Tossing a bone...

Life is crazy with both of us working and keeping up with Susanna and the house. Here's a picture of her, taken yesterday, when she was out with Nani (my mom) on a house tour. Susanna is now 15 months old, weighs 22 lbs 9 ozs, and is 31" tall. She is an absolute delight. She's not walking yet, due to low muscle tone. We're working with Early Intervention, and she's receiving physical therapy on a weekly basis. She should be walking with ease by late spring at the absolute latest. I'm personally hoping that she'll be walking by the 18 month mark.

The good news? The Early Intervention team evaluated EVERYTHING, and she is either on target or advanced in every area except for gross motor skills (50% delay) and fine motor skills (30% delay). In other words, we caught this early enough that it shouldn't affect her on a long-term basis. Her cognitive, speech, and social skills are fine, and those are what matter most to us.

Week 6 Reflections

Contrary to my beloved husband's statement, I have not abandoned this blog. I have, however, been very busy. To help you stay connected, I thought I'd begin posting my weekly reflections. Each week I am required to write a one-page journal of sorts about any major relationships, events, or realizations from the week. My supervisor is the only one who sees this reflection, but I'll share it with you. However, if there is information that I deem too personal, I'll edit it out before posting.

FYI, we're all assigned a few floors, where we do rounds every few days among the patients and staff. Mine are: Labor/Delivery, Mother/Baby, NICU (neonatal intensive care), Pediatrics, Hematology/Oncology (Hem/Onc), 4 West (oncology), and 5 Annex (orthopedics).

This week I’ve felt like I’m making progress with the Labor & Delivery staff. I’ve now received three referrals for pastoral care, including one on Wednesday evening. A young woman had miscarried at 14 weeks gestation, and was still holding the fetus in her hands when I arrived. It was so tiny (about the length of a credit card) and very red, yet was fully formed. The more death calls I attend (whether they be for a 14-week old fetus or an 87-year old adult), the more I realize that pastoral presence, prayer, and words of scripture are the best gifts that I can offer a family at the moment of death. Anything else seems so trite.
Now that I’ve been doing my rounds for over a month, I’ve realized that 4 West and 5 Annex pretty much compete for the majority of my time. In general, I can visit all my other floors within 90 minutes, because there are either very few patients who need my attention or (as in the case of Hem/Onc) the patients either don’t want visitors or are sleeping. This week I was able to have some very meaningful visits with patients, including two women dying of cancer. One had just been told that her cancer was untreatable and all they (meaning the medical team) could do was make her comfortable. She went home on Wednesday. The other one is still a patient (according to my census, since I haven’t made it to the floor yet) and has pancreatic cancer. She knows that the disease is terminal, but she has gone to amazing lengths to stay alive and be with her family as long as possible. She currently has a feeding tube and can’t eat solid foods. She has not been home since April, when she was diagnosed. She’s been in and out of several hospitals and has been staying in a nursing home. I wonder what her quality of life is and if I would go to those lengths to stay alive.
Among other reasons, I wanted to do a residency program so I could figure out what was "wrong" with me and fix it (in a manner of speaking). Even four months ago, I felt like a failure in many areas of my life, especially professionally. My learning goals and early experience in this program have been shaped by my experience in the parish. While I still think my learning goals are good ones, I am gaining perspective on my parish experience and am realizing that it was not ALL my fault, or even mostly my fault. Was I partially responsible? Of course, but a lot of it had to do with dynamics of the system and factors beyond my control. My interactions with patients, staff, and colleagues have been very encouraging and affirming. I’m not perfect and can certainly grow in some areas, but neither am I a total loser. As I’ve slowly begun re-gaining my self-confidence, I’ve had the exciting realization that I am not a failure and definitely have many gifts for ministry. Furthermore, in my next ministry setting (wherever it is) I have confidence that I will be able to use my experience and knowledge to become an effective minister.

Hijacking the blog for some cooler vibrations...

