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Esta Doutrich

Esta Doutrich

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10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Esta in slate falls

≈ 3 Comments

IMG_3428

Was it just September that I left Slate Falls?

It could have been yesterday and it could have been a lifetime depending on my emotional and mental state.

So yes, I left Slate. Worked that last day until 1700, organized referrals, make the typical 60 calls to stubborn health workers across the district,  ran the last meds across to the band office at 1650, locked the clinic, got in my car, and drove away. BAM. Done. Finished. Goodbye, gotta go, gotta make it out before dark, see ya later, nice knowing you.

Gone.

No more phone ringing. No more late night calls. No more broken fax machine. No more responsibility to keep things organized  or running smooth or keep people alive, and happy. No more wood smoke. No more tea and potlucks. No more laughing at Miriam racing off to the plane.

I was so sure I would cry the whole way out, part with exhaustion, part with sadness, part with joy.

But I didn’t. I was numb and calm. Had to get to Dryden before dark. Had to get oil changed, battery changed, and drive to MN the next evening. I spent the next three days driving to Orgeon.

Three months later, I am exactly 16 days away from my wedding.

Yes, you read that right. I’m getting married in 16 days.

To some of you that is old news. Some of you are like, “Um..WHAT?”

It is a long story.

Which can wait.

Nia told me he was the one, after she saw letter after letter come out of that old canvas mail bag this spring and never saw me send one in return. “He’s a rare man”, she said.

Somewhere in the next 5 months I found I loved him for the 2nd time in my life. Maybe for the first time, but that’s just too complicated. The best gift I’ve ever been given.

So I’m going to marry Justin Doutrich on the 26th in my simple, homemade dress, with lots of birch trees and “Except for Grace…”  written on the isle, because that what our story is. Grace. All Grace.

We will move back to Oregon and for the first time in many, many years I’m going to try to stop running, stop using adrenalin, and stop being in the middle of crisis. Maybe getting married when you are still totally burnt out wouldn’t be recommended in those Christian how-to  books, but I have it on official word from Jesus, Justin, and a psychologist, that I will be just fine—all reputable sources in my option. It will be an interesting ride.

I’m going to actually live in a Mennonite community for the first time ever.  Stay tuned for embarrassing stories to follow J

As Anne Morrow Lindbergh said, “ Wish me…wisdom, courage, and a sense of humor… I shall need them all”

The light at the end of the tunnel

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Esta in slate falls

≈ 5 Comments

“How are you doing?”

She is the critical incident counsellor for nurses working in northern communities.

“I have a pile of about six critical occurrence reports from your clinic dating back the last two weeks. How are you handling things?”

I laugh, because that’s what I’ve learned to do.

“I think I’m doing okay”, I tell her.

“The other day the shampoo bottle fell off the ledge while I was showing and I almost screamed. A  little sob of terror caught in my throat. So I’m a little jumpy”,  I explain. 

We talk some more.  About the last 20 months and all that that holds.  About the tragedy of the last week and the heaviness of everything. She knows. She’s been there too.

“But I’m leaving in two weeks”, I  say.

“Ah, so the light is started to glow at the end of the tunnel”, she says quietly.

Yes, in many ways it is. And yet in some ways I see all the light, the light of this experience fading as I most toward the beginning of the next.

Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about how these are my last two weeks. And how before I know it I will be miles away from the clinic instead of that short walk through the birches.  If I actually let it settle as reality I feel my heart squeeze, squeeze and I have to catch my breath.

I know I need to leave. I am looking forward to beginning a new season. I am burnt out and jumpy and tired. I have a lot of processing and sleeping and debriefing  to do.

Yet this clinic has become my world. And I almost forget what it was like to not have my life revolve around the health of these 40 homes tucked around the bay.  Slate Falls has become home to me, in many ways, but the clinic has become more than that–it has become my life.

I think back to what knew when I first moved up that March day, almost 20 months ago, and what I know now, and marvel.

