Jason's Last Day at Children's...

Jason has been working hard at Children's for a year and a half now while simultaneously working at getting into the police academy. He was one of almost 5000 applicants that was invited to be a part of the Colorado State Patrol in April. After a few days of hard prayer and many discussions we decided to decline the offer with hopes that the City of Aurora police department would come through. We decided that if we were going to be moving every 2-3 years we would prefer to do it as a military family and live all over the country, not as a CSP family and live in the same state as our family and friends but hours away, stationed in tiny towns throughout Colorado. It was a risky move, passing up the opportunity to finally be a cop (something Jason has been working towards since October of 2008) but we had faith that God would provide... Fast forward 3 months and Jason finally got the official offer from Aurora! It was at that point he put in his notice with Children's. While he was thankful to have a job the job at Children's was less than ideal. The hours were not great, the actual job involved plunging a lot of toilets and clearing out shower drains, fixing nurse call buttons and a lot of other 'grunt' work. On Jason's last day I had our secretary place a call for a repair on our floor. We had the operator tell Jason that a kid in one of the rooms on the 7th floor had gotten really sick, clogged the toilet and than gotten sick in the shower, clogging that as well. Jason trudged up to the floor to fulfill his duties and clear out the drains in the bathroom. Just as he entered he said to me sarcastically, "I love my job!"

...Fortunately for him, it was a practical joke. I am terrible at keeping secrets and even worse at lying so he knew something was up from the beginning but it was still a lot of fun and he got a kick out of it. It was really nice to see Jason at work. I think it also gave him an appreciation of what I did. One day we passed while I was loading my patient on to the elevator, transferring them to the ICU. His eyes met mine and he understood the seriousness of the situation. He also understood how much I cared for the patient because he had seen my interactions with her. A week later, when she died, he was so much more empathetic than he had ever been and was a real source of strength for me. Working with him had other perks too, he would walk me to my car, when the weather was bad he would move my car into the parking garage. He's a great husband and an even better friend. It has been incredible to see him realize his dreams and hard work paying off as he has finally achieved his goal of getting into the police academy!