My Blue Heaven.

Well, the asparagus is a foot high, the eggs are still in the coop, and the dishes are all put away wrong....mom must have been at a conference!!  And so I was.

While it may appear that I have a happy go lucky existence of cocktail hours and running through the field followed by majestic chickens and well dressed children, I do actually hold down a full time job.  And, like most working mommy professionals, sometimes I need a little rejuvenating.

I've been attending a series of conferences the last few years to get a special accreditation to tack on to my credentials - officially making me a "Hospice Music Therapist."  And, for the last four days, I have been thick in the trenches,  14 hour days, back and forth to Detroit, home and to bed.  While I crawled into bed each night spent, this is what music therapists do to get rejuvenated.  We lock ourselves up with other music therapists for days until we all are brimming with love, excitement, and new music to share!

So I guess first lets do Hospice 101.  Anyone meeting criteria with a 6 month or less diagnosis can be on hospice.  Sometimes people are on for a day, sometimes for three years.  The earlier the better...because, along with your death, we want to make the remainder of your life beautiful and comfortable.  We want you to enjoy the time you have left in a pain free, comfortable existence.  Hospice is covered 100% by Medicare, and sometimes by private insurance.  The government mandates that this include a home health aid, nurse, chaplain, social worker, and volunteer.  Amazing hospices, like ours, also offer music therapy, which brings us to....

Music Therapy 101 -  The use of music to attain non-musical goals.  A music therapist has a full music degree with lots of counseling, psych, and the like.  Lots of school, lots of practicums and clinicals, an internship...lots of training.  We are board certified, and work with about any population you can imagine...psych units, special needs children, prisons, etc.   So a nurse or the doctor will write me an order to see a patient, not to teach them to play guitar, but to address some issue that the whole hospice team is working on - only I get to do it with music.  So typically we're talking things like pain management, agitation or anxiety, quality of life issues, respiratory issues, spiritual issues, etc.   Sometimes I'm singing Patsy and Hank all day, and sometimes I get called in when it's go time to sing people to heaven, literally. I am not opposed to climbing on your bed with my guitar and just being with you so you are not alone.  I mean it people...I will climb on your bed and cuddle you.

This is getting long winded, so lets cut to the chase.  I just spent four days with some of the most amazing, talented, and gifted therapists around.  We laughed and cried.  We sang and played.  We had a special five hour gospel course on Sunday given by the lovely Taryn Thomes (seen here teaching us a perfect little song to use with patients)  (conferences are full of little burst-into-song moments), and you talk about going to church?  It was church in that room that day.  Just soul moving stuff folks.

So, my point is, I feel so rejuvenated.  I can't wait to try all my new knowledge this week... look out dying people...I'm a comin'.

And, thank you to the beautiful blond with the unruly curls for teaching me this one...

And, we got a puppy because, oh, because why not?   Miss Beatrix Cesarz - we call her Trixie ;)

And thanks to Joe and my mother in law for holding down the fort...clean house, hot meals...you can put my dishes away wrong anytime!