Were You Born at Texas Health Fort Worth?

Prior to joining Texas Health Resources (THR), I’d had the opportunity to work with the organization on a number of events and developed a positive impression. I began to feel like it was something I had to be a part of. I joined THR more than 11 years ago, but my connection to the organization goes back much farther.

I was born at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth where my mother also delivered my three sisters. I followed suit and delivered my two beautiful children at Texas Health Fort Worth as did my sisters. We even shared the same OB/GYN for four of our children’s births. For me, choosing to deliver at Texas Health Fort Worth wasn’t just about a family tradition. I remember growing up when someone asked, “Where were you born,” the response was always, “Harris Methodist”! It became almost “club” like. As I got older and more educated, I had a better understanding why that was the answer.

My mother chose Texas Health Fort Worth because of the level of care she knew she would receive, the tenured staff and the advanced technology. My sisters and I chose to deliver there for the same reasons. I think as the community grows, people need to feel that sense of family in knowing who their neighbors are and who they can trust.

Texas Health Fort Worth has built their reputation based on providing care for patients at their most vulnerable times and treating them as if they are family. The hospital embodies the philosophy of “treat others the way you want to be treated.” That’s something that my mother instilled in me and my siblings and something that we work to instill in our children as well. So, I am very fortunate and proud to represent an organization that places individualized care at the forefront of everything they do.

Jeanine Andersen

Marketing Manager

The Only Thing Constant

Most likely you have heard the maxim that the only thing constant in life is change. Change is always with us. Like it or not a great many things that we have, know, and even hold near and dear will be transformed, modified, and morphed into something completely different. That fact is usually proclaimed as a lament, a sad truth we just have to live with. I hope you will allow me to offer a different, and hopefully refreshing, approach to this poser we call change.

It is true that we live in a world of transformation. But is that really so bad? I want to be brazen enough to suggest that we consider welcoming change into our lives. Constant sunshine, just like constant rain and dreary skies, does become lackluster. I have lived in the land of blue skies and an ever-present sun. Trust me when I tell you that we longed for the crack of thunder and a good downpour. It most likely will not surprise you then when I declare that it is likewise good and healthy for our emotions to change. Constant happiness, smiles, and pure glee will become nothing special, indeed trite after a while. Sadness is not my first choice, but it sure helps me appreciate the joy in my life.

Change is an ever-present companion in our hospital. Our patients and families arrive because something has changed, shifted in their world. As a team of healthcare professionals our goal then becomes to bring about yet another alteration, albeit for the better this time. It is in this change journey, this process focused on healing and fueled by hope that we ourselves change. Striving together as agents of change our goal becomes the restoration of peace in what is often perceived as a storm of chaos by our patients and families. And when the skies clear, when everyone involved breathes deeply once again, we realize we have survived this tempest of change. Dare I suggest that we perhaps might even be better as a result of what we have been through?

Allow me to offer a reminder, therefore, that change will always be with us. It waits just around the corner. The ebb and flow of life will not evaporate, will not cease, but is indeed a constant on which we can depend. Life bristles with a flux all its own. But, within this maelstrom of modification we can, and in fact are challenged, to find good. Change often does feel like bedlam run amuck. But good things frequently are birthed in the cauldron of chaos.

And finally permit me to challenge you to have something in your life that is beyond change. For me it is tending to my spiritual yearnings and needs. My Creator has simply and significantly declared I AM. That is enough. Bring on the change, transformation, modification, and the whirlwind of chaos. When the dust settles, the battlefield of adjustments is surveyed, and the wounded tended to, my Comforter is there ready to encourage and convince me that perhaps whatever is new is not so bad after all.

So, let the change begin—we will not have to linger very long l assure you. But do not fear. It is standard equipment with this thing called life. And, we will endure.

Carey Reynolds

Staff Chaplain