I knew this would happen.I knew that throwing myself into a new job would create less and less time. For this and that. That being writing. I haven’t even sat in front of my glowing box, tapping my fingers on the button board this week. I haven’t even thought about erecting a poem or two. About scripting a day’s prose. About fancying a gander through my beloved reads. It’s either about having less time or making less time. To this, I have to wonder.
Am I really going to feel so self-absorbed that I can’t even take a penny for my own thoughts?
And I sit here, now, feeling much relieved to be here. To not further the exacerbation of my loss. To just regain my composure and start again. To write.
This past week has been a whirlwind for me. Starting a new job. Tackling my workout goals. And so on and so on.
I feel like I’ve cried inside so much this week. Nothing surfacing on the outside, only an inner turmoil festering inside. It makes absolutely no sense. I find this job to be a gratifying, noble, body-inducing experience. I seek thrill from its challenges and ornate systems of operation. It’s what I’ve been holding onto during my first weeks of orientation. And then reality sets in.
I checked in on a patient last week. Her face was pale and dappled with beads of sweat. She could barely crack open her eyes. I collected her vital signs, noticing how low her temperature ran. I notified others. I myself wondered. Then, just an hour later, she coded. She stopped breathing. Her wristband declared to not resuscitate. I think those words caused my heart to stop. For a moment.
And when I was bathing a patient last week, she shared wisdom with me from her younger days. She snatched a smile from somewhere and stuck it right on my face. That very evening, after my shift had ended, she died. She passed in her sleep. She just walked away from the pain.
This is what I face. People with debilitating illnesses. Sometimes 3-4 day struggles. Sometimes lifetime struggles. And when you lose people that you’ve had contact with, even if only for a mere moment, it shatters something. Inside. Confusion grows within, sprouting seeds of doubt and blooming into a mystery.
No matter how much I value my job, what happens when it’s too much? What can I do when I connect with a patient only to find they’re gone the next day?
I. Am. Lost. In this respect, it only paints an even more elegiac picture of how I’m coated in sensitivity.
Perhaps too much for this job.
Perhaps too much for my own good.
.We are formed in important ways by the love we feel in our hearts.
--Ardath H. Rodale, American writer
