My Plan of Care

As I'm doing a mental inventory of what I have on my side, the field of nursing keeps coming to mind. I'm a nurse, I graduated from nursing school in 2003. Something that always stuck with me from nursing school was about nursing interventions and outcomes, plans of care, and how we interact with patients. Professional nursing (that of an RN) is focused on getting the patient to their optimal state of health and being- that encompasses alot of states of being, not just perfect health. We use interventions to assist the patient as best we can, and we use outcomes to measure how well our interventions are doing- this is the plan of care. Another role of the nurse is as head cheerleader- many patients, specifically those with a long road to recovery, need extra boosts of encouragement to keep them going. The following is my Plan of Care- this is what I have going for me, my current list of interventions and positive circumstances:

- a treadmill that I'm renting ($25 a month) from my younger sister, just to try it out and see if I can handle it before I spend the money to buy one of mine own. We've had it for 7 days, and I have been on the treadmill 5 times in those 7 days. Not bad. I've been doing 30 minutes of something, either just playing with the speed and incline myself, or doing a pre-set workout. I've given myself the minimum timeframe of 30 minutes once a day on the treadmill.

- a(nother) membership to Weight Watchers. I'm awful at following the points, but I LOVE their tallies for water, multivitamin, fruits and veggies, dairy, healthy oils and activity. That alone is worth the $16.95 membership. I love checklists, and I get a kick out of being able to check those off every day. Their materials are really good- I highly recommend the Weight Watchers Shot in the Arm, by Sharon Lee Riguzzi. Its a cute little book with daily thoughts and motivational ideas that stick with you- its available on Amazon for about $5.

- my husband Marmot, who is on this journey with me. This is an awesome thing for me, because it encompasses alot of aspects of life. He's interested in eating better, therefore he's less inclined to say sure when I suggest eating out, and seeing him on the treadmill (and thinking he might lose weight faster!) is big-time motivation for me.

- my job is changing on 1/21 to a Monday through Friday, 8-5 job. Now this is unusual for an RN, and I'm really looking forward to being able to establish a routine- not something I was able to do when I was working 12 hour days in no particular order, nights, weekends, whatever.

Will these things help me? I hope so. I anticipate that this list will change over the next year, but its nice to make a list of the things that you have going for you!