We could all use a little dose of Mr Rogers

A couple of headlines intersected this week. First of all was the horrible school shooting in Florida. That put me in a mind to rerun my “horrible headline” post from a year ago when some similarly terrible event happened.  But in a smaller headline was the reminder that Mr. Rogers aired his show 50 years ago. In my post about talking to our children about scary situations, I actually quote Mr. Rogers. He shared a lesson that he learned from his own mother, “look for the helpers”. Those might be a person in uniform, or another parent with children. That remains great advice and is one of his more well known pearls of wisdom.

Since I have some extra time on my one hand this week, I decided to give my own shout out to Mr Rogers. Most of you may not know this, but I was fortunate enough to interact with him several times while I was working at my first job as a nurse at The Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Mr Rogers routinely visited my little patients there. He also created several movies there that we would use for patient education. He was the real deal. There was nothing fake about that man. A generation of children grew up better people because of the lessons he taught. Here are some of my favorite pieces of Mr Roger's wisdom:

• "There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind."

• “There is only one thing evil cannot stand, and that is forgiveness.'"

• "There's a part of all of us that longs to know that even what's weakest about us can ultimately count for something good." It is okay not to be perfect!

• “Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing.”

• Accept people as they are

• Look and listen carefully

 

• “We all have feelings.” Talking and acknowledging them is the first step towards finding ways to deal with them that don’t hurt anyone

• Anything that's human is mention-able, and anything that's mention-able can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we're not alone.

• Wonder about things

• “You can’t go down the drain in the bathtub” Don’t be shy about sharing things that might be scary

• “Be yourself.” It is not how you look, what you wear or what toys you have that make you special

• What can you grow in the garden of your mind? Use your imagination.

• You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

• One of the most important things a person can learn to do is to make something out of whatever he or she happens to have at the moment.

Mr. Rogers was a gift to generations of kids but I wonder if any of my patients know who he is? I believe that Daniel Tiger is making sure that the whisper of his gentle message lives on!

The misadventure of Nurse Judy/Managing Stress

The misadventure of Nurse Judy Last Sunday I was taking a hike along Land’s End. I tripped and fell forward. My right wrist took the brunt of the fall. The triage nurse part of my brain knew that bones were broken. What an impact one little misstep can make! Blessings I didn't fall off a cliff, break a leg or sustain a head injury. I was with sensible people who helped hike the mile back to the car. One person had a large scarf that we were able to fashion into a sling. All of the passing hikers stopped and offered to help. Humanity put on it’s best face. Lessons I had no id or insurance cards with me. It’s time to update the first aid kit in the car and make sure it has arnica and instant cold packs. WATCH YOUR STEP! I spent a few hours in the Davies ER. It's OK to call ERs to see how long the wait is for non-critical care. UCSF was 3 hours. Davies was none! That is a gem of a resource for adult patients. I was able to get an early Monday appointment with an orthopedist. Both of the bones in my right forearm are broken. Yes OUCH Blessings I have a wonderful support system (thank you Sandy), family, friends, good insurance, and access to good health care (way to meet the deductible early in the year!) Noe Valley Pediatrics is a very supportive work environment and is trying to muddle along the best they can with the office manager mostly out of commission. Lessons Ongoing trying to figure out how to manage for 6 weeks without use of right hand. Trying to Learn how to say yes to the friends who have reached out with offers to help Impact on the office Nurses will be short staffed. Every effort will be made to return calls in a timely manner, but please understand we won’t have the luxury of time for longer conversations. The turn around for emails may be as long as a week. Please call if you need to speak to a nurse. I have cancelled February classes. I will update this after my next ortho appointment. I may end up requiring surgery, so it is difficult to plan. Don’t count on weekly emails, but I will try to keep them coming.  This post is short and simple, but hopefully it can give you a new awareness or way of looking at things.   Topic of the week: Managing Stress My kids grew up having to deal with all of mom’s theories. One of the classics is the “stress theory”. My daughter Alana, who is now a therapist at a community mental health center in Michigan, finds herself referring to some of these with her clients. She let me know that she used this one the other day and I realized that I had never put this one in a post. So here goes. Is there a water bottle near by? Take a look at it, Imagine that you are that bottle. There is a thick label. You can not easily see how much liquid is inside. Elements of your life are varying amounts of fluid. Every aspect of your life adds liquid to the bottle. Some things may add a few ounces, others only a tiny drop (drops can add up!) Being a sleep deprived parent is easily a couple of ounces. A new job? An illness in the family? Moving? Ounces! Large changes or stresses are of course equated to larger amounts. Breaking your wrist - half a cup! We generally don’t pay too much attention to how full our bottle is until it is near the top. The smallest drop of water, something that normally you could handle with no problem, may make the entire bottle overflow. This is the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Are you crying because you burnt your toast? Take a moment to figure out what is going on that has your bottle so full that the littlest thing can set you off. One of Alana’s clients found that this way of looking at things really resonated with him. He coined the term “dump the cup,” which in turn resonated with me. What can you do to dump out your bottle a bit? Arrange a little time for yourself? Take a walk? Have the perfect cup of tea? Sometimes making a list of all the things you feel like you need to do helps quite a bit. With your young kids, they can’t hold as much. Simply being tired or hungry will fill their little ‘bottle’ right up to the top. That’s when the temper tantrums and meltdowns happen. Everyone who you interact with has their own stress level. It is good to keep that in mind if someone seems to be ‘overreacting’. Are you past the sleep deprivation hell? Do you have a friend with a new baby? If you are thinking about giving a gift, consider skipping the outfit that the baby will grow out of in a minute. Give them a certificate or two that can be redeemed for a 2 hour nap while you watch the baby. Helping your friends "dump their cup" feels pretty good.