Well, since apparently my wife has abandoned this blog like yesterday's underwear, I'm going to make some use of it. Since we've moved into the house, I've been slowly doing repairs each weekend. Today's adventure was the thermostat, which is an old crusty 1970ish style model that is original to the house. You can see what I mean below:

Since I was already at Home Depot today to get an air filter, I stopped by and surveyed the programmable thermostats and got a significant upgrade. This model allows you to program it for 4 different time slots per day and each day can be controlled independently. It's also nice since it will also support a heat pump with backup heat supply, which we'll probably be having to do in a year or so(The A/C and heat are about 14 years old and original to house as well). It took me about an hour to install it, mainly testing it to make sure it was working properly and to program it. The final result is shown below:



Maybe by next weekend I can have the doggie door delivered and installed for Simon. I"m planning on installing an in-wall unit from PetSafe at this point unless I can find another alternative. He can really annoying about going in and out at times and I want to leave the back door closed as much as possible.

Surrounded By Boys...

In the past two weeks, three of my friends have had baby boys, and another couple just found out that their baby (in-utero) is a boy. So congrats to Alex (Andrew and Tracy), Robert (Amanda and Jack), and Ty (Alyssa and Andy) who entered this world last week. And then I can't wait to meet Joshua (due in February) whose excited parents are Joel and Melissa. Woohoo!

So, I have a request. Would someone PLEASE have a girl? I have all of these cute little girl clothes that I would love to lend to someone. And Susanna wants a girl friend to play with...boys are great, but there's nothing like girl time!

Pastoral Care at Riverside: The Cast of Characters

So now that you know what I'm doing, I thought I'd give you a snapshot of who I work with:



Doug is the Director of Pastoral Care and our CPE Supervisor. He's been at Riverside for as long as I've been alive, but he was probably younger than I am when he started. Doug is one of those people who is always surprising you; just yesterday I found out that he drives a Mustang convertible. Anyway, he is the primary reason why I applied to Riverside. He has a reputation as a great supervisor. Plus, he's United Methodist and went to this GREAT college in southwest Virginia. Teeny little place called Emory & Henry...



Judy is the staff chaplain and basically does all the morning and early afternoon work so that the residents and interns can be in seminars and supervision. She gets here at 5:30 a.m., prays with all of the people going into surgery, and then does rounds of the ER and ICU, and takes any pages until noon. She usually goes home around 2:30 p.m. Judy is very thoughtful; she's the sort of person who remembers birthdays (she even got mine!) and provides "survival kits" for us

Helen is the Office Coordinator, and as she put it, "I'm your Mom." She knows a lot about chaplaincy, the hospital, and how the department works. She's pursuing a call to vocational ministry, and plans to take seminary classes eventually. Helen is very cool and is much more than an adminstrative professional. In fact, if a disaster were to happen, she would be leading one of the three chaplain teams!

The other two residents are:

M is in her late twenties, is single (and very attractive, if any of my single male readers are interested), and originally from Dallas (although, thank goodness, she is not a Cowboys fan). She was in the Air Force for several years after college. M is very down-to-earth, thoughtful, and puts people at ease quickly. However, she's also the kind of person you'd love to hate, if it weren't for the previous qualities. She always looks put-together and stylish, even after 13 hours on-call. I'd kill for her wardrobe, but she's about five sizes smaller than me, so it wouldn't do any good. :) She's Baptist, and will finish seminary in May.

S is in his late thirties, is married with a toddler, and originally from Cincinatti. He's a very friendly and welcoming person and currently pastors a church part-time (yes, both my co-residents are masochists). S graduated from seminary a couple years ago and is also Baptist. He's also a Bengals fan, but I'm trying not to hold that against him.

We also have five pastoral interns, who are doing their FIRST unit of CPE. They're mostly here on Mondays.

We all (so far) get along very well, and I can't see that changing much. The staff tends to eat lunch together every day and we have a staff meeting most mornings. We also gather for devotions in the morning, and take turns leading that. It's a very diverse group (although we're all Christian), which is pretty cool.

OK Patti, WHAT Are You Doing This Year???

For the next twelve months (until August 31, 2009) I will be doing what is called a "residency in Clinical Pastoral Education." What the heck is that, you ask? When I'm pressed for time, I simply tell people that I'm a hospital chaplain. It's simple and it's fairly true. However, I'm not pressed for time now. I'm on call tonight and am killing time on the computers in the doctors' lounge (to which we have access, strangely enough).

Those of you who have known me a while may remember the work I did at Hospice the summer of 2005. That was my first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. Simply put, it's clinical (hospital, hospice, nursing home, etc) work combined with supervision, seminars, and reflection. You do pastoral care in a clinical setting, you reflect on and receive feedback regarding your work, and then you put into practice what you have learned. Most denominations either require or recommend a unit or half unit for ordination, and most people do that first unit and move on to bigger and better things.