I had no idea how all-consuming my job would become. I still had visions of hours spend in the bush or learning Ojibway or hanging out at duck camp. And I brought up scrapbooking material. I kid you not. I laugh now.

I hadn’t yet experienced how much just a phone ringing can send your whole body into panic.

I didn’t know how beautiful a small kind gesture, like a bag of chips or a cup of coffee could mean, on busy days. Or how satisfying it would be to care for people and know you made a difference.

I didn’t know that sometimes people don’t appreciate you, even when you do your best and you just need to grow a solid combination of an iron backbone and oiled feathers.

I didn’t know how important it was to sit totally still and listen to people. Not offer advice, or try to fix anything, or worry that you are not being caring enough. Just sit. Totally still. And listen.

I didn’t know that I would become quiet.

I never would have guessed that I would become good at administration and the thousands of details that come with keeping a clinic functioning smoothly, driven by the necessity of being the only long term nurse. Me? The disorganized, absent minded RPN who hates paperwork?

I didn’t know there was something called Compassion Fatigue.

I didn’t know what it felt like to feel sleep deprived for days on end.

I didn’t know that a community of 150 people and one small gravel road could open my world up so wide.

I didn’t know how much I would come to love this community and these people and my job, even though all three were very, very different than all my expectations.

Yes, the light is at the end of the tunnel , and I am thankful.

But at the same time, I’m going to miss the light as well. The light of Slate Falls, and the light of all my friends and patients and coworkers , the hard florescent light of the emerge room at 3:00 am,  and the light of the cold fall sun, splashed out over the lake.

Just a few more months

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by Esta in nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 3 Comments

First it was only going to be for three months, then four, then six more, and after that came another six.

And a year and a half later I hand it the letter that explains hows grateful I am for the experience, but yes, the rumors are true.

I will be leaving Slate Falls, September 31, 2012.

I know I’ll start to look back the minute I leave. Not wishing for it again or doubting my decision, but looking back with that clarity that  history brings. Going over the moments. The things I wish I would have done. The lessons I learned that I am not noticing yet.

Right now, it’s still just daily life.

And it is hard for me to see it as anything but that. I’m still getting up at 7 and getting to work by 830. I’m still packing lab coolers and organizing the pharmacy. I’m still walking home and covering for medical driver on the weekend. I’m still getting called to guard at the jail. I”m still dealing with the emotional remains of too many kids almost dying this winter.

But I know, as soon as my car pulls out of Rawhide Rd, and I realize this is no day trip to Dryden for groceries, it will all come crashing in.

All the joys, and victories, the regrets, and I-wish-I-would-haves will be brought into sharp focus by the very act of pulling away, of cutting off, of leaving.

So for now, I just do the next thing, and breath in the lake air a little deeper, trying to save up for the day when I won’t be able to run down to the dock to watch the sunset.

I don’t want to forget

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by Esta in nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 5 Comments

Jesus,

I don’t ever want to forget.

Never let me forget how you have made my life and called it good. Never let me look back and say you didn’t care–because you do. Or say you never blessed me–because you did.

Snow squeaking, lungs on fire, with sunshine splashing across white, making it flash.

Gray hair falling over her face as she leans on the table, steadying herself, stretching to see over the piece of cardboard curtain. “It was just like God threw a thousand diamonds across the lake yesterday.” Yes. Yes. Just like that.

Medications and laughter and Glen at the coffee table, poking his head in my office to tease me. Those blasted combinations on the filing cabinet that always get stuck.

Lost lab coolers and broken fax machines that never get fixed. Housemates that change every 5 weeks. Pregnancy tests and blood work.

Chopping wood with my red axe.

Kneeling over the fish net, one hand pinching between the eyes, the other with the silver nail, pushing the nylon away from the scales without tearing.

I build an alter with all of it.

But it’s not just those things that I want to remember and never forget.

Let me remember the late nights. The cancelled planes. The aching heart moments. The moments when I have to say no and the phone clicks down hard.

I know I will want to remember those too some day.

