Have you ever wondered how nurses, doctors, and other medical personnel remain calm in a crisis? How confusion is silenced and the best interest always first and foremost?
Have you ever prayed for help finding peace in the panic, calmness in life's chaos, and the know-how to face the next challenge with courage and confidence in your everyday life?
If so you've come to the right place. We will dive into five easy questions to ask yourself to help you think like a nurse and be ready to face any crisis in life.
Medicine can be a highway of unknown twists and turns just like life. The reality of the complex and intricate human design often confounds even the best. The exact diagnosis and treatment do not always exist. We are often left searching and just taking it step by step.
Answers come after the right questions have been asked, the digging deeper has begun, and the team is being assembled. You find your way by asking for turn by turn directions knowing your final destination is often unknown.
Stay focused, ask the right questions, and circle back around if needed.
Knowing the how, what, when, where, and why will guide you to calmness in life's chaos and give you a well-practiced game plan every time.
But you're...
I'm Amy. Nurse, wife, mom, sister, friend... I am no different than you. I face the same struggles, live the same realities, and get knocked over from life's tough blows. However, I have found peace in the panic and a cushion in the chaos using my nursing mindset in my everyday life.
Life is tough. Moments get scary and no one deserves to feel stuck, powerless, and alone. People need to see the real code blue moments that help shape your story.
"It's so much easier to be admired for the pretend version of us than it is to be truly loved up close for the hard, messy, broken person we might actually be." Mary Marantz
I hope you will use these 5 simple questions to help shape your code blue plan of action and to help be someone else's first responder in their crisis.
"Questions give access." Steven Furtick
You can be certain the code will eventually be called. Will you be ready?
1. How do I know what to do?
Educate.
Education is always the key ingredient to success and it is not usually free!
These days advice is free and easy to find, confusion is running rampant, and people are finding themselves in the midst of crisis and chaos daily. We trust google MD, our Facebook friends, and our own ignorance over education and training.
Most people are unwilling to put in the work, pay for education, and stay the course. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is! Yet we click, share, and publish before even checking the facts.
We live in a present-day society where it's easier to complain about the job someone else is doing while taking no ownership. It is much easier to watch someone else be the nurse, the doctor, or other frontline workers. It is easier to watch others put their safety on the line while we play it safe behind our computer screens.
To plan for life's code blue moments you must take the time to educate. Ownership requires homework and hard work. Being fully invested changes attitudes and facilitates growth and positive progress. Getting your hands dirty and putting in the hours educates. But who wants the job?
We aren't all called to be doctors, nurses, pastors, or first responders. However, we are called to be disciplined, educated, and ready. The key ingredients for knowing how in the code blue moments and working seamlessly with a team are education and practice.
You learn how to prepare, plan, and implement.
2. What do I do?
Know Your Scope.
There are many active parts during life's code blue moments. We are all pretty accustomed to seeing medical shows with the crash carts coming around the corner, the doctor and nurses flying in the room, lines being connected to patients, compressions to the chest, and shocking the patient's heart.
However, real-life scenarios look a bit different. Years of training, practice, continued education hours help medical personal glide seamlessly in pace with one another in the blink of an eye each knowing their role and gaining forward momentum through teamwork.
There are tense moments in every code. Life is at stake. But knowing your role, practicing until its a habit, helps guide you to peace in the panic and a cushion in the chaos. You walk into your shift knowing the how, what, when, where, and why.
We can't all be the doctor, the nurse, the respiratory therapist... but we are called to be the best version of what we've studied and trained to be each and every day. Knowing what we can not do (what is outside of our scope) helps form guidelines, boundaries, and partnerships within a team.
Hard work pays off. Ignorance and confusion are silenced when real action is required and education and practice are the only fuel.
Connect with your team. There are many moving parts in every code and you need to assemble people just like these around you in your everyday life.
Who is your life code blue team leader? Who is your bedside nurse/friend? Who is your life breathing respiratory therapist? Who is the CPR compressor / helping your heartbeat when you can't do it alone? Who is establishing the IV line and replenishing your depleted fuel? Who is the runner grabbing extra supplies? Who is the recorder to maintain order and accountability? And who is the chaplain holding your hand?
