things i know, but wish i didn't.

sometimes i'm almost able to forget about how hard this job really is.  lately i've been efficient, comfortable, in the zone.  i do my thing, make it through, go home, and start it all over the next day.  

i almost forget that the things i see are not commonly seen.  there are horrors that live in my brain that aren't there for everyone.  

most day i operate on pure instinct.  so when i heard the crash tonight, and then the screaming, i ran towards the chaos and not away.  and i found a woman, not much older than i, absolutely hysterical, shattered dinner tray on the floor.  she was screaming, the kind of scream that i recognize because i've heard it before.  it means someone is dead.

not everybody knows that sound, i guess.  i've only heard it once before, when an ICU nurse came to the floor a few years ago to tell a patient that her husband had just died.  it was absolutely chilling.  

turns out the patient's house had been robbed, everything had been taken.  a cousin had walked in during the robbery and had been shot to death.  the patient had gotten a phone call telling her the news, and had come undone...flipped her dinner tray, ripped the cord out of the phone, and started stomping and sobbing and screaming.  

oh the screaming.  like someone had just ripped out her soul.  it's a sound that i still can't get out of my head, even as i sit here and try to cover tonight with wine.  

there are things that i've seen that i can't unsee.  things that i've heard that i can still hear, and that make me sick inside to think about.  it makes me long for a life of cubicles and happy hours, makes me want to be a normal 20-something instead of a nurse.