First week........

So I've completed my first week of my new job. The first day was very disorientating (bearing in mind that it came straight after 2 days of farewells) but very quickly I have begun to find my feet. This has been helped enormously by the great welcome I have received. Everyone has been kind, and interested, and helpful. At the moment I'm doing something different every day, from basic hands on nursing care, to developing caseload audit tools, advising on strategy, learning new skills, signing up for a masters etc etc.

And I feel like a huge weight has gone from my shoulders, I feel relaxed and more confident and motivated and...... I'm slightly surprised - I knew that my old job was getting to me but this much? I have already had contact from them about one of the situations that was stressing me (48 hours after I left!) and it didn't get to me - I dealt with it and shrugged it off.

Now I'm aware its early days, a honeymoon almost, but I am very grateful, and hopeful - here's to a happy job :)

A curious thing...

So I am poised, almost there now, just monday and half of tuesday to work and i am DONE!!!!!

And so very ready - everything so well sorted, files cleared or culled. delegated or dumped, that I'm twiddling my thumbs somewhat :)

And a strange thing is happening - lots and lots of people are telling me how special I am, what an impact I have had on them, how I have influenced the way the services have developed, and other stuff that I wont go into.

Which I am very touched by, and slightly emotional over, but also struck by the fact that we never tell each other this stuff on ordinary days. There have been so many times when I felt battered and bruised and blamed and useless, when I could have done with some of these words. Or were they there and I couldn't hear them? Either way I am going to remember to tell people what a good job they are doing, regularly, not just when I say goodbye.

Oh and in this brief pause of the work countdown we get to celebrate Paul being 50 - which I'm pleased to say he is at last ready for!!

The Journey to my new job

I’ve always hankered after a Nurse Consultant role – it’s THE most senior clinical role a nurse can have.

I’ve had what I believe to be a God given passion for working with children who are dying and their families for even longer – I can remember sitting in church crying over a child who’d died and asking God what He was doing for them, and He answered – ‘well I gave them you’.

And for the last 2 years, or maybe even more, I’ve become more and more unhappy with my current job. As the role changed to meet the needs of my organisation, including an office move, and an increasing shift to management, business, managing a budget, politics, conflict, I became more and more unhappy. And a situation with one particular family, where their distress and anger at the system, and their perception that I am between them and what they feel they need, has been very very hard.

Add in all the stuff with Paul’s dad and I’ve been on a huge journey, reflecting on who I am, allowing God to be in charge, rather than me trying to fix things. Being able to separate out that what my current job needs to be is different from who I am, and what job I should be doing.

I’ve been praying for a long time for a new job, and for most of that time the only sense I had was that it was there, but the other side of a wall that God was using to keep me from it, until I was ready. I needed to get back to a place where God was enough (because He is of course more than enough).

In May, as the work situation was at its worst, I saw another job, a grade down from what I am on, that was much more clinical, and I considered long and hard about applying for it, regardless of the pay drop. But.... it was mainly young adults, and not palliative care, and I discovered that I couldn’t let go of my passion, that what I wanted was to work with children who have life limiting illnesses, and that I didn’t want less than this, I wanted everything that God had in store for me, and more, the double blessing that Elisha asked for.

So I claimed a Nurse Consultant Role. And I decided to go and talk to a local place about whether they would ever create such a role. And when I got there, before I could say anything, they told me that they were planning to create a NC role , that they were working on a business case for it, but it may not happen until the next financial year (April).

So I began waiting....they applied for some government funding, which they eventually got (after a very bizarre phone call to me from the chair of the deciding board asking me if I thought they should have the money! I did own up to my bias). In this time I had a lot of words from friends from God, encouraging me, reinforcing the promise. At New Wine I nearly walked away from this job, but I felt I needed to be responsible to my mortgage, and I needed to trust God’s plan, and not try and do it my way. And I needed to trust that His plan was perfect, and His timing, and let Him do it (ie resist me instinct to fix things).

Finally in October I was interviewed, along with 2 others, one of whom on paper, was better than me. And I had to wait overnight to hear, at which point I gave it all up, and asked God for His will to be done. And then I heard that I had got the job, fair and square, on merit, that I was by far the best candidate.

