134 - Christina Peterson Pt 2: My Soul Was the Color of Overcast Sky

Continue with nurse and Puyallup and Spokane, Washington native Honored Guest Christina Peterson as she eloquently describes navigating the traumatic grief surrounding her unexpected divorce, the importance of taking advantage of counseling, “going to the moon” for 12-plus hours, how acute care almost cut her career short, her many incredible experiences working in Papua New Guinea with a medical ship, and more!

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to part two of the Christina Peterson Experience. For anyone who listened to that intro and was like, in the world? Go back and listen to episode one, it'll make sense. So that intro was fun, we had fun with that. We had quite a bit of fun talking in the last episode. But now we're going to, I'm not even gonna waste any time, because Christina's got some stories to share. We're gonna dive into the deep end of the pool. right off the diving board and we're gonna spend some time talking about some serious subject matter and then we're gonna come out on the shallow end and you know kind of lighten it up a little bit and give some practical advice and things of that nature we're gonna talk about our career things just whatever kind of comes our way in the midst of our discussion so without further ado welcome back Christina how have you been so much. So good. Well, I'm not sure if you could tell if you go back to listen to episode one, I was just oozing with energy just that I love, love, love, love talking about health nutrition. And again, just wanting to equip nurses, but particularly new grads as you're entering into health care, just to be able to be equipped and just know that you are you're worth taking care of. And a lot of times we are the hardest people to take care of. We're so good at taking care of everybody else. But uh yeah, just you can go back to listen to episode one, pick what you like, start somewhere, um do 1 % exercise snacks. But I'm already giving you a high five for anything that you decide to change, because that is huge. You're already successful. I love it. And those things have helped improve you. As you've already said clearly in your first episode, those things have helped give you strength, give you energy, give you all the things. And that's great enough if life is going smooth and that ship is just on the cleanest, clearest, glassiest waters. And yet, as life does, life-lifes... and that you are no stranger to that process. of course we here at Feeding Our Young do not treat this as an expose nor are we going to ask the nitty-gritty deeply personal crazy questions nor are we going to be exploitative because that's not my heart and it never has been nor will it ever be. That being said, Christina does have stories to share about challenges she's faced in her personal life possibly her professional life and I'm going to turn the mic over to you my friend and you're going to share what you want to share. what you've learned from it, how you've navigated these less than glassy waters, and anything that comes out of that that's practical for us all. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Eric. And ah one of the things I wanted to share is that um I have had a journey with grief and particularly traumatic grief. And that was something that was definitely not planned for. I know, Eric, that you have that as well. um just again, speaking to nurses and to especially new grads like, man, ah life can be amazing and there's so many things, but also the unexpected happens. And just to share, I had moved here from South Carolina in 2021 and in that process had gotten married and was just loving life. My career was going well. And in that process, actually very unexpectedly up going through divorce. It was not my choice. like I said, just because of the detail surrounding that it was very unexpected and very traumatic. And I say that just because I wanted to just wanted to share my experience walking through that and again, maybe some things that would help other people. uh One of the things is that I was working in acute care at the time and I absolutely love my unit. Had the most amazing uh friends and that was so helpful, but I didn't realize, I've walked through some tough things in my life, like to be a nurse, I think you have to be resilient just to even like enter nursing school, to make it through nursing school. and then now you're on your own. And so you already have proved that you are resilient, that you are strong, that you're dedicated, you can be disciplined. So when this circumstance had happened in my life, obviously it was very unexpected. And ah in so many ways, my life was falling apart as I knew it. And yet life doesn't stop. You still have to provide for yourself. You still have to move forward. um So one of the things to tell you is that I had Even in a physiological sense, I didn't realize how much grief can affect a person. Through the circumstances, I had made a choice. You know, this is something happening to me, but I still had a choice in how I was gonna respond. And so I was like, I'm going to heal, I'm going to move on. But it was realizing like my brain was not okay. In so many ways, I felt like my brain was on fire and I was trying. the best I could, uh but what had happened is that I would go to work and I had even cut down my hours. Well, and let me say this is I had the most amazing boss who actually at the time she had lost an adult son. And I was aware of that, but