I've spent too much of my life interacting with doctors and nurses. Still, I'll take a nurse's expertise and care over a doctor's any day. Thank you, to all of the nurses reading this, for keeping me, and others like me alive. You are loved and appreciated every day.
A Cherry on Top
You do amazing work that I know must be so tough. Every nurse I've encountered whiile in the hospital has been so wonderful to me. There is one in particular that stands out to me, while I don't remember her name I will always remember how amazing she was on the worst day of my life. I hope she got some of the baked goods I dropped off for Christmas. I know you probably have a bunch of patients that remember how much you helped them.
Cherry Jubilee
Nancy, after 25 years of working in a hospital, it's why I chose the morgue to work in. It was out of my hands then. Not that I ever felt like I was the sole decision maker, but it was over. And no one's eyes were twinkling, there were no family members. I had pangs when I'd go down and there'd be a mangled child, and went thru the "It could be Joey" moments, but it wasn't. And I grew hard.
I guess the reason I'm answering this is this morning I had the same reaction in an office. On Memorial Day - 48 hours ago - my boss's Dad died. He had a mouth tumor of some sort and never told any one and of course it was not only inoperable by the time they decided to visit to find out about it, but also they couldn't even anesthetize him enough to put in a PEG tube so he wouldn't starve to death, which he did. He couldn't get enough nutrients in him because of the location of the tumor. I felt so badly for my boss.
Then she came in this morning and she was her normal self. She said she cried all night two nights ago - but now she needed to be back. I know we all grieve differently, and I'm not at all faulting her for this. But I went back to losing my Dad in 2003, who was a decade older than her father when he passed, and I cried at my desk. For my Dad. I missed him so much. Nothing got past my sister and I during his illness, we were pains in the butt to the doctors - do this, do that. I kept thinking she'd still have him if she was that aggressive. She did more for her daughter's partner than she did for her own father, who is pregnant from when she cheated with a guy. Go figure. I can't. I just know I had a really REALLY bad morning. I actually felt myself getting so nervous just sitting there in my office chair, listening to it. The one guy was leaving at 2PM - he's getting married Saturday - and I could see in his eyes, it was affecting him as well.
I guess I'm just wishing she hadn't visited all this on us, but at the same time - I understand she wanted us to know she was ok. It was a love/hate moment for me.
So thank YOU for listening, too.
I guess the reason I'm answering this is this morning I had the same reaction in an office. On Memorial Day - 48 hours ago - my boss's Dad died. He had a mouth tumor of some sort and never told any one and of course it was not only inoperable by the time they decided to visit to find out about it, but also they couldn't even anesthetize him enough to put in a PEG tube so he wouldn't starve to death, which he did. He couldn't get enough nutrients in him because of the location of the tumor. I felt so badly for my boss.
Then she came in this morning and she was her normal self. She said she cried all night two nights ago - but now she needed to be back. I know we all grieve differently, and I'm not at all faulting her for this. But I went back to losing my Dad in 2003, who was a decade older than her father when he passed, and I cried at my desk. For my Dad. I missed him so much. Nothing got past my sister and I during his illness, we were pains in the butt to the doctors - do this, do that. I kept thinking she'd still have him if she was that aggressive. She did more for her daughter's partner than she did for her own father, who is pregnant from when she cheated with a guy. Go figure. I can't. I just know I had a really REALLY bad morning. I actually felt myself getting so nervous just sitting there in my office chair, listening to it. The one guy was leaving at 2PM - he's getting married Saturday - and I could see in his eyes, it was affecting him as well.
I guess I'm just wishing she hadn't visited all this on us, but at the same time - I understand she wanted us to know she was ok. It was a love/hate moment for me.
So thank YOU for listening, too.