I will want to remember how I didn’t know what I was doing or what was the best thing to say. I will remember how sometimes I felt so frustrated because I felt helpless to change things. I will remember how some days I did the wrong thing and some days I did exactly what I should have.

And when I remember it all let me never say it was not good.

Love your very own,

Esta

Visual Heartprints

01 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by Esta in nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 8 Comments

Up here I don’t take many pictures. 

Today I offer you a tiny handful. My favorites, not choosen because they are terribly good, but because each of them makes me sigh a little and all hold threads of why I truly love this life.

From the Front Yard in Fall

From the Front Yard in Winter 

Every Morning Smiles

 

Out the Livingroom Window

Little Matty saying “Kokum”

Home

Stalled, but at rest. I think.

26 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, nursing, silly fears, slate falls

≈ 3 Comments

I am supposed to be writing from Slate today, but I’m not, due to complications of various natures.

Complications that are frustrating, but nevertheless have hints of Divine Intervention.

I should be up there by the beginning of next week.

While I am living up there I will not be giving specific updates on here. Due to the size of the community and the field I am in a blog is simply not the place for that. I will continue to post, but nothing too specific about daily events and occurrences. For that type of update, email me and I will put you on a group email.

For now, I am relaxing and soaking in my last quiet moments before the ride begins. Like I said, Divine Intervention.

And, every evening, this is my soul food.

180 hours in 50 days

04 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, friends, laughter, nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 7 Comments

“Take care, kid”, he says. Worry wrinkles crease between his eyes.

“I’ll try”, I answer and walk out of the gas bar.

It makes me feel little.

I’m the girl covered in grease, pulled up at the rest station with the car hood up, clothes sticking to her back, and yes, that is a tattooed biker helping her diagnose that strange noise under the front axle.

He had a nice tattooed wife, although at that point I wouldn’t have cared if he was alone, wore an eye patch, and carried a 44 mag, as long as he offered to help.

In the last 50 days I’ve driven over 180 hours—70 of those hours alone.

In reality, I only suffered two significant breakdowns, at least car related, which is almost a lifetime record.

I guess God isn’t really calling me to be a mechanic, or marry one, like I had begun to suspect.

50 days ago I was leaving Slate Falls, while the rain filled the potholes, and I prayed to make it out without getting stuck.

Since then I managed to graduate, feel the Mississippi heat, sip sweet tea in Virginia, canoe the Ontario wilds, stick my toes in the pacific, and hike the Idaho Mountains.

Possibly I’ve been home a total of 14 days. I’m not exactly sure.

Now, 50 days later, I am packing again for Slate Falls. (yes, indeed)

This time for at least 6 months.

Guess what?

The emotions in the last 50 days are even more varied. (no, duh)

Guess what else?

I think that is okay.

This month has been insane with learning to love all the ups and downs and “yes, Lords”.

 More than anything I want to be dramatic in my determination to grow, even if it means loosing all the answers and the things I protect myself with.

And if God takes that to mean leaving me stranded on the road by myself or calling me to work in the far, cold north for a while, than so be it.

If that didn’t make any sense, just leave it.

I tried to quit coffee cold turkey yesterday and this morning woke up to realize the great stupidity of such a thing, translated into subtitles by a throbbing headache.

So much for all my haughty snides about coffee addicts.

Next thing you know I’ll have to wean myself down to one energy drink a day, sipped while laying in a tanning bed and reading Karen Kingsbury.

All’s fair in Love and Loud Opinions.

My side of the lake or tunnel or world or whatever

19 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Esta in canoeing, nursing, slate falls, the wilderness

≈ 12 Comments

Maybe if I had time to worry about the new look in headbands and how much I jogged last week, I would. And things would be different.

There I would be. Chic and trim, jogging with a vintage tie back holding my tousled hair from caressing my rosy cheeks.

Then I would go home to write long entries in my red journal on the beautiful analogies of life and how the sun shone though the daffodils like gold and the newest relationship drama.

No daffodils here.

And my red journal sits untouched while life writes all over me and it’s not in calligraphy either.

