The crocheted throw now hung across the bottom of my daughter’s bed, an array of mismatched colors knotted together in perfect unison like strangers passing in all directions at a packed train station.
It was small in size as if towards the end perhaps it was too much for her arthritic fingers to weave anything larger, but it was perfect to me. It was certainly not meant to be confined to a linen closet collecting dust along with its nostalgia. It only seemed appropriate to put it on display awaiting such a day as when my daughter would become old enough to ask of its origin.
It will make for a good lesson for her, teaching the legacy of a life lived well.
It’s not uncommon when I return to work after a long stretch of days off to return to the same room assignment I held a week prior. I will grab my bag, my stethoscope, and trusty, travel coffee mug and return to my station outside of double windows, windows that offer a view of my two patients I’ll care for that given day.
It’s also not uncommon to see the same faces I left a week previous. Sometimes they’re worse, but usually improved which lifts the spirits of everyone. If they’re feeling up to being bossy and demanding then you know they’re improved and a transfer to MedSurg is in the stars. (Insert smirk here.)
Other times the patient assignment is completely different, usually because they have gotten better and moved on. I never get to say goodbye, and they are usually unaware of the war my co-workers and I waged to keep them on this earth a while longer. But it’s okay. This is the way it should be.
Sometimes, though, you return and they are gone. Really gone. Not to another floor, but to another life having left the worn-out earthly body that could no longer take the toll of illness dealt its way.
I walk to the familiar room, but as I look in the window the face has changed. The bed is not usually empty, as they’re never vacant for long, but the patient I fought for is no longer there. Their fight ended. I am left with no time to mourn, but only a blank piece of paper, or an open mind ready to receive the new patient statistics and data. The last lost battle is pushed aside to make room for a new fight for life.
Often times they try to go out on your watch. No! Fight, fight, fight. Until there’s obviously no fight left. Like today.
When you later find a moment, a rare thread of time to reflect, you are assaulted with a number of thoughts.
Did I do my best?
Could I have done anything different or better?
Would it have mattered?
Was the battle not mine at all?
Different people enter the medical field for different reasons. Some do it for the money, others enjoy the power-trip. Maybe some do it because it’s a family tradition. Regardless, I think the majority of people have a strong, innate desire to care for others. It’s eerily similar to what psychiatrists call a “Caretaker Personality” where you are driven by the need to completely take on the responsibility of another person’s welfare. My own mother was diagnosed with this. Yes, she too was a nurse.
Something about me tends towards taking ownership of the little old lady or burly old man in the bed, and especially of the patient so close in age to myself that it almost takes my breath away. I feel responsible for the outcome as if it rested solely on my shoulders. When I’m working, fighting, and sweating to restore circulation and unobtainable vital signs, I push forward as much as is warranted with as much vigor as if it were my dearest family member lying there rather than a stranger.
When you invest that much personal drive, determination, and grit it becomes your own.
“That’s my patient.”
“How’s my patient?”
The complexity of the human heart is personified in the nurse’s psyche, a rainbow of scattered emotions. Caring more than seems appropriate or within scope even as baited breath catches on a wave of adrenaline, then acting aloof when the crisis has calmed, riding the tide of ripples then swells until the next shift arrives.
Barely a wrinkle in a smooth facade, expressionless when devastating news is delivered, but maybe letting that guard down to cry in the bathroom when no one is there to see.
Even before my skills could catch up to my earned degree title I think I held the necessary traits. I pray I did…
Compassion. Sacrifice. Empathy.
An ear to listen. A hand to hold. A tear to cry. Or more often, tears.
And that was where the afghan came in. A gift from a woman who lived a long life, and then lived no more. A personal touch, made from her own frail hands, bestowed to me from a grateful daughter who understood that we had fought as much as we could, but that the battle was not ours. No matter how much we had desired to win, the victory came despite it all, even though it was accomplished otherworldly, and beyond what we had initially worked towards. We had finally surrendered, waving our white flags and holding hands and hearts for the victory march home. Eternally home. Without infirmity.
It’s not always easy for the Caretaker types to stand down, stand at ease, and let it be.
In the mean time please never mistake my far-off look for indifference. I’m likely just remembering the ones who have gone home.
Back in my daughter’s room I work my fingers through the loose weave of yarn, my gift, my memory made concrete, chaotic colors joined with purpose, and feel the peace of this, this depiction of our humanity, lives intertwined.