Nursing Dx: Blogging Hiatus r/t Hiatal Hernia

Hey, errbody! I feel like it's been, like, ten days since I've blogged or something. Wow. But seriously, I'm not gonna lie. I needed that little hiatus. And it's all thanks to my hiatal hernia. (See figure.) Maybe the post title should read "Nursing Dx: Blogging Hiatus t/t Hiatal Hernia" with the t/t meaning "thanks to" instead of "related to." (That's how nurses make diagnoses. See, I'm a nursing student at Loma Linda University School of Nursing.)

But, seriously, hooooooo. That's me exhaling because the past week has been quite the doozy, if I ever did see one. I went through so many ups and downs, emotions-wise, that I think I'll take a week off from emoting. In my opinion, emotions are overrated, anyway. But refer back to a couple of sentences ago and note how I also mentioned "ups." No, not the United Parcel Service, the world's premier package-delivering company. See, we tend to only remember the downs when the going gets rough, but when the rough gets going, it's really helpful to focus on the ups, the positives.

Take, for example, my example. I think it was either Thursday or Friday morning when I was feeling particularly down. In fact, I was pretty much down in the dumps. I decided to take a dump since my bowels and rectum were feeling pretty full that morning. So I sat there and let it all go. I just let it all out, all that emotion, into that unsuspecting toilet. After doing the deed, I peered into the bowl through my legs because that's what nurses do. (Refer back to sentence enclosed in parentheses at end of first paragraph.) That's when I was filled with that "Oh, great!" feeling. There was just so much down there that I was sure the toilet did not have the potency to do away with my mess!

Usually when this happens, I send up a quick prayer and ask God to bless the toilet and to make fruitful of its efforts, hold down the lever, and hope for the best. But this time I was at such a low and was not in the right frame of mind that I jumped the gun and grabbed my bucket. I was gonna manually flush the thing myself. As I stood next to the tub, filling my bucket with water to capacity, I decided to just try the lever. I fully expected the attempt to fail. But, surprise surprise, the poop went down the hole! Yeah, all of it!

Standing there with my bucket of water, I thought to myself, You fool. You didn't have faith that God would do this little task for you. You usually trust Him with even the smallest things. But you let the events of your life interfere with your trust. It dawned on me that God was with me, standing with me in that bathroom. He showed me that all I had to do was trust and He would take care of the rest. I realized that, by skipping my usual prayer and filling my bucket, I was trying to do something I had no control over. But He showed me that He would take care of me. On the toilet and with everything I was dealing with in my life.

I hope my story was not too graphic and that it helps someone out there in internet land.