Medicine Simply Doesn't Wait

"I'm gonna make it through this right?"

I looked down at the frail elderly man who asked me this question. His face looked worn and tired, but his brown eyes looked hopeful and worried as he looked up at me. I touched his arm and looked at him warmly. He had been sick all afternoon and finally placed in a 1:1, where I was called to assist for a moment, after studying his face and helping him get cleaned up, I provided him with my answer. "Im gonna do my damndest to make sure you get better."

Illnesses dont take holidays, Patients don't take breaks. Medicine simply doesn't wait. When you work on an ambulance or even on an air ambulance this is considered a rush, but when you work in a hospital medical unit, this is considered tedious. By no means is patient care annoying, but when you have patients that are considered 'high matienance,' and they are stable, that takes away from the truly ill patients and their care.

People don't understand how worn out you get from working the same 12 hour shifts week to week. Generally speaking, other people, the people we consider 'normal folks' don't deal with death in their jobs. Most people don't feel their hearts break every time they enter a patient room to assist them with simple needs. These normal folks don't have to expose themselves to commincable diseases, have no need to worry about infections that were caught too late. I once saw a father wearing a t-shirt that read 'My daughter does battle with the angel of death 40 hours a week. What does your daughter do?' Almost every week this is how it feels, a never ending battle with the inevitable.

Liver Failure. Obesity. Depression. Cellulitis. Anxiety. CF. Diabetes. Week after week. Month after month. After so many hours, so many days of working, and so many months of giving to others and not even considering your own needs, you start to contemplate who the patient really is. Then to make matters worse, family, friends and your loved one becomes the patient. Life doesn't give out breaks. You don't get a vacation from life.

'This world keeps spinning faster, to a new disaster, so I run to you, I run to you baby.
When it all starts coming undone baby your the only one I run to. I run to you, I run to you."
-Lady Antebellum (I run to you)