These are the people you need in life. The real-life action heroes who will show up in the blink of an eye just to help save you.
Know your team but more importantly, know your scope. Ignorance causes confusion and chaos. Connect with people who are not quick to give you the solution to every problem but instead connect you with what to do next - triage.
3. When do I call a code?
Triage.
triage
[trēˈäZH]
NOUN
(in medical use) the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties. "a triage nurse"
VERB
assign degrees of urgency to (wounded or ill patients). "victims were triaged by paramedics before being transported to hospitals"
Learning to triage patients is a skill. Nurses and doctors alike are trained for endless hours on honing in on these life-changing skills. Every good nurse and doctor know first hand the power of having just one exceptional person on staff with these perfected skills.
The key ingredient in triage is prioritizing systematically and efficiently knowing the ABCs of life - airway, breathing, circulation.
We can't help someone survive if we can not establish an airway or help regain a pulse. The breath of life you administer to a sinking friend, the life you speak into your children, the gentle nudge that sets your heart beating again are your ABCs of real life.
Don't start in the wrong order. You will lose your heartbeat and breath long before you can even begin to call the code.
Connect to the right source and friends, study and plan instead of clicking and sharing, triage exceptionally, and then watch as life is restored and you find that inner voice and courage.
4. Where do I run?
To the stocked crash cart.
Don't run to the bottle of pills, to the liquor cabinet, to web MD, to Facebook friends. You must keep your crash cart stocked and in arm's reach at all times.
Are you tired of facing life's crisis unprepared? Tired of anxiety attacks, loss of focus, sleepless nights, and rocky home life?
Crash carts have hundreds of supplies within the drawers. They contain antidotes, life-saving drugs, and all the things in between. Crash carts are maintained meticulously, signed off each shift by medical personal, kept fully charged, connected to the right source, and ready for your emergency.
What stocks your crash cart for life? Who keeps it well stocked and ready? Who is running to help you in your code blue moments?
The wrong antidote in an understocked cart is a sure way to flat line. One battery not charged properly could cause your defibrillator to be on empty when you need the jump start.
None of us can do life alone. Educate, know your scope, triage, grab your stocked crash cart, and then know your why.
5. Why?
But you're __________ (*insert name here) and it's your calling.
Today our kids have limitless options but no clear answers. Our kids need to know that what they do matters and they can make a difference. They need to start asking the tough questions and digging deeper.
Why do nurses, doctors, and other frontline workers run into jobs that rarely include ideal situations, provide little to no sense of normalcy, and are not immune to pain?
Calling.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Mark Twain
Frontline workers carry heavy loads for others. They ensure every patient feels loved, valued, and heard. Life is not easy. However, once you ignite your passion, you will soon find your purpose and inner calling begin to take shape within you!
You've already shown up to the frontlines of life on painful, ugly days, and you've still shown love and grace.
That is calling and the frontlines need more just like YOU!
Next Steps
Partner Together.
Join the journey here. I will share raw moments that are much easier to tuck away and hide. Through nurse-like connection and care, we will partner together and share victories however big or small that can provide just the cushion and courage we need in crisis to face the next day.
We will help each other replenish our crash cart, make sure our batteries are always charged, seamlessly sync in rhythm in crisis, and provide the shoulder to lean on when the weight becomes a bit too much.
Find what makes your heart beat again.
"What if I told you that all along, that soft, vulnerable, delicate, partially crumbling center that makes up the core of you, that's what people are really trying to get to anyway." Mary Marantz
Life is heavy. Hard times inevitable and there is a long steep climb back up after the flat line.
However, find what makes your heart beat again and climb. You will be back in rhythm in no time.
If only you knew what was inside of YOU!
"Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world."
I John 4:4
But you're _________ * insert your name here
Welcome to the front lines!
P.S. Don't miss out. Join me here!
Welcome to Absolutely Amyable. Here you will find your calm cushion in life's chaos.
I have renewed resolve to use my story to help shape your story. To pass on to the next generation the power of meaningful connection and care for others.
May each of us who swore by oaths in our professions recite them daily and vow to uphold them. May each of us help guide others to find and fulfill their inner calling.
But You're ___________ *insert your name here
Welcome to the front lines!
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