Maybe if things were different I would have time to type out blog posts and take pictures, like I want to.

Instead I drink copious amounts of coffee and occasionally wonder how long I will live.

I worry about missing blood work and the med cooler that blew off the dock and running 5 different errands while trying to find the high-risk prenatal who just disappeared and meet the plane on time.

I almost run over the police with the medical truck on the way. And then the tire goes flat.

I feel so strangely disconnected from 95% of my friends.

Sometimes I check Facebook and everywhere there are pictures of new couples , and people bantering back and forth via wall posts and the trail of status’s buzzing about coffee shops, v.ball games, and the weather.

And I feel like I’m peering down a long tunnel, trying to remember what was on the other side.

This side of the tunnel is nice, mind you, and I have no problems filling my days with unique little dramas.

Like flushing an entire toothpaste tube down the toilet.

No lie.

The Amish missionary had to take the whole toilet off its base and turn it upside-down to get the delinquent thing out.

Now people ask if I’ve always tried saving water by brushing my teeth in unlikely places.

And the ice left, finally.  

So there are things like canoeing, fishing, falling in the lake,

and getting hooks stuck in my head.

         

Campfires under the moon and outdoor tea which I drink by the pints, along with my coffee and too much sugar.

And smoked duck. There is smoked duck in heaven, surely.

Though this is not heaven, and everyday I am reminded of how beautiful people can be—and yet how far we can fall into the blackness.

And how mangled lives get when souls are empty–how broken their bodies.

And I fall in love with what my life has been and what it is now. What else can one do, you know, when the contrast is so stark?

There are children all over the world starving and mothers dying too young and floods and earthquakes and rancid TV shows and most of us know heartache without taking a college course on grief.

The worse I see the world, the more I am determined to remain in love with my life.

Not just the moon on the lake and the wind in my hair moments—but the mornings when I wake up exhausted from the bad dream and the afternoons when there are too many kids yelling in one exam room.

There is so little hope to go around these days.

No one seems to be happy.

I have hope.

And that in and of itself gives me reason to be happy.

Even if I cannot remember the last time I cared if my eyebrows looked nice or worried that I’d offended someone in a texting conversation.

A little humor

04 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by Esta in laughter, life dirt, nursing, slate falls

≈ 2 Comments

Life is not a polaroid of one moment, etched by the emotions and events in that single instant, that tells all and settles everything into the way it is.

Thank, God.

Me with the crooked nose in the pillow wondering why I always have to feel everything like wet cement, where even a ladybug crossing makes a footprint.

Fix this relationships, deal with this anger/loneliness/drama now, become more godly, more feminine. Now. Now. Now.

Gasp. Sputter.

Because we were never meant to live like the drama is a cold wave to our lungs, but sometimes I forget.

 

Sleep on it.

Sleep on it, relax, and stop taking yourself so seriously.

For petes sake, stop. And laugh.

I’ve chanted those lines to myself over and over last week.

 And the theory stretched tight and drug across my mind like an threadbare area rug.

Someone wanted to take death in their own hands, last week, and came seconds away from success, and it shook me, I’ll admit.

 And of course I was there earlier that morning and so wonder if I should have been sweeter, or kinder, or if I said something wrong that made him make the choice.

There have been moments when I would have paid over a royal wedding to be able to lock myself in a quiet world and hold silence just for the beauty of it, blocking out that day.

But.

Which is the word that you never follow “I’m sorry” with, but that keeps me madly in love with my life.

But, there is always the choice to fit laughter snug up against the tragedy that time seems to create.

Not laughing at the pain or making light of the mess of earth, but letting go of our control of it, and finding gentle humor in the little things. And when you laugh at time, it gets disgruntled.

The nurses and I laughed last week, her holding the papers on a car hood, while he tried to call air ambulance on the satellite phone and the wind blew dust around the young officer, all of us eating up the dry humor.

As the head nurse said, “A little humor goes a long way”

Time may seem to create crisis.

I know that reality, since it holds the cards in healthcare especially. I know what split seconds can do to life. I know.

