I’m on call today. 
This job is fulfilling…satisfying. People often ask me, “How do you do it?”.
I just do.
Sometimes, however - - I can do a patient visit that lasts for an hour, but because of the high emotional dynamics - - I can come away from that visit feeling like I just worked 40 straight hours and badly need a nap.
Today - I had one of those visits.
38 year old female patient with breast cancer that has spread to her brain. Two weeks ago, she told me, she was taking her kids to and from school - - she was working, attending school functions with her kids, shopping at the mall with her friends, ect. She knew she had the cancer - - and had been receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments and was about to start another course of such treatments.
Two weeks ago, she woke up and couldn’t move the entire right side of her body. The cancer spread quickly - - and she received the news that she had hit the point of no return.
Just like that. At 38.
Her kids aren’t dealing with it well. She’s a single mom who hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her ex-husband for 10 years. All of the sudden - he’s back in the picture trying to get to know his children he hasn’t spent any note-worthy time with.
She’s got a prognosis of a week, maybe two. She’s lying in bed, doped up on narcotics to take the pain away, looking at this man who was once her husband…the man who walked out 10 years ago. She doesn’t know him anymore. She has no idea what kind of life he leads. All she knows is this is the man who will now be responsible for raising her children when she leaves this earth.
She is more scared for them, than for herself.
She looked at me, with huge tears in her eyes and said, “This isn’t fair to them — they didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
If this visit was that emotionally exhausting for me - - I cannot even begin to comprehend what this woman goes through every hour of what is left of her life.
I never felt more helpless in my entire life.
12:08 am on November 23rd, 2003
Oh Lisa {{{{hugs}}}}
I can count on one hand how many nurses I have known that have your depth of compassion.
12:15 am on November 23rd, 2003
*hugs back*
Thanks, sweetie.
I think I’m headed down to Macon to sniff horrid, rancid papermill scent, k?
12:59 am on November 23rd, 2003
Just make sure you check the weather before you schedule anything so you can visit on a day when there is no rain a couple days before!
1:05 pm on November 23rd, 2003
jesus we should all count our blessings shouldnt we.
And theres me thinking of taking 4 weeks worth of anti depressents in one hit tomorrow morning chased with a budweiser.
Suddenly i feel selfish.
6:11 pm on November 23rd, 2003
Fluffy, hon — not a thing in this world is worth all that. I say, have the strength to go through life…live it and let nature take it’s course and die when you’re body gives up - - no sooner than that!
Sure do hope you reconsidered, sweets!
6:26 am on November 24th, 2003
ur not wring there lisa!
and yeah im still here
6:26 am on November 24th, 2003
oops wrong either
8:29 am on November 24th, 2003
Yay
3:55 pm on November 25th, 2003
That’s so terrible….but it’s encouraging to know there are nurses and aides out there who really do care and are compassionate. I think that even if you can’t change their situation, just lending a judgement-free ear to their circumstance goes a long way.