I just finished up a long four-night stretch at the hospital.
It was exhausting - mentally, physically and emotionally.
I spent most of yesterday in tears.
We lost a patient to a heart condition in an unexpected moment. She was less than fifty years old. She left behind a husband and two daughters who are still in their teens.
Their wails of anguish when they learned of their mother's death broke our hearts. Their feelings of guilt for not being there when she died made my heart ache for their suffering in the days to come.
It was horrible to have to witness this death, this raw grief.
It was even worse to imagine my own children being the ones left behind, should something this awful happen to me.
I held it together and gave as much emotional support as I could to these girls, until my shift was over and the next supervisor took my place.
I went to my office and teared up a little, but managed to give report, gather my things, and head for home.
But when I crawled into my bed next to my soundly-sleeping warm husband, my walls crumbled and I sobbed myself to sleep.
Nightmares invaded my six hours of restless sleep, until I finally gave up and got up out of bed, having to get ready for another night of work.
Isabel wanted to know what was wrong. Gabe asked me why I was crying, then proceeded to tell me to "stop thinking about sad stuff". I tried.
All the way into the hospital, I listened to a good worship CD full of TobyMac and Newsboys and Kutless. I tried to keep a positive perspective, but all I could imagine was what those girls were going through at that moment.
The hospital kept me busy, I visited with co-workers who are blessed friends, I shared the story of the patient when asked "what happened with that code last night?". I talked to two of the nurses that were with me, one of them being the patient's nurse that night. We cried and talked and shared our feelings, which were exactly the same, wondering about the girls and thinking about the horror of leaving our own babies behind.
I couldn't follow Gabe's advice, but talking and processing the events of the night before started the healing process for us. As much as our hearts ache, we have to go on and keep giving the same care (if not better) to our new patients. Some patients and codes and sad events hit us closer to home than others, but as nurses we have to find a way to deal with our own grief and use it to make us even better at what we do.
This was one of those times.