Cherry Cropper
I will tell you this...I don't have it in me to do what you all do. Not the routine day to day stuff, but the life changing and for some, life ending moments, that nurses especially have to be part of. I stick to gossip sites for 'news' because I cry at headlines of all of these mass shootings, parents killing their children, and overall just sad news in the world. I wouldn't be able to manage what you and people like you do on a daily basis without losing my sense of compassion to numb myself from it or lose it all together from the sheer grief I would constantly carry from those who I watched die. And that is why I am grateful for those of you with the strength to do so. You are inspiring and absolutely amazing.
I follow someone on YT who is a dispatcher for 911 and she said it beautifully. She loves what she does because she gets to help people and she oftentimes has to pull herself together to move onto the next call after having had a really tough one as if nothing happened. She said that the day she didn't care about helping people anymore was the day that she would leave because she wasn't there to not care. I only hope there is a smidgen of that feeling in all professionals who deal with the difficult aspects of life as well as the end of life. The world needs people like that in those times more than any other.
I follow someone on YT who is a dispatcher for 911 and she said it beautifully. She loves what she does because she gets to help people and she oftentimes has to pull herself together to move onto the next call after having had a really tough one as if nothing happened. She said that the day she didn't care about helping people anymore was the day that she would leave because she wasn't there to not care. I only hope there is a smidgen of that feeling in all professionals who deal with the difficult aspects of life as well as the end of life. The world needs people like that in those times more than any other.
Cherry Addict
That dispatcher put it well...thanks for sharing.redsonic20 wrote:I will tell you this...I don't have it in me to do what you all do. Not the routine day to day stuff, but the life changing and for some, life ending moments, that nurses especially have to be part of. I stick to gossip sites for 'news' because I cry at headlines of all of these mass shootings, parents killing their children, and overall just sad news in the world. I wouldn't be able to manage what you and people like you do on a daily basis without losing my sense of compassion to numb myself from it or lose it all together from the sheer grief I would constantly carry from those who I watched die. And that is why I am grateful for those of you with the strength to do so. You are inspiring and absolutely amazing.
I follow someone on YT who is a dispatcher for 911 and she said it beautifully. She loves what she does because she gets to help people and she oftentimes has to pull herself together to move onto the next call after having had a really tough one as if nothing happened. She said that the day she didn't care about helping people anymore was the day that she would leave because she wasn't there to not care. I only hope there is a smidgen of that feeling in all professionals who deal with the difficult aspects of life as well as the end of life. The world needs people like that in those times more than any other.
You don't quit playing because you grow old....you grow old because you quit playing.
Sweet Cherry Pie
I can only imagine how hard nursing is from what I hear from my friend who does it and often shares small parts of what happens each day. I couldn't do it. But then, compassion fatigue is common in what I do--animal rescue. I've done pretty much every job imaginable in the rescue realm, from intake (now that's rough) to adoption screening (surprisingly this can be one of the most stressful parts of the job) to adoption counseling to problem solving and animal training, wild animal rehabilitation, and so on. I've seen horribly abused animals come in with their minds just twisted from the things they have endured. Animals who have lived most of their lives in raw fear, animals who narrowly escaped being beaten to death with a brick, etc. Sometimes you come too late. Sometimes you are told that you should have called an hour ago because they waited that long before shooting their dog to death and it's all your fault that they couldn't wait another hour for someone to come take the sweet little pup away, nevermind that you didn't get the message until 5 minutes ago. Then there are the puppymill dogs who give you mange, the ones you can't get out of their situation because the laws are too lax and your hands are tied. There are the callers who want you to tell them how to do kitchen table surgery to amputate their pets injured leg (literally on their kitchen table) and you beg them to please take her to your vet instead, that they can just leave her there and they don't have to give their names or anything and we'll pay for the surgery if they'll just surrender her to us instead of killing her on their table. You wait all night hoping to hear from them or your vet with the message that they brought her in for the surgery, and the next day you get that call from your vet, that they showed up with her, with a bloodied bone exposed, her tendon sawed through with a serrated kitchen knife, and she had to be put down immediately.
