Update...

It’s been a couple of days since my last post... so here’s an update.

In recent news, the ELCA and Trinity are paying for me and six other students to attend the Congregation-based Organizing Strategic Summit (CBOSS) event in Ft. Worth, TX in two weeks. Congregation-based organizing is about working for justice and the good of all people through congregations and faith communities. I’m pretty excited, I think it will be an awesome conference. I hope to learn a lot during the three days we’ll be there.

In other news, I’ve been on call at the hospital since last night at 9. Thankfully, last night was mercifully quiet, but I did have an early morning wake up call and wound up going into the hospital at 6 this morning. I then was back in at 10 and then again at noon. I was able to get out of the hospital at around 2:00 this afternoon and stay out until about 7:30 this evening. I had seven pages for four patients, all of whom died. Four deaths and I still have about nine more hours on call. I’m not really sure where I’m at with all of this... January was a very quiet month for me. I was on call six times and only had to go into the hospital once during those six times. I had a whole Friday night/Saturday where I didn’t have to go in at all. It was really weird. Today is sort of a little more normal for me... I usually get paged and wind up at the hospital a couple of times at least. This is, however, probably close to the greatest number of people I’ve had die in such a short period of time... and I’ve had nothing else. Usually I get somebody who makes it... at least for the time being. There also seems to be something about having such a quiet month and then the first time I’m on call in February, boom, I get hit with four deaths. Yet, in many ways, I’m detached enough and ok enough with death that it doesn’t bother me as much as I think it would have eight or ten months ago. I don’t know... really, I’m doing ok. Even in the midst of the deaths, I have had a couple of really cool experiences today. Two families were really big on telling stories, so it was neat to hear about the person each time. The last one though was very sad - 29 year old diagnosed with lung cancer in September coded tonight and didn’t make it. He was married six months ago... was diagnosed two weeks after their honeymoon. His wife, her mom, and his mom were very emotional (I definitely would be) and I don’t think the staff quite knew what to do about it. The other was very low key and all the family wanted was a prayer. Anyway, that’s probably more than any of you wanted to know... but I felt I needed to process some of it. Let’s just hope that tonight is quiet still because I’ve got to teach Sunday school in the morning. =)

I believe that’s it for now... at least all of what is on my mind. Things are going pretty well here... busy as usual though. I’ll be reflecting on some of the internship stuff in the next couple of days I’m sure. One of my meetings got moved up to Monday night... so maybe then I’ll start.

Kate