The day was over. A long shift had finally ended and I gathered together my belongings for the brief trip back home to sleep before returning tomorrow. I smiled at thoughts of my children. My six year old daughter had learned to ride her bicycle without training wheels, and though I had missed the momentous event in person, my spouse had been good enough to capture video evidence for me. I looked forward to dinner together, even though I knew I’d be exhausted and ready for bed. The idea of a hot supper and quick sitcom before snoozing made me smile again, but then I didn’t. Because I thought about my day. I don’t guess I had really thought about it. I hadn’t allowed such a thing. You couldn’t.
As I stood behind closed doors, the bathroom door and break room between me and the patient care world, tears began to well in my eyes.
The horror of it.
I swallowed hard trying to dislodge the lump of emotion that had taken up residence in my throat, but that exercise was as futile as trying to will the tears not to flow down my cheeks. The emotional heaviness of such a horrible happening for my patient had left me deflated. I hadn’t realized it before. I couldn’t.
And as the empathetic emotions reared their ugly head, the raw tears streaked my face in frustration. I couldn’t change my patient’s circumstances anymore than I could have prevented the befalling of such tragedy, for the patient and their family. I wiped a stray tear away. It had snuck up on me, this emotional outpouring. I hadn’t felt it all day while I was in the thick of the awful. I hadn’t. I couldn’t. That’s not how it worked.
Nurses see a lot of pain, their beyond, fair share of heartache, but also occurrences so terrible that words can’t even begin to describe. You wouldn’t know it by their face, though. In death, work continues. In patients’ and families’ grief, condolences and support are given, but efficiently. To some it might even appear aloof. It’s not that.
We feel pain. We know pain. We know it so intimately that we wish we didn’t. We have held hands, heard prayers, and passed out Kleenex more than you can imagine. We’ve held shaking daughters who never got to tell mom goodbye, and we’ve picked up inconsolable mothers off the floor when their only son passes suddenly. We know pain.
We’ve stood there silently, back against the wall, hands wringing behind us, silently praying while the physician delivers the news no parent of a toddler wants to hear. Cancer. We’ve made the long walk down the hall to the waiting room. The one where the family all look up at the sound of the door, like a group of deer caught in the headlights. We hope our face doesn’t betray the sentence the surgeon is going to have to say.
Your dad didn’t make it out of surgery.
We watch your pain, we see your tears, we hold you up so you don’t hit the floor. But our tears seldom fall. They don’t. They can’t.
Not yet.
As I stood in the private bathroom I allowed my tears to fall, tears that had been there for thirteen hours, tears that I had hidden so well, they were hidden even from myself. I let them fall, I felt the pain of the horrible things my patient had experienced, and my heart broke for my patient. I suppose it had been breaking all day; I had just been to busy to allow it to surface.
It wasn’t that we didn’t feel. It wasn’t that we didn’t care. I think, in my own personal experience, it’s that we care so much. We care so much that we keep our own emotions in check. We do this so that our patient can have all of our effectiveness and thorough care. Yes, we empathize. And yes, we support their turmoil. Our turmoil, though, it stays below the surface. The thing is, we’ve seen so much pain, year after year, that if we let in the fullness of the whole lot, we’d crumble. It’s not just understaffing or overworking that leads to burnout. Sometimes you can only hold so much pain before you must step aside. With this in mind, we have a bit of a fence in place.
We joke, some often times inappropriately. We laugh, we sing, maybe we seem distracted or detached. But maybe that’s just how we cope. It’s how we cope with the pain, the grief, the patients who cause their own demise. It’s how we hold all the awful within without toppling over. Although, sometimes we spill over. We spill over the hot tears behind closed doors. You can only hold so much behind a fence, even if it’s built for your own protection.
I cried about a patient today. I know I will cry again. Maybe not tomorrow, the next day, or even the following week. But I will. I’ll cry, and I’ll probably do it when they can’t see me. You see, when they’re looking at me, I’m too busy looking at them, ready to help with their tears. That’s just how it is, and how it has to be.
Sandra says
I’m retired now after 50 years in nursing. This brought back memories that I thought were gone forever. And I cried again for similar situations, some many years ago.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Always a nurse!
Dorothy says
Brie, I believe that God was between you & all the tears you didn’t shed til later. He was the cement that steadied you when you were the grab bar for your patients or their loved ones. When you were real & sturdy looking & tangible enough for people in pain to see & reach for. Maybe during an Aha! Moment realization of a lifetime of bad choices or mistakes, or in a sudden unspeakable moment of sorrow or during the terror that comes with being utterly powerless & being unable to stand or breathe for even one more second without help. Without a grab bar.
I think that sometimes nurses are life’s compassionate soft places for humans to land until God & his angels take over.
Ya know…y’all show up every day, offering to stand alongside us til we get through the messiness of being injured or sick or dying. You watch people take the leap or sometimes fight it every step of the way. And you see those sweet souls whose light won’t shine in this world any more because some wretched disease, freak accident or awful human changed the rules.
And sadly, sometimes nurses suffer every misplaced evil word, every awful angry outburst-whatever agonizing hit a family can still muster to throw back at the universe-it is sometimes aimed at you. And some days you’re just beat. Yet you’re still ok (or so you say) You still show up & still try to help heal us when healing’s possible. And for our families… You’re their grab bar too.
I believe nurses also often give the final gift of earthly mercy to total strangers by simply whispering “I know…I hear you. I care about you. I’m here for you. God loves you. Its ok.” I’m betting you’ve done it or something close. And that you’ve given great comfort afterward to the ones waiting in vain in the family room for that patient to rally or rise up. Way before you let your own tears fall.
And not for anything, a good part of the day, when the specialists or primary care docs or hospitalists are not around, nurses handle what those folks don’t any more in hospital settings. Nurses are their grab bars too.
Pretty much, I guess it’s not all meant to be pretty or easy here. And it all can get so darn messy. But OMG, how blessed we are when we luck out enough to meet nurses who still work so hard to hold it all together for the rest of us. Yours is truly a profession guided by His hand.
So, anyhoo, this reply got too long but the next time you cry in that bathroom… Or in the car.
Or at the grocery store. Or here…
Please know that so many of us thank God for nurses & we’re praying for you.
Just sayin’.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much for this comment. You have blessed me this morning with your words. “Grab bar.” I love it! The ministry of nursing. So glad God brought me to the realization of this in my career.
Susan Henderson says
Brie, I am in my third year of retirement after 42 years of nursing. I have tears again after reading this. Like you, I have cried so many times and I have seen so much pain and sorrow. I’ve cried with my families and patients too. Sometimes the tears just spill over and they cant be stopped. A former coworker’s husband just passed and the service is tomorrow. I will cry again. Susan
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you for reading and sharing. God bless you and your years of service.
Carol says
Thanks for keeping it real Brie! I always wear my heart on my sleeve, but on most days while nursing I contained it. As if it was yesterday, on a long cold winter evening, I lost a patient in a long-term care facility! Even though she had family, she was alone, whether it was holidays or birthdays, she was always alone! I spent most of my breaks with her because she was a beautiful soul with a life-time of wisdom to share. She died of a broken heart at the age of 62 and this broke my heart.
Lisa Pierce says
This is so wonderfully written. It brought memories and tears from my nursing years. God gives us the strength we need to be strong for others. He also gives us the tears we need to cry so our hearts don’t explode from holding in all that pain we see and feel. In my opinion, if a nurse doesn’t ever cry, she/he needs to turn in their badge, so to speak, and find another line of work.
Thanks for sharing. I pray for all the nurses everywhere. God bless you sweet lady!
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much!