Let's not make this personal.....

Today at work, I felt the familiar overwhelmed feeling I often feel at the hospital that comes from being part-time and having tons of patients I COULD visit but not knowing where the heck to start. I decided that because a lot of the staff here still does not recognize me or understand my role that it would be good to go to a floor's interdisciplinary rounds that I have not attended for a little while. Turns out I was at the exact right place at the exact right time. One of the nurses who I respect the most here runs that floor. And I did not know it, but her mother AND her favorite uncle were patients as I speak. How hard to have to do that!

And then on top of it, all of a sudden, her uncle's heart rate drops and he can't breathe and they have to take him down to ICU. She is there, tearful but professional, with her aunt, her niece and other family members, trying to juggle both roles so bravely. And there does not seem to be much that they can do given this man's wishes not to be on a ventilator.

The on-call priest comes. But I am still there, hoping that it helps, knowing I can't be anywhere else more important right then. The nurse lets me hug her and go find her cell phone. Now everyone is just waiting....

I am shaken. Grateful to have been there to do my job. But shaken. Because I wonder how many of us who get into this type of work sort of make a deal with God that if we extend ourselves in this way, nothing will ever happen to OUR people. The sometimes random pointing finger of illness and death will skip over us. We've got enough to deal with. Thus far that has been true of me and my people, my family. But I am shaken with this realization that we don't get to bargain like that. That's just not how it works. A morbid thought I know, but still......

I guess in a way I do feel like by submitting myself willingly to the challenges, fears, misfortunes and grief of others and trying to help them through, like I can stave off my own pains down the road. I still pray it's true. But even if it isn't, I pray that I can be as brave and as genuine as that nurse today. I respect her more than I ever did.