Look Up to Find an Egg

Look Up to Find an EggAngela Posey-Arnold On your feet now—applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence. (Psalm 100:1 The Message) There is nothing funny about mental illness. It is serious and relentless. As a student nurse I dreaded psychiatric rotation because I felt helpless. I did not know how to help them. The unit was scary to me and such a sad, sad place.We had a three week rotation through psychiatric. Our instructor would allow us to choose which patient we wanted to have for the day. We would listen to the night nurse give report and then we were to choose a patient, develop a care plan and carry out the interventions.I was usually still sitting in the nurse’s report room after everyone else had picked their patients. I didn’t want any of them. Not that I didn’t have compassion for them, I did, maybe too much to be objective. I just felt so inadequate to be able to help them. From a team nursing approach we worked together to plan activities for the patients. That wasn’t so bad because we did this as a team. It was Easter time. We had planned an Easter activity for the patients and worked on it for a week. The day arrived for the Easter Celebration. The weather was a perfect Alabama spring day. The courtyard trees and flowers were blooming and decorated festively. It was a perfect day for an Easter Egg Hunt and a picnic. The ones that were able to attend were excited and ready to spend some time outside.We had arrived early before the patients were out of their rooms and hid the eggs. We had made eight dozen eggs so that everyone could find several. We planned on using the eggs to make egg salad for the picnic. We hid eggs behind bushes and rocks, under flowers and in trees. There was one tree that had two branches that formed a y—a great place for an egg. The hunt began and the patients scurried around finding eggs and filling their baskets. I noticed one lady who had not found any eggs. She was a little confused and becoming agitated. I tried to help direct her to where the eggs were.She was standing under the tree saying, “I just can’t find any eggs, I just can’t find any. What am I going to do? I just cannot find any eggs, everyone else has eggs, I don’t have any eggs!!”All of a sudden the egg we hid in the Y of the tree fell out and hit her right on the top of her head.She picked it up and with a huge smile on her face, she said, “Hey look, I found an egg.”She laughed and we laughed. It was a happy day. She got to keep her egg. Dear Lord, Thank You for the gift of laughter, especially when we can laugh at ourselves. Thank You for the joy You put in our hearts. I pray for all those in psychiatric units that they too will find their joy. In Jesus Name, Amen.

©2008 Angela Posey-Arnold/Author of The Nightingale Protocol.

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