Nursing Thaime

My job last year in Baltimore was a teacher without a teaching degree. I like to joke that my job here in Nong Khai is a nurse without a nursing degree. However, give me about four years and hopefully that statement will no longer be true because as of about two months ago, I have decided that upon completion of this volunteer year I will be applying to nursing programs. That’s right, Bridgid is becoming a pediatric nurse practitioner.

I know what you’re thinking. It probably sounds something like “What happened to your desire to become a pediatric health psychologist?” or “Why do you have a pattern of choosing long three word career titles?” or “I thought you passed out when you saw blood?” Well friend, while psychology will always fascinate me and I still think the human brain is just about the coolest thing besides being able to spend a whole day in pajamas or figuring out a song sounds so much better with headphones on, I have realized a lot about myself in my time in Thailand and a lot of it is dichotomous to the characteristics needed of a psychologist.

Although psychologists do spend most of their time just listening to individuals, which I love, they also spend a great amount of time initiating and prompting conversations, which I can’t say is very high on my things I enjoy list. When I pictured myself being a psychologist and thought about what would be my favorite part of being in that career, I imagined myself sitting at the bedside of a patient playing checkers. I don’t know why it was always checkers, because I’m actually quite a mediocre checker player, but alas it was always checkers in this daydream of mine. No words were ever exchanged, just quick smiles passed in acknowledgment of the subsequent move and a series of varying emotional sound effects. My ‘Disorders in Adolescence’ professor my junior year of college, who was also a part-time practicing private practice psychologist named Professor Peter Parker (just kidding, his name was David Smith, but that kills my alliteration streak), told our class about a teenage client with whom he would play checkers every single session for an hour for six months before the patient felt comfortable talking to him about the real reasons he was in therapy. This must be where I got my checkers daydream from but there is one difference in Professor Peter Parker’s experience and my fantasy work life – he eventually needed to start talking with his patient about the problems he was facing. Now, I love having conversations with people, I don’t want you to think Thailand has made me antisocial. But what Thailand has taught me is how much more I enjoy and how my talents lie in being a presence. I think words are such a powerful force but I think the absence of words can often be just as potent.

My current Thai comprehension level is quite good; I do not want to knock all of the hard work I have put in to get to this point. But still, I cannot have very in-depth conversations with those I live; I just don’t have the vocabulary needed. Because my conversations remain surface level, I have to make sure that my actions are anything but. This may mean spending extra time on a bed bath to apply lotion and massage the left side of Wanna, a recovering stroke patient. Likewise, it often looks like drawing pictures of monkeys and princesses to keep Nonnie company while she completes her homework or helping Pi Bon cut vegetables for lunch even though she can do it ten times faster and rarely almost includes a pinky finger with the eggplants.

The moment I realized I wanted to be a nurse was another similar seemingly commonplace interaction in my workday. I had been changing the pamper of one of the bedridden patients, Si, and needed to also change the dressing on the bedsore on her lower back. The bedsore is about the size of a baseball and is almost completely open, going deep into her muscle tissue due to inadequate attention during her two-year stay in Nong Khai Hospital following a stroke. I was suddenly reminded of watching Crisidad, the registered nurse on staff, clean Si’s wound on my first day of work back in August. With two pairs of tweezers in hand and a sterilized kit of two metal cups of cotton balls doused in a bacterial agent and a saline solution, respectively, and a tray of two small gauze pads and one large gauze dressing, he first encircled the wound with the bacterial agent, taking one of the three cotton balls at a time and meticulously surrounding the wound in one fell swoop. Next, he similarly cleaned the inside of the wound with the cotton balls covered in saline, making sure to also move the tweezers deep under the overarching skin in his circular motion. Then, he placed the first small gauze pad in the remaining saline solution, using the tweezers to squeeze out any excess. Using his left hand to put a small amount of pressure on Si’s back to create a sturdy base, he then placed the gauze of saline into her wound, using the tweezers to make sure it went into every crevice of the wound. Repeating this step with another gauze pad, he finally finished by covering the wound with the large gauze dressing and securing it with three vertical strips of tape.

Watching this process on my second day in Thailand, I had a really hard time watching. Seeing Crisidad need to move his tweezers deep under Si’s skin to make sure the moist gauze stayed in the wound to facilitate the generation of new skin re-growth, my natural squeamish tendencies kicked in quite fast. Upon finishing, he asked me if he thought I would be able to clean and bandage Si’s wound in the next few months with proper training and assistance. I replied with an unconvincing “I think so” as I tried to regain my composure.

Today, I can clean and bandage Si’s wound blindfolded if I needed to. Often, actually, I can’t see when I’m in the process of cleaning her wound because my face is too small for my face mask and many times it goes into my eyes; so in many ways I have done it blindfolded before. I don’t even bat an eyelash when moving her skin and making sure the gauze goes in-between her exposed lower back muscle and the skin that is trying so hard to grow back. Half of this is because of that whole small face/ large mask thing. Blinking really doesn’t help in the keeping my eyes exposed department. But the other half is because it doesn’t faze me anymore.

I realized, on this particular day, that the reason it did not faze me anymore was because I did not think about the quite ghastly appearance of the wound but rather that I needed to take as much care as possible to clean her wound to make sure that it could heal as quickly as possible. When I stopped thinking about myself and how queasy I could become and instead focused on Si and providing her with the best treatment I am capable of giving, I was able to bring myself into a different mindset of being present with her and her experience. It was at this moment that I realized that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I want to come along with people, especially children, in their often extremely difficult hospital experiences, making sure they are given the best care possible in a nurturing and comfortable environment. I want to be a presence for patients to know that they are not alone in their fight. I want to be a support for parents in knowing that their ill child is in good hands. I want to be a source of encouragement for small victories of improvement. I want to play checkers at a patient’s bedside when they can’s sleep during my night shift.

Author Donald Miller said, “It’s always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.” For most of my life I have been trying to sprint from one thing from the next, even though I’m a worse sprinter than I am a checkers player. If there is one thing that being here has taught me though, is the necessity to slow down. Things will fall into place when they are meant to. That may mean having an ever-changing career plan that looks a little like International Popstar --> Jesse McCartney’s Housewife --> Teacher --> FBI Agent working in the missing person’s department --> Vogue Marketing Director --> Teacher (again) --> Autism Behavioral Specialist --> Pediatric Health Psychologist

-->Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. The smartest thing I have ever learned is that I don’t have all the answers. But that’s okay. Sometimes answers are given in your eight-year-old self realizing that you are better than just being a housewife of a celebrity. And sometimes they are given in changing a dirty diaper. Sometimes you just have to notice the small still voice whispering answers to the questions you have been living out. Who knows, it might just tell you are supposed to be a nurse. Or maybe that you are the one meant to be Jesse Mccartney’s wife… I think he’s still single.