So that's CPE in a nutshell. I love it, but there are times when it's really emotionally draining. As part of our reflection process (which is mostly done through "verbatims", or accounts of patient/family visits), we have to pinpoint any "hot buttons" that the visit may have touched. For example, if someone had a difficult time providing care for a dying alcoholic because his/her father was an alcoholic and the visit brought back painful memories. That sort of thing. With the right supervisor and the right peer group, CPE can turn out to be a very powerful and healing force in someone's life and ministry.

So...that's what I'll be doing until next August. I'll actually be completing FOUR units of CPE. It's a full-time program, so I work from 8:30-5:00 Monday through Friday, plus four on-call nights a month. I actually get to go home early the day after my on-call shift, so that's kind of nice. When I'm on-call, I stay at the hospital and take pages from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. I still have to be at work at 8:30, HOWEVER, I usually leave after our seminars are completed, around 10:00 or 11:00 a.m.

It's a paid position (although considerably less than I was making as a pastor) with benefits. Once I'm done, I can either return to the local church or seek a position as a chaplain somewhere. I don't know what I'll do yet...it's too early to decide. I really love it so far, although there have been some tough times. Example: last week a fifty-something man was brought to the ER in cardiac arrest. He was from out of state, and had collapsed while playing in a tennis tournament. I took the page, so first I had to comfort his three friends (one of whom had been his tennis partner for 20+ years), then return four hours later to comfort his wife when she arrived. I also got to act as a liason between the ER staff and the family, like finding out when and where they could view the body and stuff like that. It was pretty rough. However, it's also very rewarding to be able to provide care for someone and be "Jesus with skin on".

We're alive...just busy!

I started my chaplain residency program two weeks ago...on September 2. I'm loving it, but of course things have been rather crazy. I leave the house at 7:00 a.m. in order to clock in at 8:30. I leave at 5:00, and usually arrive home about 6:00 p.m. I have one on-call night a week, so I have to stay at the hospital that night and come home the next morning. And then we have all the household chores...James and I spent today cleaning the house and doing laundry. At least it means that tomorrow we can have some fun!

We have Susanna in a great daycare that's actually on my way to work. The daycare is in Chesapeake, so it's close to home. I drop her off in the morning and James picks her up in the evening. So far, Susanna is really enjoying it.

I'll post more later...about Susanna's first b-day party (including pics), more about my program and what I'm doing, and Susanna's 12-month appointment.

Look Who's Turned One!

Susanna's first birthday is today. It's bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I'm celebrating her life and looking forward to many more years. On the other hand, I'm a little sad that my little girl is growing up so fast. Above is a picture of Susanna just moments after her birth. Here is a picture of what she looks like now:

It's amazing how much she's grown! We feel very blessed to be her parents.

Who's the kid?

This past weekend, we headed up to McLean so I could preach at my home church. We stayed in a hotel (that's another blog post entirely), but we spent a lot of time with our friend Paul. We also got to see our friend Mike, which was great. Anyway, on Sunday afternoon Paul and Susanna got a little silly. It was fun to watch, and I had to capture it on video. Turn your sound on to get the full effect!

Seven years!!!!!!!!

Today is our seventh wedding anniversary. I can't believe it. Time sure does fly when you're having fun. James and I had our "anniversary date" on Friday. We went to a local seafood restaurant and to see "Dark Knight" (which is very good, by the way). It was the first time we had been to a movie theatre since Susanna's birth! My mom and dad kept Susanna overnight, so we were able to sleep in the next morning and spend some extra time together (Have I mentioned how great it is to have my parents living less than 20 miles away?). We picked Susanna up around 12:30 on Saturday. We missed her, but it was great to have that time alone.

We are very thankful for the seven years we have had, and the many blessings that God has given us (one of whom is sitting in our La-Z-Boy, nursing a bottle). We've always joked that we signed up for the sixty-year marriage plan, so seven years down, fifty-three to go!

Happy anniversary, honey!

My new toy

I've had a love-hate relationship with our stroller for a while. It's this huge contraption that weighs at least 30 lbs and even folded takes up a huge amount of space. However, we've been using it for almost six months because it was a hand-me-down and therefore free.

