Regenstein, ended up being 9. In small font, single spaced.

So we got to the office on Wednesday and printed our evaluations and made copies for everyone. We then went to Bishop Anderson House, which is a department at Rush in the building behind where the RHHV department is. Mary brought us some fruit, scones, cinammon rolls and orange juice for breakfast.

As the coffee was being made, Mary asked us who wanted to go first. I said "I call last place!" So I went last.

The three of us each spent about an hour reading our evaluation. We then had time for feedback from each other over what we had written, and Mary gave feedback and asked some questions. We took a short break between each one and we were done by about 12:30.

So then we went to lunch. We walked down Taylor Street and found Hawkeye's Bar & Grill. The others had made some other suggestions, but since I'm picky, I said no to all of them. :) But the food was GOOD! I still have some leftovers, actually. It was a really good lunch, just the four of us talking and eating.

We got back to Rush at a little after 2:00 and went home.

Wednesday afternoon, we had Cirriculum Evaluation, where we met with Joann, one of the other CPE advisors. We had a sheet to fill out that listed all of the activities we had done and we rated them and made comments. We took about an hour discussing our unit, what had been good, what we learned, what could be changed. We also had a conversation with her about where we should eat for Play Day.....since Jen is picky. She called me an 'anomoly' when I told her I wouldn't eat tomatoes or cucumbers but that I'd wanted to go skydiving for Play Day (I was informed that was not in the budget)

All in all, evaluations were good.

I am done with those stress-inducing, anxiety-ridden things called on-calls. Done, I say, DONE!!!

Today's title is also the Facebook status I posted at about 9:30 this morning. It, of course, means that I have completed all of my required on-calls at the hospital! Much thanks to Abbas, who had strep throat in mid-February and to Nick, who suggested I take that oncall so that I didn't have to come back next Monday and do one.

Yesterday's oncall was a lovely farewell gift. I was there for 24 hours. I received two phone calls and three pages. My oncall report had I believe six lines in it and three of those were referred to other people. I had one death and one code blue.

I actually did a lot of reading for seminary classes while I was oncall yesterday.

It was also kind of my intent to work on my CPE Final Evaluation while I was oncall. I scrapped that idea, though, when I realized that oncalls produce too much anxiety in me for me to be able to write much of anything. So I read instead and decided to finish my evaluation today.

I left the hospital at about 9:00 this morning, after oncall report. I came home and did laundry because we have to return our lab coats clean and washed. I then ate lunch and then took about a 3 1/2 hour nap. Even though I didn't have many calls last night, one of them was at 3am and I never get much sleep, or at least good sleep, at the hospital.

After my nap, I figured I should go be productive. So I went to the library at the University of Chicago, walked completely around three floors of the bookstacks before finally finding an empty study carrel. I stayed there for over 2.5 hours writing my evaluation. A few weeks ago, when I scanned the document, I didn't think it would be too difficult or too much to worry about. Last week when I actually read it, and talked to others who have been interns, I realized it was going to be more time consuming and more work than I thought it was.

So we had nothing scheduled on Thursday or Friday. I just couldn't get motivated to write more than a few sentences here and there. And then Friday afternoon was spent dealing with a POA issue on my floor. So not much got done.

But now it's done. I'll reread it again, and maybe make some final edits before bedtime, but it's done. It's 9 pages, in 11 pt single spaced Times New Roman. I had no idea I had that much to say about CPE.

5 Down, 1 to Go!

So Friday was solo on-call #5 and next Sunday will be #6...which will be the last!!

Friday day was pretty quiet. Some pages I was able to refer to other chaplains. Got busier in the evening with basic visits. One death in the AM that I had been aware of as being a possibility.

Page at 1:00 for another family of a patient who was near death. They wanted a priest for last rites. I went to offer support and prayer, but since I couldn't do the last rites, they didn't really want me.

I am kinda fascinated (and yet, also frustrated and somewhat annoyed) by the fact that people get upset when there isn't a Catholic priest available at the hospital at any time (this was 1 AM). We do have priests who come at regular scheduled hours. But not one there 24/7. Rush is not a Catholic hospital.

Anyway. I am looking forward to March 15. I am counting down to March 15. Literally. I cross of each day when it's over. And in my planner, I have a countdown in the corner of each day. I am ready for CPE to end. I've actually been ready for it to end way before it ever started. I like my group, I like the other chaplains. I do not like being a hospital chaplain.

