Surviving the Storm

I have been hospitalized a total of three weeks this school year. Having spent that much time in the hospital I have had so much time to reflect, practice gratitude, and make goals for the future.

Having watched the routines in the hospital and reflecting on the brain and learning, of course hospitals have routines. They are for practical and humane reasons. Routines are easy to schedule. Routines are safe for brains. When you have many people hospitalized in pain, away from their safety they need routines, in all the uncertainty in health routines are predictable, safe, and expected.

This should be the same in schools. We welcome students in to our environments, routines are the things that can help a student feel safe. The unknown is scary.

The hospital routine is not something I loved: 6 am chest x-ray, 6:15 am blood draw, 8 am rounds dr, 10 am pt/ot, pain med every 3 hours. But even for all these terrible things, there is something about mentally preparing and utilizing hope strategies that make the more terrible things bearable.

I dream of a world where school is fun for all students. That is not the case currently, but it is a goal of mine. Until then we can use hope strategies to help students tolerate the things that are painful for them. While there are many things we can do to support this I would like to start with routines. This tried and true practice can positively change classroom management, and student anxieties. Predictability is essential.

I am still recovering from my decompression survey for V-TOS, I had what is referred to as the trifecta surgery (removal of first rib, scalene neck muscle and vein repair). It will take a long time, and it sucks. It is a very rare syndrome and painful and sucks. But it was a life-saving surgery and what hope work tells us is that when we have high hope even the suckyest of situation can be tolerable. Hope theory started in medicine for chronically ill patients but can be used for any sucky situation.

Hope=agency and pathways