School, Mav's lecture, and Jonah vs. Job

Hello, everyone. It's been a while. I've been in clinicals and doing lots of school work. Today was my last day of clinicals for this semester. Thanks to Dr. Jennings and Dr. Chapman for letting me tag along and for all the great learning opportunities. I enjoyed them.

The first day of the pediatric clinicals was very different. I have never worked in a pediatric outpatient setting and on the way home I was thinking, "What am I doing?" It goes without saying it's completely different than mediflight. I've always been the type that has to feel competent at something to enjoy it, and looking in ears took a little bit of getting used to. On the first day, I went home thinking, "it is so much easier to intubate a 24-weeker than it is to look in a kid's ear." After about the third day, I really started to enjoy it and the ears are getting easier. I'm going to do some clinicals again in December to get an early start on next semester's hours, and I'm looking forward to them.

I heard that Mav's story was on the radio this morning for the Children's Miracle Network radia-a-thon. I think it's on 97.something. I'll have to find the paper to be sure. It's supposed to be going on through tomorrow. I'm glad they aired it. I was wondering if they would since it wasn't the typical "look-our-miracle-baby-made-it" kind of story.

Speaking of little Mav, I went to the meeting last week at Children's to speak with Dr. Stull, CMN, and my step-mom, Teresa, about what to do with the money. He had a suggestion that Greg and I loved. He said the amount we have is about the amount needed to sponsor a lecture from an expert in the field. So, that means they'll pick out someone who's a big name in pediatric cardiology and have them come to lecture the doctors, nurses, and med students on the latest advances/innovations/practices in pediatric cardiology or something related to that field and sweet baby Mav will be sponsor/reason/whatever it will be called for the lecture. All that being said, he's going to talk with Dr. Overholt (the chief of cardiology) to see what he thinks (or if he has any better suggestions) and then they're supposed to email and let me know. I haven't heard anything yet. He said it could be an annual event as well as long as we continued to have the funding. So, we'll wait and see what they say. I hope it all works out. I think that's a great way to honor little Mav.

The kiddos have been doing well, and everyone except Greg is over the bouts of illness. He caught it worse than the kids and has been doing breathing treatments to try to get his lungs cleared up. But, hey, this is just normal stuff. Stuff to be thankful for.

Just some food-for-thought... Maddie and I went to church last weekend and there was an amazing guy named Afsheen (sp?) that was speaking. His sermon really got to me. He spoke about Jonah and the whale and how Jonah kind of had a bad attitude. There were instances where he ran from God and got mad at him. Then he spoke about Job and how eventhough he lost everything, he continued to be faithful and didn't get mad. I'm not doing this sermon any justice, but I walked out thinking about how much I have been like Jonah - mad, ungrateful, etc. And how I need to be more like Job. I've felt like the last few years for our family has been a "Job" kind of experience - not just with Mav, but with the many other issues we've faced. I just haven't handled it the best way. I've decided I can't keep on being mad. God helped us get through the past couple of years in numerous ways, and to be mad because he took Mav discredits everything good he did. Soooo, maybe this will be a turning point in my life, once again.