Yes, run like life depends on it, grab that stretcher, make split second decisions, get the assignment done on time, apologize quickly, witness before its too late.

But in the end, you know, time doesn’t have the last say, God does.

And, frankly, he doesn’t need your  control to help him handle it.

You just look like a blundering idiot taking the universe’s drama on your toothpick shoulders.

So fill the panic of time with high laughter, even if it comes hard.

A little humor goes a long way,

preaches Esta to herself.

(for photo credit of first two pictures click on picture)

It’s been good

11 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by Esta in laughter, nursing, slate falls

≈ 3 Comments

 Thursday we had a nice little blizzard in the morning just so winter could scare us before leaving, as it seems to be doing this weekend.

 

Not like we still don’t have three feet of snow and a lake of solid ice to melt before then, but at least the road is muddy and my car starts in the mornings without a heat lamp under the oil pan.

 I came from spring into winter, which is usually the opposite choice at this time of year. I was afraid I would find the switch depressing. Not so. 

 The cold up here is cleaner than down south and less damp.

The real difference though, I have decided, is the attitude surrounding it. Winter is not endured like it seems to be down south. Winter is just winter. You live and you play and you walk to school and feed your dog just like any other day.

 Today though, water is making little rivers down the roads and filling up the potholes to the brim. I wore a sweater to church and didn’t sit on the bench behind the wood stove like I usually do to keep my feet warm.

A good thing too, that changing benches act.

 Last Sunday night, while wiggling along the pew in an attempt to avoid little tickling fingers, I rubbed my shoulder up against the back of the bench and a 1 ½ in wooden splinter promptly slid into my back. That never happened to me before.

Which makes sense, since a lot of things in the last four weeks have never happened to me before.

 I never won third place in a jigging contest until last week, despite my love of dancing around and falling over my own feet. (And don’t tattle. It wasn’t real dancing really)

One night I spent the late hours staring at the ceiling, thinking about how I really would’ve hated to be Johny Cash’s first wife, even if he could sing all deep and romantic.

I’ve listened to Brittany Spears while partridge hunting which, I must say, lends a certain aura to the sport I’ve never experienced.

 

In fact, a lot of music that I tend to mock has been pumped into my ears the last while and you might catch me singing Katy Perry by accident, since the kids put certain songs on repeat and repeat and repeat and it’s not my fault that they get stuck in my head.

(Brothers, don’t go into cardiac arrest)

 I’ve also played x-box.

 ( Mom, help them off the floor)

See world, I’m mellowing out a bit.

I’ve helped bandage wounds where the cause was different from the usual pressure ulcer or knee surgery, which was eye-opening in many ways.

It’s been good.

Good like head thrown back laughing, and she looks up from wrapping her arms around your waist and touches your cheeks. “You have lots and lots of lines in your face when you laugh” And you just laugh some more.

I am full, full.

 Up to the brim full of emotion and laughter and struggle.

 I feel very, very alive right now.

 

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I'm Esta

/Canadian nurse living in Oregon/ Occasionally I write about depression, womanhood, faith, and other super abstract ideas, while trying not to take myself too seriously.

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I don’t want to write something touching about it being almost a year since you died.
”If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”
It has been five months since physical illness left me unable to get off the couch and triggered panic and anxiety that was unexpected and debilitating. It has been a month since I said goodbye to my cousin/friend @matthewgingerich for the last time. Our grief is raw enough that it feels impossible to be engaged in witnessing worldwide anguish as well. It is overwhelming to hold both personal and collective suffering isn’t it, especially in an age of information? I’m confident that we are all held and sustained, no matter what suffering we face, in His enduring love and goodness, and I rest in that.
It’s been a while since book recommendations have shown up here. And both of these are a little outside of genre for what I typically highlight in this way.
“I think it started with my father. He took me for long walks and explained things to me” ...
I’m a nurse not a teacher. Not by nature, skill, or learned vocation do I thrive as instructor, but here we are another year completed.

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