For the past three months I've been researching strollers and deciding what would be best for me (James had no complaints about The Mothership, as I call it). I've read various reviews, tried some out at Babies R Us, and asked my friends. My major requirements were that it be a reasonable price (under $200...there are strollers that cost $500), weigh under 20 lbs, have a fairly compact fold, and be well-made. I didn't want a cheap-o umbrella stroller because their handles are too low, even for me. And since Susanna seems to be determined to stay at the top of the growth charts, I wanted the stroller to be comfy for her as she grows.

So after much deliberation, I decided that the Maclaren Triumph was my top pick. It meets all my requirements, has a very good reputation, and is an absolute breeze to fold and carry. Plus, it came in a nice selection of colors.

Of course, the biggest challenge was convincing James that this was the stroller for us and that he should let me buy it. Through a strange turn of events last night (we were having friends over for dinner), he told me I could go out and get it. So, my friend Melissa and I looked at each other, and drove off to Babies R Us (which is now only 15 minutes away). Less than an hour later, we arrived home with the stroller pictured above. I'm very excited. Thanks, Honey!

Meet Clyde!

My parents have a new dog! His name is Clyde and he's three years old. My dad adopted him from a shelter. He's a Doberman mix, but don't hold that against him. We met him on Friday night, and he's a very nice, friendly, gentle, and loving dog. He was very good with Susanna. Simon can't wait to meet his new "uncle", although we're going to wait until Clyde's a little more settled before we introduce them.

Welcome to the family, Clyde!

Rest in Peace, Rocky

David Rockfish "Rocky" Sufficool
November 7, 1997 to July 17, 2008

My parents' dog, Rocky, died very suddenly this morning. My dad said that Rocky had a massive tumor that suddenly bled out. My dad took Rocky to the emergency vet, and they had to put him down. We got him when he was six weeks old; I was halfway through my junior year of college. I took Rocky on walks and took him to obedience school (which he failed miserably, mostly because he was the largest dog by about 30 lbs and I didn't practice with him enough). Although I haven't lived at home in seven years, I still thought of him as partly "my" dog, because we had so much history together.

Rocky was a wonderful dog, full of character. We'll all miss him, but I think his death will be the hardest on my dad, because he and Rocky were very close.

I like to think that Rocky and Woody are playing happily together in doggie heaven, munching on treats to their hearts' content.

Our Little Giant

Susanna had her nine-month checkup today. Yes, I know it's six weeks late. However, that's what happens when you move and have to find a new pediatrician. When I called the last week of May, July 16 was their first available "well child" appointment.

Anywho, I love her new doctor. She took time to listen and answer all my questions in a very thorough way. Susanna of course got weighed and measured. She is 29.5 inches tall (which puts her in the 90th percentile) and weighs 20 lbs, 13 oz (which puts her in the 75th percentile). And those percentiles are for a 10 month old, not a 9 month old baby.

We have a large child, folks. I think she'll surpass me in height before she enters middle school. Sigh.

Back from Florida!

We returned from Florida last night, after a four-hour long delay in Charlotte. Mom and I now know the Charlotte airport very well. We highly recommend the BBQ place in the main terminal. :)
Anyway, a great time was had by all, and Susanna proved to be a very good flier (with the exception of the Norfolk-Charlotte leg, but that's another story). I've posted a few pictures to wet your appetite, with more to come. The first is a professional picture from our photo sitting. We thought it would be a nice idea to have a picture of all four of us. The second picture is after church on Sunday morning. The gentleman in the photo is Piet (known to Susanna as "Opa"), my grandmother's companion. Piet has rapidly become a member of the family. The third picture is of Susanna enjoying her first swim. She is obviously my daughter, because she LOVED swimming in both the pool and the Gulf.

Look How She's Grown!

Our little girl...


...isn't so little anymore. At 10 months, she is beginning to look less and less like a baby and more and more like a little girl. We're almost positive that her eyes will permanently be blue, since they haven't changed yet. Her hair is getting longer and kind of curly. It seems like every day she's developing some sort of new skill. It's wonderful and exciting, but kind of sad, too.

Susanna and Simon are becoming good friends, as you can see in this picture. She pets him and tries to grab his collar. He puts up with it, and licks her lovingly. It's very cute.

Fourth of July Fun!

