Friday, April 8, 2011

P.S. to the last post

By the way,

Mark suprised me and drove a thousand miles on the shadiest Greyhound bus for over 22 hours to come see me a few weeks ago in Savannah... Needless to say, we are back together... Mark, sorry I forgot to put that in the update, don't be mad:) just kidding

How far we've come

Hey Ya'll,

I haven't sent an update in awhile, but things are going good down here in Savannah. I'm still loving my work as a Registered Nurse at St. Mary's clinic, the staff is wonderful, and the patients are great and interesting.

A lot is going on this week. I've been super busy with my "Move it to Lose It" program that I started in January.  This is a program aimed towards improving the overall health for our patients through exercise classes, nutrition education, and cooking classes.  Patients also have use of an exercise room at St. Mary's Community Center. 

Basically my job is to coordinate/organize and attend everything (from the delivery of donated exercise equipment, to organizing nutritionists and nursing students for education projects, giving up a few hours every other Saturday to walk in the park, and teaching weekly exercise classes).  It gets quite busy. The program also has a points system that I created.  Patients get points for every class/event they attend; exercising in our little fitness room; and for improvements in their health indicators (This means they get points for decreases in B/P, weight, A1c- diabetic average of blood sugars- and cholesterol)

Exercise class is always fun.  This is a weekly class, which I have to plan and lead. We usually get anywhere from 6-10 attendees. Most of the the classes are very basic. I taught them about stretching. We also do alot of simple cardio, basic step aerobics, and we have been graduating to using free weights for extra resistance.   In just 10 weeks, I can already see an improvement in a lot of the patients (with both physique and endurance). In the beginning, most of the class couldn't get past 5 sit ups or leg lifts at a time without taking a break.  Now, most everyone can get up to 40!!!! 

I've seen improvement in many of the patients self-esteem and confidence, which is probably my favorite part. Patients who used to never talk, now come in for their appointments and seem to engage everyone.  One patient (who used to barely be able to make it up the stairs, and never looked anyone in the eye) even came up to the front of class one time and taught everyone how to "correctly" do the Cupid Shuffle (she taught me how to add more soul to it).  It's been an absolutely amazing experience for me. 

Another great thing about the exercise class is that I have an "assistant" now. He's actually got a degree in exercise science and he volunteers at our clinic, so we can rotate teaching the classes and I don't have to be there every week.  It's also great, because he can carry out the classes after I leave Savannah, so it's good that it will still go on.

Yesterday was my monthly cooking class (which is always a lot of work).   I have to keep in contact with our chef and get everything at the grocery store that's needed for the recipe ahead of time.  Everyone who attends the class, not only learns about how to make the healthy recipe, but gets to take home all the ingredients needed to make it.  This month we made a "Spring green salad with grilled chicken, walnuts and cranberries with a homemade honey mustard vinaigrette dressing."  Our chef is awesome, and grew up in the community, so all the patients can relate to him. 

We get a lot of nursing students here at St. Mary's that are completing their Community health clinicals. They're in their final semester of nursing school at the local university, and it's hard to believe that I was in their shoes only a year ago.  I feel like I've grown leaps and bounds since then.  The students never cease to ask me millions of questions, and I am happy to help reassure them of whats to come.

Speaking of students, I also seem to be the go to person for all the nursing students community presentation projects.  I have 3 groups of 10+ students doing nutrition presentations within the next 3 weeks, so that's a lot of work and organizing. 

There was also a class of adult students in another program at the same university who are organizing an event for me.  They're planning a type of fitness field day for all my patients.  They'll basically have a lot of stations set up with different activities like Zumba, Wii Fit, Frisbee, etc.  They're providing a free healthy lunch as well as prizes and giveaways to my patients.  The program is completely free, and they even managed to organize a shuttle for some of the patients- which is amazing.  The event is tomorrow, so I hoping that enough of my patients show up.  I had a volunteer call over 150 people, so were hoping for at least 60 to show up.  It should be exciting.

I am having such a wonderful time in Savannah. I am constantly learning new things about the culture and lives of my patients.  Its hard to believe I have less than 100 days left.  Although I miss everyone back home, leaving here will be bittersweet.  Our community is still getting along great, which is always a plus after a long day at work, and I'm looking forward to some visitors in the next couple months.  My Mom and brother are coming for Easter, and my best friend Nicole is coming for Memorial Day weekend. 

Hope this update finds you well:) Have a glorious weekend- it'll getting up to 80 degrees today here