went to her office actually just to share with her what was going on and make some arrangements as far as my... job and whatnot. And she sat with me and we um were both faith based. And so for her to take, for her to be a manager of a very busy unit and take 30 minutes with me, she sat with me, she prayed with me, you know, listened and really just encouraged me. And that was something that I so needed. And so I was just so grateful that she wasn't just my manager, but she was really stepping into being a friend um at that moment and supporting and just, you know, like humanity helping humanity and it was such a such an amazing thing. But when I was going to work at that time, I think that because my circumstances felt so out of control that I was trying to control things at work. And I'm already, know, us nurses were usually type A high achievers. And so it just was magnified. And what was happening is that I was my circumstances were out of control. But in the in the realm of nursing, you can't be perfect. And new grad, was just gonna encourage you that's part of the journey of going from beginner to novice to experienced is knowing what shortcuts you can take, what's safe, what's not, ah how to navigate that. ah But also, you know, to know that you've done a good job even though there's things left that you haven't finished. So it can be challenging, but... I was really experiencing, I was basically working my two shifts a week, but I would go home and for the rest of the week was thinking about all those little details that I forgot or did I do this. obsessing, yes, that is a very good term. And so that was one of the things that I was like, again, just in my circumstances that I was making a choice to heal, but there were things even physiologically that were happening that I... that I was struggling with how to account for. And I will also tell uh anyone on here as nurses, I would say um if you have the opportunity to take advantage of counseling, whether you're going through something or not, I highly recommend it because even as nurses, ah I was going through personal trauma, but even before that, we're dealing with either primary trauma, like if you're working in the ER, you know, watching people come off with crazy situations. uh or we are watching people who are homeless and we're watching people who have such deep emotional need that we are not able to meet and there's kind of that emotional conflict that you're like I came into nursing to help people and I'm not able to meet all of this person's needs and part of it is their situation part of it is the hospital system doesn't allow that so just on a caveat I would say wanting to promote and usually hospitals or healthcare providers uh employers are doing that. And so I would recommend, um again, you made it through nursing school, you probably have buddies that you can make weird nursing jokes with because they understand you, your family won't. But to have somebody that you can have outside of work and talk about those things, um to feel understood, I think is really important. And I had actually already been in counseling partially through COVID, you know, But this particular situation obviously needed more counseling. I had a lot of support at church, but again, it was just so, so tough. um I just couldn't see life beyond where I was at just because it was so devastating. um Right, absolutely. And just that there was a lot of the feelings of injustice and there was a lot of... Yeah, a lot of those feelings and things that were happening and like you said, very, very raw. it was just a lot of processing. And so trying to work and then also, you you have a responsibility to be safe. One of the things I wanted to share out of that experience, it made me, it had a real new awareness though. And again, going to work where I was looking at patients that were homeless and I was like having almost this unhealthy empathy of like, dude, I can understand. how you became homeless, like it takes just one or two steps for things to fall through, you know, medical diagnosis or, you know, grief or whatever. And so that was even kind of scary to me because I was like, you know, you're seeing somebody affected by something that's not too far removed from you. So again, just kind of speaking to new grads that there are things you'll encounter emotionally. And just to be aware, like if that affects you in a certain way, I would just really encourage you to talk to somebody because stuffing it down does no good. And a lot of times, grieving is so hard, but also to say is that crying is so important. It's a re-regulation of our em nervous system. So just to tell you is that that's something, again, whether it's stress or grief or whatever like. Crying is super important to have that reset and to have a safe place to be able to do that, a safe place to grieve and verbalize. Even with patients, know, to say like, this situation bothered me, this situation isn't right. You know, I had this patient who was walking through this or this happened, or I didn't feel that was right. And so there are things that can affect you emotionally. just to be aware of that. But one thing I wanted to share again, just with tips, again, The unexpected happens. know Eric, was, we both have walked through grief, although it was very different circumstances. But one of the things my manager did that was really awesome, and again, I was just, I was going to work, but I was obsessing at home. I wasn't sleeping well. And again, like I