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Close Encounters Pics 'n Posts of Todd

"Which posters to alt.surfing have you met, surfed, or tripped with, where and when?"

 
Todd's Interview with a nursing journal on surfing nurses
I am going to start answering the questions now. Aren't you glad I have no life:-)?  Are you ready????

1] What's your specialty in nursing?
I have worked in the psychiatric field for close to 25 years. The last ten as a nurse. Most of my work has been with adolescents. For the last 5 years I have been working with physically and sexually abused children.

2] What is your age?
.......49, soon to be half a century. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!

3] Where do you work?
.......East Providence, RI 

4]What inspired you to become a nurse?
I have always liked working with people in need, Becoming a nurse has allowed me to continue to help others and still support myself decently.

5] What do you love about your profession?
I am fortunate enough to be really able to help people in true need of psychological assistance.  With children, I am glad they have found in me a nurturing, caring, empathic human being.

6] What is challenging about it?
Dealing with managment who are stupid. Dealing with managers who are unethical and cant do the work 1/100 as
well as I can, yet they are my bosses. It is unreal to me. As far as actually seeing some of the horrible things people have done to children, the challenge is to give good care and help them feel safe. The personal challenge is to try to detach some. I often have bad deams about what I have seen and dealt with. I often cannot get the visions out of my head. I recently admitted a kid that had a broken nose and cheek bone, swollen eyes and face, 3 broken ribs and many old an new bruises. I had to go out of the room when I first saw him to cry a bit.

7] What type of surfing do you do?
....stand up. Body surfing and body boarding to me shouldnt be called surfing. Standing up on a board is surfing. All the others I am sure are fun but it isnt surfing.

8] How long have you been surfing?
Since I can't surf in the winter anymore, I say only a couple of years.

9] Where do you surf and what are your favorite spots?
I surf mostly RI and Mass. Not sure I have a favorite spot but I think I like the Ocean Mist reef in RI. Very loooooooooong lefts to be had when its working:-)  Right JohnW?

10] Have you surfed any contests?
I have tried but they always kick me out:-) Not really, just messin' with ya'

11] What's your level of surfing?
Before getting my bells palsy in would of said moderate beginner. I could catch most waves in the chest high and below range. Now, with so much less water time, I would not say absolute beginner but it is harder for me to catch waves. I can still pop up to my feet and know how to deal with the ocean and predict swells, so I am far from a
beginner in that sense.

12] What inspired you to surf?
I started surfing to spend some cool time with my then 13 yo nephew. I contined to learn to show him by example
how to push yourself and persevere.

13] What does surfing do for you? Especially after a tough night at work?
The main thing I love about surfing is how it helps you forget all your troubles. I love the solitude of it. The peace and beauty of the ocean and it's many moods. I always appreciate my natural suroundings after a surf session. I sing on the way home in the car after surfing. Surfing makes me feel happy. Nothing else is quite the same. Thats why it has
sucked not being able to surf in the winter anymore because of my hells bells. I LOVED surfing in the winter.

I guess here I will talk about the bells to give some perspective. Medically they say there is no known cause for bells palsy. There are correlations. From lymes disease etc. I believe i got it surfing in 38 degree water. Waves were wasit to chest and very clean that day. Caught tons of waves. One particular time I wiped out and my head went under. I felt a JOLT of pain going through the leftside of my neck and face. The next morning, half of my face didnt work, which is what bells palsy is.  Problem is, it didnt work at all for more than 4 months!!!!!! Even now close to two years later, I am at around 85% healed. I can close my bad eye, but it still doesnt blink on its own. Therefore I need to use eye drops about every two hours while i am awake.

It is because of this I no longer feel comfortable surfing in any water anywhere near to that. That sucks because it gives me MUCH less water time and when the water does get warmer...around 50 or so.....is when we have the least amount of waves:-(  It also sucks because surfing in the dead of winter was great. It made me feel core. Like the term surfer should apply to me. i dont feel that anymore and that really saddens me.

14] How does the lifestyle of surfing compare to the lifestyle of nursing? 
Nursing is stressful, especially psychiatric nursing. Surfing helps neutralize and get rid of stress. Not only by pushing your body but getting you to open your eyes to the beauty of the natural world. I will give you a great example of this. One past winters day, I was surfing on Cape Cod with my nephew. There are these HUGE sand dunes there. It is
just he and i out and it is snowing:-) Waves were mosty waist high and clean. The swell was consistent and steady. We were bobbing up and own in the rythym of the swell. A huge freaking seal decides to join us too:-) The whole thing was just so unbelievably beautiful. I literally felt like we were actually a part of the scenery. It was pure peace and
contentment for me. 

15] Do you see any parralells between nursing and surfing?
Yes. I am a big believer that people have rythyms to them selves. As a health care provider, I often try to tune in to the rythyms of my patients. It helps me to connect to them theraputically. 

Surfing is similiar in that the ocean often has a rythym as well. Swells come in many shapes and sizes as well as rip currents and channels. They all need to be carefully viewed to help you to figure out what is happening in the ocean. 

16] What advice do you have for others either trying out surfing or nursing? 
Perserverence is the key for both. Nursing school was the hardset thing I have ever done. I just absolutly refused not to make it. I was the same way about learning to surf. Thats why it sucks for me barely being able to get up on the board now a days. I have lost a lot of my spark where surfing is concerned. I am going on a vacation with my nephew in late April on the outer banks of North Carolina. The water will still be too cold for me here. I am hoping to push myself hard down there and start catching waves again. To get my surfing legs back, sort of speak. I guess thats it.

How did I do????????..thanks.....todd.

Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 22:43:44 -0500 (EST)
From: todd <MZCMN@webtv.net>
Newsgroups: alt.surfing


 


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