Life lessons from the pool

Yesterday, my pool was cloudy and murky.

Since I relish in my singular alone time at the pool, I got in anyway & I did my laps. After all:

• I Needed Relief.
• I Needed my daily exercise.
• I needed relief from the 95-degree heat beating down on me.
• I needed to try to forget the drama of the morning.
• I needed to soothe my back.
• & Relax

Suddenly my murky solo time was broken.

2 girls came in and upon seeing the pool said :

Eww gross! I’m not putting my head in, I don’t want to get sick!

I then realized how foolish I had been.

I got out & almost immediately felt a sore throat.
Yesterday & today I’m paying. Fever, earache, cold symptoms.

I get it.

~ It was my choice~.

But that doesn’t make the sickness less painful..
It doesn’t devalue my worth & ability to heal…
Today I am unable to do much of what I need to or think clearly.

It actually hurts to talk so I choose not to.

Relationships/ jobs might be lacking in communication for a minute. And honestly, I’m too exhausted to explain.

That gap of realizing how foolish we were, may span longer than a few minutes, the illness might be worse for some, the conditions different.

That gap might last years. As if we are in some kind of evil spell. Others might think we’re crazy. But we are just doing our thing.. Trying to get through the day.

As a nurse, I was taught to soothe, heal & provide comfort.

Regardless of the source of the injury or pain…

In fact, as nurses, it’s not our place to diagnose… It’s actually out of our scope of practice to diagnose.

But we can treat the symptoms, calm a crying child, ease a feverish pale forehead of an elderly lady.
Decrease the vomiting,

We don’t question them..
Why did you get sick? Why are you wasting my time & money? Why don’t you make better choices?

We just sooth & heal & try to NOT inflict more pain. We give comfort to help them get back to the quality of life they had before.

We can recommend someone with heart failure to avoid bacon. We can tell them all the negative effects like swelling, obesity etc. But if they choose to eat a pound of bacon then have those consequences, we don’t say “If you ever eat bacon again and need treatment for this we are going to turn you away” or post memes about:

Why is Lasix given to heart patients over & over again when Narcan has to be bought? 

Or other ridiculous illness shaming memes.

(Which by the way- narcan isn't free in most places)

No, we give them lasix over and over and over, or send them to the hospital for treatment….as many times as they need it.

And we certainly don’t look them up and tell them to “get over it”. I realize bacon isn’t illegal, but neither is addiction.

I know when a child or someone we love is hurting, we frantically search for a solution and someone or something to blame. It is a self preservation moment. By trying to make sense of something, we attempt to deflect the pain and misery of it. The unfairness of it all, is somehow self- soothing in the moment. But it ends up leaving us more miserable & powerless, unless we are actually promoting change without blaming other hurt people.

My son is in very murky waters. So murky that I can’t even fathom the results. It literally takes my breathe away. I just watched a five hour video on worshipping false Gods. Is MY false God FEAR? We know where that comes from. What can smother fear? LOVE.

I have to keep loving, no matter what. I have to stop blaming & shaming him.

The actions of an addict, if left untreated, will result in illegal and possibly immoral behavior. Even then, we could do society a favor by judging less and brainstorming or helping more. We could also leave the “diagnosing & labeling” to the higher ups. 🌼like God.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

Only those who are faultless have the right to pass judgment upon others (implying that no one is faultless and that, therefore, no one has such a right to pass judgment).