Last night, we went out on my parents' boat to celebrate the 4th of July. We cruised around the Chesapeake Bay for a few hours and saw most of the city's fireworks displays. It was great; no crowds, no mosquitoes, and at times we could see four or five different fireworks shows at once. Here are a few pictures of Susanna and James. She's wearing a life vest, per USCG rules. She really didn't like it very much, as you can tell from the picture. We think her expression says, "Oh my gosh, these people are unreal. Look what I have to put up with." She didn't have to wear the life vest in the cabin, so she spent a lot of time in there.

Annual Conference 2008

Susanna and I went to Annual Conference last week. We left on Sunday afternoon and returned Wednesday evening. It was in Roanoke this year (they alternate between Roanoke, Norfolk, and Hampton) so we got to stay with James' mom. We had a lot of fun, although it was pretty busy and tiring.

Here's Tuesday's schedule, to give you an idea:

7:30 a.m. We wake up, eat breakfast, and get dressed.
9:45 a.m. Arrive at the Civic Center (about 15 minutes from Nina's apartment)
9:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. I listen to the various presentations and participate in worship while Susanna looked around, napped, and played on the floor with Chloe, Anna, and Carson.
12:00 p.m. We eat lunch with Dave, a former pastor and family friend.
1:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Susanna and I stroll around the exhibit area and the Expo
5:00 p.m. Young Clergy dinner at a local restaurant
7:30 p.m. Back to the Civic Center for a worship service, "Celebrating the Ministry of Young People"
9:30 p.m. Back to Nina's apartment.

Can I just say how amazing Susanna is? She was SO GOOD all week. Sometime she got a little bored and then got fussy, but for the most part she was happy to be strolled around, play with her toys, play with other kids, and take in everything that was going on around her.

This year, the Annual Conference's focus was on Young People. It was pretty neat. Most of the music was contemporary (including at the ordination service, which apparently ticked some people off), the lyrics and liturgy were projected onto screens (although also in the worship book), and all day Tuesday there was an Expo with tons of exhibits to give churches ideas about how to better reach young people.

It was great to see my fellow clergy friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in a year. It was also great to see some friends from Charles Wesley, the church I grew up in. I love Annual Conference, because it's a big reunion and also a great time for refreshment, new ideas, and getting reconnected.

I've posted some pictures for your viewing pleasure. The first one is of Susanna and some friends (a.ka. "the childrens' delegation") playing on the floor during a session. The second is of Susanna holding the Book of Reports, our agenda and guide for all of the sessions/presentations.

What a messy eater!

This morning, James decided to let Susanna feed herself breakfast. She took that to mean "grab spoon with one hand, put other hand in jar and go to town." The end result was slightly messy. However, she did have a blast doing it.

Needless to say, she received a very thorough bath after breakfast.

New skills are always good...

Since I am a stay-at-home mom until September 2, I have the wonderful privilege of cooking the bulk of our family meals. James is a much, much, better cook than me. He's really a natural at it, and usually makes Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. However, I'm the one at home during the day and with (supposedly) more time on my hands, so I've been given the fun task of cooking dinner. For the past two years, while things were so busy, my meal preparation involved a lot of packaged stuff and minimalist meals (slab of meat + canned vegetable = meal). Now that I have more time and less stress, I've resolved to work on my cooking skills.

So far, things are going well. Last week, I made some yummy pork chops in a cherry sauce with fresh green beans (cooked with onion in chicken broth). Tonight, I'm making chicken curry with basmati rice. I also experimented a little and discovered a way to make pot roast positively scrumptious (onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup, and red potatoes). At some point I'm going to try and make craw fish or shrimp etouffee, because we're simply dying for some good Cajun food (I miss Joe's OK Bayou in Lexington!).

I've realized that I kind of enjoy cooking when I have the time and energy to plan and prepare a yummy meal. My new hero? Rachael Ray and her 30-Minute Meals. Granted, some of her ingredients are obscure/expensive, but there's a Harris Teeter around the corner, and it has virtually everything I need. I figure that with a few exceptions, it's cheaper to make a gourmet meal at home than buy it in a restaurant. The ingredients for tonight's chicken curry may have cost $30 to buy (that's including the big bag of chicken), but a) what I fix tonight will last us for two meals and b) the ingredients I bought should make another 3-4 batches of curry, easily. Definitely cheaper than buying the prepared product in a restaurant. At least I may have found one domestic task that I may wind up liking and being good at!

However, I wouldn't count on me ever saying that I like cleaning or ironing. Never, ever, ever.