had made a choice to heal. I was trying to be positive. I was doing everything that I could, but I was walking through a physiological and emotional process that had been so devastating and so impacting that it just, it just, I wasn't. able to get out from underneath it. And um one of the things that happened was I had gone to talk to my manager and was just telling her that I was struggling. And again, felt comfortable enough to do that. And uh she actually had recommended that we had extended illness time. And again, if you listen to episode one, passionate about health and nutrition, like I don't call in sick, know, my immunity is great and everything, but... uh I didn't know how I was gonna use this extended illness time. It was just kind of sitting in this bank and she actually recommended to me to go to my provider who was a nurse practitioner and basically get a note for me to be able to take some time off but still be paid for that. And I wanted to bring that to light because I didn't realize that that's something that could be done. And again, not necessarily saying that you'd want to do it just because, but it was something for me where again, I was able-bodied, I could walk, you could look at me and be like, yeah, normal day for Christina, but the way my brain was working, the emotions, the profound impact that grief has in that, like I literally felt like a bomb had gone off and I was like, had blood on my hands and I was like hemorrhaging out, you know, and I was like, oh, where's this blood coming from? You know, it's just, it's shock is what it is, you know? And so to be in that place and then trying to take care of other people, and like when I got in my nurse practitioner, I wasn't sure if she would sign the paperwork. but she's like, if your brain is not working properly, you can't do your job. And she said, so I will sign this for you. And that was so validating in that time. And actually what I ended up doing was I have family in Costa Rica. And so I had gotten in touch with them and they were aware of what was going on. But, and partially the area that I live in is overcast eight months of the year. And my soul basically was that color. And so, I needed, I even physically needed sunshine. needed something to look forward to, like I love Spanish. And so that was just such a blessing where I was able to use that EIT. My manager signed off, my nurse practitioner signed off. I bought a ticket to Costa Rica and I spent three weeks there. And that was one of the things that was so key for me to be able to heal. I was in beautiful weather. My family just loved on me. But I wanted to share that in case anyone has. go through an experience to know that that is an option. Because a lot of times, especially in the hospital, everything is so busy, everything is so crazy, and that it's like you think you just have to keep going. And that is not the case. There are resources. And so I just I wanted to share that even as hopefully an encouragement, you know, I pray that nothing happens, but just that, again, there's life, um the unexpected. And so just forward nurses to have all the resources to be able to care for people. For sure, and so very well said. uh, not having, I... Grief? Let's back up. You talked about grief and you know, you and I have gone through different grief experiences. Um, and you and I talked briefly before we started recording about, you know, lot of times we want to compare grief and well, you know, my grief isn't that bad because, you know, it's just my grandma or my grandpa and they lived a full life and blah blah blah. That comparison thing is just human nature, I feel like. You know what mean? And a lot of times what we end up comparing, whether you're talking about two different deaths or a death and a divorce or fill in the blank, you're comparing apples to oranges. So um stop wasting your energy on that futile exercise. But when you're going through grief and you know, grief shows up in all sorts of different ways. uh Of course, I'm passionate about helping those with grief who've experienced the death of a loved one. But um Then I've seen, you know what mean, since I've walked through that walk that my wife and I have walked, then we've grieved different things along the way as life has gone on. uh You know what mean? I've made no, I've not hidden the fact that semi-recently, just within the last year or two years, we've had some significant mental health issues in the family with our own children. And a lot of times that's worse than if it's yourself. Because as a parent, you want to take that away. You want to fix it. You want to do all the things. And so, you know, I mean, I've made no bones about the fact that in nursing, there are sentences that you never thought you'd say, you know, I've been able to, you know, for me, I've given IV arsenic. Like, that's not something you think about when you're in nursing school. em But the same is true in life. And when you're a parent and when you're, know, fill in the blank. And so for us, you know what mean? As a parent, it's like, oh, I never imagined having to go through this, you when you're talking about, what name will we pick? And you know, these babies. And it's not to say we regret anything or wish we didn't have our kids. It's not the direction I'm going with it. The direction I'm going with it is, OK, here's a new challenge. And this challenge brings with it considerable pain and considerable grief. And I love what you said, Christina, about, uh Oh gosh, okay. Where