And I’ve had to wait a bit longer, work my full 3 months notice, but I think this time has given me chance to realise all that God has been working out in me these last few years. And I’ve discovered extra layers of blessing:
• Support for me doing a masters
• All the new kit I need – laptop, phone, car etc
• A promotion
• Amazing support from everyone I’ve told, along with a real sense that they’ll miss me from my old job
• What looks like a promise of the job being made permanent (its 2 years only at the moment)

And I know that its going to have challenges of its own, and I’m leaving the NHS, and my continuous service and all the security that brings, but I know that this is what God has planned for me, and there is nothing that is going to happen that is outside of His plan which means it will all be for good.

So I am very very grateful, and blessed, and so looking forward to starting my new job.

Snow Days

So finally (in Sarah's eyes) snow arrived in Oxfordshire. Which made getting PJ back from Southampton and Hannah from Birmingham, a lot more complicated and slightly scary. And meant that every meeting in my diary has been cancelled so I've been working at home :) This has made for a much more pleasant week than I expected, and brought me so much closer to the end of my notice. I finish work for Christmas tomorrow lunchtime, then have eleven lovely days off work, and then I return for just 9 (NINE) days work :D

And everything is bought for Christmas, a few things are stuck in the post so may have to be given late, but I'm chilling very nicely and looking forward to some lovely relaxing, lazy days, days remembering the birth of my Lord Jesus.

Which reminds me - am really enjoying Nativity on BBC1 - if you haven't seen it go find it on iplayer

Slow, slow, quick quick slow

How can time pass slowly and quickly at the same time?

How can it be 2 weeks to Christmas, a week until PJ and Hannah come home, their first semester over, a week until Sarah's penultimate term is over? And yet....... I still have over 5 weeks of my notice to work.

Work is odd, maintaining things, holding things together, preparing for my departure, or at least trying, seeing my colleagues mixture of delight for me, excitement of my new job (for me and them) and despair that I am going. I don't think that's too strong a word - I think there is a real sense of them not knowing quite how things will work without me doing this job. Now I do know it'll be ok, different, and maybe eventually, better, but I also know that at this particular time, for a combination of reasons, its going to be very difficult.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas, not least because I have 11 days off work, but because I get to send lots of time with my family, all my family, and my friends, and time to worship my King, and remember the time that He began the plan to rescue me.

Enforced rest!

I have tonsillitis for the second time in about a month, although the GP thinks it's probably the same bug that I didn't get rid of the first time. Either way I am taking some time off sick this time - I didn't the first time, I slowed down but didn't stop, and I'm sure it didn't help. But I'm feeling guilty about being off work! Crazy I know, they'll have to cope without me soon, but I caught myself feeling bad about being off!!! Work has been very very manic, and I've been stressing about holding things together with one colleague on mat leave, another off sick for a few weeks, and slow plans for covering when I'm gone.

I remain on count down (less than 8 weeks now, with 11 days off between Christmas and New Year = 26 days to work!) and I am still longing to be done and moved on to new things. I've done a bit of planning with my new boss (boy its a big job!!) and applied for the course I need.

Normal everyday things continue, that broken window is being fixed today (along with a few other repairs that needed doing) the spare room is painted but needs the new carpet down and then furniture putting in. Sarah is waiting for her new placement, almost certainly wont start until Jan, but there's a hope of a good team. Friends/family finally get to move on friday after long waits - am very excited for them both.

And winter has arrived - is it really only just over 4 weeks to Christmas?

3 weeks down, 9 to go...

This is an interesting time - I am working the full 3 months notice, which with a little bit of annual leave means my last day will be 18th Jan. This seems a long time - a very long time, but it is what it is. I've had an interesting week - I've started telling colleagues (as opposed to friends) and had very positive responses, both on a personal and professional level. Next week I will tell some more colleagues who will feel the negatives of me going, which will be more difficult.

I've had a glimpse of what the new job will be like and I am so excited, and I'm about to apply for some studying (which also excites me!!!) and I've had some of the harder stuff at work, from which I am already distancing myself mentally, so at the moment it doesn't feel so hard. I am very conscious though that I need to do my current job properly over the next few months, which is challenging as I have no enthusiasm for it, but I have a responsibility to my employers, and to God, to make every effort and I will.

And Christmas is coming, and the shopping barely started, and my mini should arrive before then. PJ is home at the weekend (briefly) to do some life guard training (and get his washing done inspite of my broken washing machine - shopping trip later!) and Sarah is waiting for things to be sorted. Paul has a few days off to sort out the study move - he's doing a grand job :)