When I worked at the vet kennel, and would comfort the grieving people whose animals didn't make it through their illness, people would ask me how I could stand it when animals died like that. I had to be honest and tell them that, while it was always sad to see a pet pass, it was, in a way something happy to see a beloved pet held with so much care with their family all around them to tell them goodbye and cry for them, because in rescue you see so many animals who die never having once known what it was like to have someone cry for them or hold them tight, or love them so much it hurts.
On the up side, I've met some of the most amazing people on the planet who are willing to do a thankless job because they can make such a difference for at least *some* of the animals out there. Too often they get laughed at for caring, told they are wasting their time, that animals don't matter, that they can take care of their whole rescue "problem" with one big snake of theirs who'll eat all the rabbits and other small animals you work so hard to help. Ha. Ha. Ha. Funny.
I think I can really appreciate what nurses do even more because helping humans instead of animals is a horse of a different color (no pun intended). While yes, animals can act like jerks, humans can be *much* harder to deal with in some ways. Sure, you can at least ask a human what is wrong, but you also have to put up with the answer that comes out of their mouths. Animals at least don't generally show up drunk or high (at least not of their own accord, though some larger species do get drunk on purpose, seeking out and eating fermented fruit) or with an annoying relative or insist that they've been waiting longest, they better damn well be next. Nursing is rough stuff, yet nurses tend to be the more compassionate of the medical professionals you encounter (believe me, I know. I have an intense phobia when it comes to medical professionals and germs, and nurses have saved the day for me more than once.)
Thank you to tall of the Cherries (and friends of cherries) out there who do these kinds of jobs that just wear you down emotionally. I have a friend who worked for years as an on-call rape crisis counselor, meaning when her phone rang, someone had been raped and she would run out the door to go pick her up and take her to the hospital, sit with her, talk to her, help her through the process of having a rape kit done, etc. I won't go into further detail, but she is probably the strongest person I have ever known.
So, thank you if you do this kind of work, and don't forget to take care of yourself and protect yourself from compassion fatigue. You guys all deserve a gold medal as far as I'm concerned.
When I worked at the vet kennel, and would comfort the grieving people whose animals didn't make it through their illness, people would ask me how I could stand it when animals died like that. I had to be honest and tell them that, while it was always sad to see a pet pass, it was, in a way something happy to see a beloved pet held with so much care with their family all around them to tell them goodbye and cry for them, because in rescue you see so many animals who die never having once known what it was like to have someone cry for them or hold them tight, or love them so much it hurts.
On the up side, I've met some of the most amazing people on the planet who are willing to do a thankless job because they can make such a difference for at least *some* of the animals out there. Too often they get laughed at for caring, told they are wasting their time, that animals don't matter, that they can take care of their whole rescue "problem" with one big snake of theirs who'll eat all the rabbits and other small animals you work so hard to help. Ha. Ha. Ha. Funny.
I think I can really appreciate what nurses do even more because helping humans instead of animals is a horse of a different color (no pun intended). While yes, animals can act like jerks, humans can be *much* harder to deal with in some ways. Sure, you can at least ask a human what is wrong, but you also have to put up with the answer that comes out of their mouths. Animals at least don't generally show up drunk or high (at least not of their own accord, though some larger species do get drunk on purpose, seeking out and eating fermented fruit) or with an annoying relative or insist that they've been waiting longest, they better damn well be next. Nursing is rough stuff, yet nurses tend to be the more compassionate of the medical professionals you encounter (believe me, I know. I have an intense phobia when it comes to medical professionals and germs, and nurses have saved the day for me more than once.)
Thank you to tall of the Cherries (and friends of cherries) out there who do these kinds of jobs that just wear you down emotionally. I have a friend who worked for years as an on-call rape crisis counselor, meaning when her phone rang, someone had been raped and she would run out the door to go pick her up and take her to the hospital, sit with her, talk to her, help her through the process of having a rape kit done, etc. I won't go into further detail, but she is probably the strongest person I have ever known.
So, thank you if you do this kind of work, and don't forget to take care of yourself and protect yourself from compassion fatigue. You guys all deserve a gold medal as far as I'm concerned.
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