you're walking, you know what mean? It's the walking wounded, the whole, you know what I mean? There's no, you're looking fine on the outside and visibly everything's good and you can do the things, but on the inside you're a mess. And for me it was very much during that time, like I'd go to work and just, ugh, you know what I mean? Like how am I supposed to take care of this batch of patients? How am I supposed to be a uh respectable peer? when I don't give a rat's rear about anything in that moment or, you know, I'm feeling the blank, whatever you're feeling in the moment. And so for you, you you're talking about that extended illness leave for me, it looked like, you know, calling out and it's just like, I can't do it today. I'm calling out. And I mean, you know, it is what it is. I've long, I've been a nurse long enough that I stopped feeling guilty about that part of it. It happened early in my career, you know what I mean, with our son and you know, being exposed to things that maybe reminded me of that. Anyway, and I've done it again, you know, during this little stretch where I just needed the day. uh I need this for me. And, uh but there are still consequences to that. Hopefully not so much that you're pulled into a manager's office and saying, hey, what's wrong? Let's help you so that this stops. But more along the lines of even just unintentional consequences. your peers looking at you differently or you know what mean there's there's one or two peers of mine that I've loved in the past that just for whatever reason they didn't understand and you know what I mean and and so that whole friends off like whatever like I'm I'll still save a life with you whatever but we don't go have dinner after work or, you know, chum it up, right? And so just be aware everybody that there are consequences to those things, but you know what, would I change anything? No. ah Because again, if you're doing this sort of thing and it's an expression of the grief that you're going through and yet you're not doing anything on the backside to try and not fix it, but you know what I mean, get the help that you need. it, yeah. a different story. Then this is something that'll continue in Perpetuum, and that is a whole different ballgame. But as long as you're doing the work and putting in the work to figure out, you know what I mean, how do we navigate these choppy waters, then you gotta do what you gotta do to take care of you. I mean, then we're echoing the theme of the first episode, right? Right. Absolutely. And just to even say is that I know that just for everybody's reference, I was going to say I actually know you, Eric, from church way back in the day and just happened to be when we lived in the same city. You you went to nursing school before I did. But I remember actually attending your son's memorial. And I was, you know, I was a teenager at the time. I had had him in the nursery. But there wasn't that concept of loss or at least to that significance. You know, my heart ached in that sense, but I remember watching you and your wife walk through that. And when I walked through my situation, you guys were actually one of the people that came to mind because yes, it's apples to oranges, but it's like to understand profound loss and to have someone. And I even look, I now have a whole new understanding of psych patients where I'm like, you know, there's a whole gamut in psych as a whole, like Pandora's box with things. I'm not a psych nurse. God bless all you psych nurses. But to say is that I just wonder how much of the things that people that we see in the hospital, know, psychosis and things like that are from grief in that I can understand how people go off the rails because life as you know it is like you don't know if gravity is still going to be in place, you know, like it's just everything has changed. And unless you've walked through that, it's difficult to understand. just to say is that I just honor you, Eric, you and Jenna for continuing. um I look back at your example even years later as I was walking through this experience that not only you guys continue to stay steadfast in your faith, but chose not to become bitter and chose to have a level of... ah vulnerability just in sharing that process and being open. know, because sometimes like you said with grief, you're not sure, you don't want to burden people. ah But also like to be open and say, this is something I'm struggling with, you know, or this is something, it's been hard, but I'm walking through that. So just for new nurses to say is that that's one thing I think we, you are hired as a nurse. And again, Just the healthcare system basically expects that you are a human, but in a lot of ways you are expected to be Superman in terms of your performance. You are expected to show up when you're scheduled. You're expected to pick up extra shifts as needed. You're expected to be able to do your job 100 % of the time. So if there is something happening in your life with you, with your family, and again, it can just even be from things at work because... We, you think a friend of mine actually made this really good comment. said, working in acute care for us, we had an elevator. You walk in the doors, you get in the elevator and you go up to the moon for 12 plus hours. It is a whole nother world where no one except people in that world can understand. You don't get to go outside. You don't get to go to the cafeteria. I mean, depending like, you you don't really get breaks. You don't get to go to the