i've been coming face to face with some tough stuff this week. last sunday i learned that a younger guy who i go to church with has a brain tumor. for some reason, this hit me especially hard, even though we're only acquaintances. fortunately, he's had surgery and is doing great. i'll be honest, i was glad that everything was pretty much over so i could get rid of the pit that's been in my stomach ever since i heard about his situation. however tonight i was shocked to learn that ANOTHER guy, someone i was involved with in college, was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and will be having surgery next week. though we're not close, this also makes me feel sick.
i'm feeling the weight of dealing with this as a nurse as well as a peer. when anyone your age has to face something like this, it's pretty jarring. there's always the "he's so young" and the "it could be any of us" and the worry that comes when you get to thinking about what could be lurking in your body that you have no idea about. but when you're a nurse, it's different. you don't get to ask why or get upset, sick people are your job. you don't get to wonder how this happened or ask questions, people expect you to have all the answers. you're not supposed to get scared, despite the fact that you know waaaaay too much not to be terrified.
people get sick everyday, this i know. well people get into accidents, some of them are irreparably damaged. but when it's "my" people, it's different. when i can say "hey that guy leads singing" or "i kissed him when i was 21" it's real. this is the same feeling i have when i take care of palliative patients. the fact that someone can be here one minute and gone the next continues to boggle my mind. how is it possible that i have to deal with this in my 20s? because surely other people my age have cubicles and are thinking about happy hour, not calling a patient's husband to come to the hospital because i just held his wife's hand while she died.
this is not what i signed up for, yet no one really seems to understand that. the general consensus is "you're a nurse, this is what you do, you should be about to handle anything". therefore i'm not really supposed to get upset about patients because they're only my job. well i can tell you right now, not getting emotional isn't my strong suit. i take things personally. i can't leave work at work, i have never been able to and i don't plan on starting anytime soon. it's part of what makes me a good nurse, but all that empathy really takes its toll. this week i had a patient in pain and i COULD NOT get it under control no matter how hard i tried. i gave her narcotics, i gave her nausea meds, i gave her GI cocktails. i called the doctor and got her meds increased, then i called him back 10 minutes later and got the meds changed altogether. nothing worked. she was crying, rocking back and forth in her bed and there was NOTHING i could do for her.
so i went in the back room and i cried. because watching people suffer and being powerless to change what is happening to them hurts.
so maybe that's why i'm so upset by the brain tumors. because the nurse in me wants to make this better, but both situations are out of my hands. and, in case you can't tell, giving up control is also not my strong suit.
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