March 15 is the final day of CPE. We will graduate and then we will have "Play Day," though we have yet to decide what we're going to do.

2/3 Done!!! With On-Calls, that is!

Yesterday I had On-Call #4. It was a completely different experience than On-Call #3 from a little over a week ago. I think I was being punished for having the quiet one. ;-)

Four people died on my shift yesterday. Oh, wait. That would actually be five, but for the last one, the unit didn't call me until about four hours after the family left, and then only because they noticed they did not have the all-important release of remains form filled out. A form I would have gotten completed had they called me at 2 am instead of 7 am. Anyway.

At least the deaths happened consecutively instead of concurrently. One took about three hours. One took about two and one took about an hour. One didn't take much time at all because the family did not come to the hospital. All I had to do with it was call them and have them fill out the above-mentioned form over the phone.

I also kept getting weird pages yesterday. The page would read "Call holding - dial this number" and when I did, I got a recording of "Please hold while we assist other customers" the first time and the second time, the person who answered said "I'm sorry - the person you are holding for is not available." Odd.

It finally got quiet around 11:30 and I was hoping for an uneventful night.

I get a page at 12:50, about 20 minutes after I'd fallen asleep. She apologized for paging the wrong number.

1:35, after I'd been asleep again for about 10 minutes. A page with not enough numbers to be a phone extension, so I tried a bunch of different combinations, to no avail.

2:07, after I'd been asleep for about 10 minutes. Same as above, different number, was finally able to get a hold of someone. After talking to her, being transferred, being hung up on, and trying back, nurse finally left a message that a patient would like to see me. And yes, that would be now.

So I went and had an intense conversation with a patient for about an hour. At 2:30 in the morning. But he seemed genuinely thankful and helped by the visit.

Page was quiet until 6:51, when they were freaking out about the death that didn't have the form filled out. I told him a chaplain would take care of it and would bring the form over.

7:18 got a phone call from a patient who wanted a visit. Yes, now. Another challenging patient. I got to on-call report about three minutes late. At report, we went over the three reports from the weekend and I led morning prayer.

There were several other pages, referrals and a few other visits, but that's the gist of it.

I walked more than 6 miles.

We then did a verbatim and I left the hospital about 10:45. Came home, ate some lunch. Slept for about 3 1/2 hours.

Friday I'm on call again.

Ashing

Today, I spent the afternoon ashing people. I ashed doctors. I ashed patients. I ashed nurses. I ashed in patient rooms, hallways, in the chapel. I got ashed by another chaplain.

I'm guessing that most of you know what I'm talking about, and it's nothing evil or dirty. Today is Ash Wednesday. We had an Ash Wednesday service at Rush. After the service, all the chaplains got little containers of ashes to take to our units and other areas of the hospital to give ashes to whomever wanted them. I took mine up to my unit and also to Mike's unit because he was post-call today, so he had gone home early this morning. When I got back to the office, Karen asked if I would go back to the chapel and give out more ashes. She and Fern had been there, but about 5 minutes after they left, more people had come, wanting ashes. So I went and ashed some more people, including a child in a stroller.

I guess it's been a while since I've updated the blog. CPE is going along. Three weeks from tomorrow it is officially over. It is unofficially over three weeks from today. Our final day is "Play Day" where we get free food and get to go do something fun...thus, I don't count it as an actual CPE day ;)

I had my third on-call last Friday. The person who was supposed to do it was sick, so they needed someone to cover. Nick came up with the fantastic idea for me to see if I could do it. Then, I would have my time made up and would not have to come back after the unit was over. I had been scheduled on March 19, the Monday after the end of the unit, for on-call to make up the hours that I am in class at LSTC. I thought that was a good idea, so I asked and that's what I did. Everyone was very thankful, since I don't think anyone else wanted to take it. Turned out very well. The pager was very well behaved. I think I got less than 10 pages the entire 24 hours, some of them I was able to pass to other chaplains because they were there and the pages were for their units. I watched some TV and actually slept a decent amount of time. Not the best sleep, but it was sleep!

Classes here at LSTC are going ok. I like both of my in-class classes, Lutheran Confessional Heritage and Worship. I feel like I'm learning a lot. Online history is ok. Life and Letters of Paul....I think I could like the class more if I liked the professor. But at least I'm not in-class, so I only have to deal with him via email and online postings. :) I also feel like I am supposed to be utterly flabbergasted and surprised at what we're learning. And I'm not, really.

But anyway. That's it for now. Tomorrow I get to do Story Theology at CPE. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.