bathroom. And so to understand for somebody else to understand that is very foreign. So Your job is expected to be able to be performed at any time in any capacity. And unless you advocate for yourself, that's what you're expected to do. And again, like Eric, you and I have said, don't necessarily, you you don't want to do that just to be obstinate or call in or things like that. But in monitoring your emotional health and monitoring your mental health, you know, that especially for nurses, think that there's so, so, so much pressure, so, so, much expectation and high liability that if you aren't 100 % or at least 90 on that day or you have something going on, that it is better for you, again, to look weird and maybe not be acceptable to your peers. Keeping that professional relationship, but you need to decide what is best for you. Also in that though, I encourage you to find either a counselor or somebody outside of that that can validate you in that process. Because again, even with your peers not understanding or things like that, and that may be walking through a chronic illness as well. You know, if you have a lot of call outs because of things and it's like, again, I just remember working on the unit where even with my back pain that people... they wouldn't necessarily eye roll, but it's like, you're back again. And it's like, you don't understand. Yes, maybe you understand, but it's not necessarily life and death. But I am literally having, you know, seven out of 10 back pain and I can barely get up from a chair. I probably shouldn't be here trying to work a 12 hour shift, but I feel guilty, you know, like my coworkers need me. And that's even part of the trauma process. So for anyone listening, just saying like part of that comes with experience. But just know that your I just want to say that your experience is valid. and your experience is not anyone else's. um And so I may have had more call-outs. I needed to take that EIT time because of something that I walked through. Would have preferred not to do that, but that was what I really needed at the time to start to heal. So I would just encourage you with that, again, just to be mindful because that's something entering healthcare and particularly nursing with so many pressures. that just be mindful and to not diminish your experience, whatever that is, because your experience is not somebody else's. And on, if I may piggyback on that too, from our side of the standpoint too, even though you may have walked through grief, I have walked through grief, Christina's walked through grief, walking through grief, I don't want to necessarily say past tense for any of us, for whatever, but the point is that you've experienced that and you'll still find yourself needing to give grace to others because you need to remind yourself you have no idea what they're going through. So someone may come off as being an absolute jerk and you're like, well, okay, I've been hurt by that person. not gonna, you know what I mean? Extend that grace and I'm not saying continually do it over and over again. You know what I mean? Keep getting hurt by the same person. That's not what I'm advocating for here, but just give grace until proven otherwise. You know what I mean? That maybe someone really is just a jerk, but I would hope that wherever you're working, they're pretty darn good at hiring people. uh every once in a while. someone squeaks their way through and you're like, how are you a nurse? I've actually, I've seen that myself and it's like, okay. Anyway, I'm going off the trail at this point. So uh thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for being open. Thank you for sharing that part of your life. Now I'm gonna ask that you share the less, the more shallow end of the pool portion of your life. And that is, you know, totally nursing related. So share with us your nursing career because I have a hunch you've done a little bit more than inpatient nursing. Well, I just chuckle because my brother was like, you seem to change jobs every couple of years. And I'm like, well, I've had some varied experiences, but I started off actually in acute care straight out of school. And just to be honest, I was not that was not a good experience. And I wasn't sure actually if I was going to continue in nursing. God bless my mother, who was like, don't quit. You know, she's a nurse as well. So and. I can say now, know, mom's no best, but at the time I was just like, didn't know if I wanted to really say that. But I just had in the hospital that I was at was in the process of being stole sold chronically understaffed. And so it just between a multiple combination of factors, it was just a tough, tough experience. But essentially. introduction to the field of nursing, shall we say. exactly. And that was actually what led me back to my bachelor's degree, because I was like, shoot, I need some more education. um But I did acute care for a little while straight out of school. And then I decided to do assisted living, long-term care. I also was in an allergy clinic. and mostly in the shot room, really good at giving epi, uh watching, you know, some people, their eyes are swollen shut and you know, they their little tickle in the throat and they're like, yeah, my throat feels itchy. Come with me. Let me, let me get you taken care of. So that was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed that. uh But actually one of my most significant experiences was that I had the incredible privilege. I was with YWAM. uh YWAM is Youth