I often envisioned 2022 as a banner year! For one, this was supposedly my “Goldie” year. Well, I actually meant golden, but for those of you who may not know, my paternal side of the family used to call me Goldie. In fact, some of my childhood friends still call me that to this day.  Why, you ask? I am my paternal grandparents’ first grandchild who carried the last name Oro.

Spanish 101: Oro is the Spanish word for gold, hence Goldie!

Anyway, aside from the fact that I turned half a century this year, I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for. Please indulge me as I reflect on the great and awesome things that happened to me. Some may be grand, just like passing my nursing informatics examination, while others, not so much, just like recovering well from my surgery. Maybe reading through my reflection will also help you appreciate the amazing things that you accomplished this year. If you are anything like me, you may also find that it is cathartic to list down the positive marks in our lives because that is where we draw strength during the challenging periods that all of us will go through.

Here is the link to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lrwpyA1u6eKexXDHd6Niw?si=2933fd09d379494e

What Am I Grateful for this Year?

Health

Well, cliche as it may sound, I am thankful for the blessing of health. Although not everything is picture-perfect, life itself is a precious gift we should always appreciate every single day. I miss the days when I would do yoga and the first thing that the instructor tells me is to be “aware as you breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth!” See, I am telling you, this even gave me the idea of a new year’s resolution!

Going back to the topic, this is very significant to me because I started this year by being in the hospital post-surgery. The fact that I was able to recover without any complications is an amazing thing. Sure, I still sometimes lament over the fact that I will never have kids as a result of that surgery, but I have to learn to look past that. Does that make me feel incomplete? At times, yes! But does that make me less blessed? Maybe not!

That surgery allowed the surgeons to detect potential future problems had it not been addressed promptly, so I have to look at that from a “glass half-full” perspective, I guess!

Both Ranie and I always look at each other and laugh because we realize the price we have to pay growing older. Age-related health issues are starting to crop up, but they are normal parts of life, I guess. So, yes, we now treasure the time to take care of ourselves as sacred and of utmost importance.

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Opportunities

This is a very broad topic. It could be professional or also personal. Let’s start with the professional aspect first.

Professional Opportunities

Obviously, the biggest professional blessing I got this year is my passing of the nursing informatics certification examination. I can talk ad nauseam about how hard that exam was or even how lost I was when I was preparing for it. In the end, it was a goal that I set for myself, and thankfully, I was able to meet it just before the year ends.

My first-year foray into the world of nursing informatics (NI) was also triumphant as I was given an exceptional evaluation by my leaders. This was largely due to my contribution to our systemwide Covid best practice advisory alert project. For most of my nursing career, I am relegated to dealing with colleagues in my own Maternal and Child department. Being in NI gave me the chance to network with other stakeholders and even Chief Informatics Officers in our organization, especially in tackling projects such as the Covid initiatives.

But it was not all just about NI. It was also about keeping up with my bedside nursing skills. Thankfully, I am able to maintain my once-a-week per diem job in the Special Care Nursery at another system. My sixth year with them, I should add. Additionally, I was also able to moonlight as a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurse in one of our Children’s Hospitals in our system. Sometimes, I couldn’t wrap my head as to how I was able to manage to work in three hospitals all within the same week. However, I was reminded that that was nothing compared to the days when I would work in four hospitals plus visit my home health patients during the early days of my grad school.

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Personal Opportunities

Obviously, this blog and the podcast I launched were my biggest personal blessings for this year as far as opportunities are concerned. People sometimes ask me:

If you are not making money out of them nor even have a lot of subscribers, why bother coming up with content time after time?

Ever heard of Noah…yes, the Noah from the Bible. He built an ark even if he didn’t know all that will happen after the fact, right? He was instructed by God, and he followed.

Although my blog and my podcast may not have life-changing or earth-shattering consequences, I keep on. God planted that seed in my heart, and so I honor that. Either of them may or may not touch as many people as I hope, but inspiring a few is good enough for me. And inspired a few, they both have!

The Webinar, et al.

This has to be one of the highlights of my year. The fact that I was invited to conduct a webinar regarding nursing informatics in my native Philippines was both an honor and a humbling experience for me. I anticipated speaking to a handful of colleagues in Iloilo, my province, but alas, there were more than 400 attendees from all over the Philippines and abroad. That was a fulfilling 4-hour period for me.

This was one of my overarching goals on my graduate school journey. I aimed to introduce informatics change in my own country. I am realistic that it may not come up to par with first-world standards but starting with baby steps will result in big strides in the future.

Aside from that, a few nursing students or even nursing instructors reached out to me. They asked for advice ranging from research instrumentation to the perks of choosing informatics as a nursing specialty. I spend time helping colleagues that way because that is my way of paying it forward. I mentioned that I have had very supportive and generous mentors up to this day. Returning the favor to others is the sensible thing to do, in my books anyway.

Family and Friends

Of course, we cannot discount the importance of having supportive people around us. Most of those people we call our family and friends. I am thankful that I have a large, loving family who will go to hell and back for me. I have also realized the true meaning of friendship. Just like in social media, there are some who are genuinely concerned about one’s well-being. While there are some who are just quiet observers. I will take those, rather than the “Marites” ones any day. What’s a “Marites,” you ask (especially if you are non-Filipino)?

Well, Marites loosely translates to “Mare, ano ang latest? (Friend, what’s the latest?)” In short, these are the kind of people who befriend you to be able to stick their noses where they don’t belong. In a word, these are the professional gossip-mongers. Lucky me, I had a few of those in my friend list. The operative word is – HAD!

Finding out the people’s purpose in one’s life is a very complicated process. This year, I am grateful that I get to know people’s real colors. So yes, I lost some and win some! No regrets! Life goes on!

Final Thoughts

The year 2022 was a mixed bag of good and bad for me. Depending on how one perceives it, it is either a glass half-full or a glass half-empty. No matter what, there is always room for more, right? It just depends on whether we add honey or poison to top it off. My prayer for the new year is to be able to discern which decisions will bring honey to my life or which people are poisonous enough to avoid!

Either way, my boys and I hope you all have a prosperous and blessed start to the new year. Thank you for reading (or listening to the podcast). Praying for your respective successes today and always!