with a Mission. It's a Christian missions organization. I was, I started with a program that's called a discipleship training school that was originally only six months, but I ended up, I went to Australia, up being there a total of almost three years. And I was based there in Townsville and went to and from Papua New Guinea working with a medical ship. it was really amazing where again we talk about nursing I was actually just sharing with a co-worker the other day um diseases that we saw so we saw TB a lot of TB and there there's a lot of drug resistant TB lot of malaria um and so that was something again not something you deal with every day the whole lot of humidity and so their skin diseases you get a mosquito bite that would get infected and then you know suddenly off the rails and then that wound goes bad and sepsis. Also interestingly it was so let me just say this the culture was absolutely amazing I just really feel like they have God's heart on generosity and they will just love you with everything they have and they're so generous and and give you the shirt off of their back and give you the best food and just amazing, amazing people. But in terms of like healthcare, which is one of the things we were there to do, unfortunately, a lot of the government has not followed through on their promises to do like patrols. So we would see kids five, six years old with no immunizations and even where we would, so we stayed on the ship. Sometimes we stayed on the ship. Sometimes we stayed in villages. We would take a little zodiac out. get our backpacks for the day and we were hospitals. I put that in air quotes because ah even some of these best hospitals didn't have a generator for 24 hours. So there was no cold chain for vaccines. Very, very few supplies. I remember one point I was on wound care at this hospital. and we had brought a wound care backpack, but looking at their supplies and there were a couple tubes of some fresh diaper cream, some that was just hardened, uh you know, some bandage shears that were being soaked in a kidney dish and a little bit of gauze, but I kept having cockroaches walk over my area. And I was like, oh, Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore. So just those types of things. uh Also where there was a lot of uh There's still a tribal element with a lot of the villages. so machetes are used for just about everything from mowing your lawn to the kitchen. And so with a huge portion of alcohol use, and it's a very male dominated society where women, I don't know if you, there's arraigned marriages and women are given in a dowry. So just to say it's more kind of a. property oriented, you know, what the man says goes um and the wife belongs to him. And so we saw wounds. actually saw one woman who um she had lost her arm, like just a little bit above the elbow. And it wasn't fresh or anything, but telling me because her husband had come after her with a knife and a drunken stupor, saw a child who had had his fingers chopped off by another child with a machete. And so they were sewn. But of course, in such a wet, humid environment, had gotten infected. And also culturally, I was talking with a friend of mine who's a labor and delivery nurse yesterday. And uh one in seven women in Papua New Guinea actually die in childbirth, which is a crazy statistic. Part of it is some areas that in the bush bush, uh cultural aspects are that the women will go. and build shelter for herself. She will have the baby. She will gather food, supplies, and everything and take care of the infant and herself until she stops bleeding by herself. And so you're just talking about elements. You're talking about, you know, like, and these people work hard, but, know, just if you have to plant root vegetables, women fish, but, you know, if you just had a baby, like, crazy things. then also where we had even put together em packages, little care packages, birthing packages that had, you know, clean razor blade because sometimes, you know, baby is born out in the village. There's a lot of em it's a hard cultural aspect because traditionally babies are born at home, you know, with a family member, midwife, something like that. But they haven't had a lot of prenatal care. It might be a two day walk to the clinic. It could be a five day walk or, you know, depending by canoe. So the hospital resources aren't necessarily available. And then there's a lot of the, fear mongering or whatnot to go to a hospital, know, that's where you're gonna die. But so it's just hard. Also, you're required to provide your own sheets, your own food. granted, Americans, our hospital system is not the best, but we have it. pretty good, you we have medicine, we have our own sheets, we get food from the cafeteria. So just things like that. And even I was telling this labor and delivery nurse that I remember seeing, was like a four or five day old baby that had gone septic, you know, it just was cut with a dirty razor blade. And we, there's just something so profound in seeing that where there's this baby and you know, gone septic, super high heart rate, we're given I am penicillin and just praying that it's like. God, we need to see you move over the life of this child. Like it makes me tear up even thinking about it because it was so tender and so vulnerable to see, you know, see people in such a vulnerable circumstance. so some amazing experiences, but also dealing with diseases. Like I did not realize maybe this was a nursing school, but I had always been taught TB was respiratory. And we ran into like um nodal TB, vital TB and stuff like that. And I was like, this is crazy. And then even in the hospitals, was one hospital we were at, the malarial patients were in the same ward as the TB patients. They had no masks, no mask period, not even N95. And there were holes in the screen. So you better believe that this was cyclic because the mosquitoes would of course take the blood from the malarial infected ones and then bite the TB patients and the TB patients are breathing. And then of course, you know, have drug resistant TB where patients would start to feel better. And so they would go back to their village, you know, a week's walk away and then have part of the bacteria that's killed, but not all of it. And so now we have drug resistant TB. And so it's just, but it was an incredible, incredible experience. I got to sleep in under mosquito nets. I hugged my toilet when I got home. We used a lot of squatty potties, uh but it was just, it was an incredible incredible, incredible experience. ah just to tell nursing students, I was gonna say, you don't have to necessarily like, you can do something like that if you wanted to do a gap year. But the organization I was with actually takes volunteers from all over the world and you can do that in a two or three week experience. And I just encourage people to do that because I think it, I think I got more out of it than what I was serving. There's so much joy in the kids and in the family and they are so, so grateful. and with we did some antenatal care and I got to use like the horn thingy. Yeah, like not even. Yeah, the the what do they call it? Is it the not the otoscope, but you know, the horn thingy that you listen to the the fetoscope like way back in the movies. Like where you have the narrow end in the ear and the large end in the... Yeah, pretty crazy. So, and, and I got to help deliver two babies, which is crazy. You guys, file this under sentences you never thought you'd, you know what I mean, say ah when you become a nurse. know, Christina, thank you for opening the curtain behind that experience because like for us, we all, every last one of us, myself included, we get stuck in our little routines, we get stuck in our box, we get stuck in our, well, this isn't good enough, well, this isn't good enough, well, this isn't good enough. And you're right, our standard is a different standard. We live in a first world country, I get that. But. You do something like that even for one of those two week, three week cycles. uh It's eye opening, it's life changing, and it gives you a nice reminder, hopefully, of how good we have it Well, Christina, as I always say, I hate ending these things, but time is unfortunately not infinite. ah That being said, let's close in our traditional manner. You had used three words to describe nursing school. what were they and why did you use them? I had said that nursing school is, I remember rigorous, it is all consuming and demanding. Yeah, basically just saying is y'all are heroes for making it through nursing school. We know that it's tough. You are amazing to be standing and excited. Actually, uh again, you just you've made it through a really, really hard program. Mmm, awesome. And if you had one piece of advice that you want the listener to walk away with, what would that be? Take supplements. Actually, I don't know. You got to listen to episode one. But no, I think I would just say start. We talked about the readiness concept to change. um I would just say start somewhere. It starts in your mind to start thinking about that, what you can do to, how you can take care of yourself and just value yourself and, know. just prolong your nursing career ah and just feel better. But you know, what is what is one thing the one percent that you can do just to start changing and again, be six to pride yourself on being successful in that. Oh, and something else that's really important, just like you have your nursing school buddies, I was gonna say, know, trauma bonds are real, but ah your coworkers or people around you, like find people that you can run with ah that will basically carry you during the tough times. I was gonna say, even just in my grief story, I was gonna say, I had coworkers that seriously became like just a safe net to me and carried me through a really tough season. Just join yourself to people who, and you know, nurses are amazing. Nurses are really high quality people. We're rich in friendship, supporting each other. So just find people to run with so that when you have a tough season that, you know, they can support you and then you can be that to somebody else. well said, the whole purpose of this podcast really, right? Feeding our young, not eating our young, and if you find those that aren't fitting that qualification that Christina just said, there are others who do. And so just like I said, get that nourishment so you can then turn around and nourish others. So Christina, thank you so much for giving up of your time this afternoon with what brief sun came out in your God forsaken neck of the world. Exactly. I'm gonna have to head back east to make sure I actually, you know, get some good quality sunshine. Well, we're done, so we're gonna cut this and you're gonna go run outside and fetch it before it runs away. Yes, thank you so much for having me on, Eric. And I'm excited just to hear about the amazing nursing students that are entering next generation of health care workers. Mm-hmm, and they are amazing. Have a great one.