I keep saying I am going to write a book... a book about all the people I have taken care of... anonymously of course. It has crossed my mind in the last few days that people seriously do not understand each other, or humanity. What human beings are really like. Once you have taken care of them, it is easier to get an idea about what they are really like...
As a nurse you care for everyone. Sickness has no economical or social boundaries. It doesn't matter if your patient is in maximum security prison and has been shackled to the hospital bed with two guards standing by it and one by the door, or if he is a rock star leader of his community with the same guards at the door, but for a different reason... both of them can have a heart attack or get cancer. And yes, I have cared for both.
Patients can be really anyone. It was the alcoholics and drug addicts that took up most of my time, and they were rarely truly sick. Their illnesses were usually something secondary to their addiction, like the man whose toe and then foot had to be amputated because he was an alcoholic and ignored an infection. Then there was the woman with chirrosis of the liver who pulled out her IV repeatedly and left the hospital to buy liquor, the drug addict who asked for a cocktail so powerful at bedtime med time that she literally passed out and had to be reversed, and the patient who had bladder cancer and had a bladder created but was so drunk off Dilaudid all the time that she could barely function... these were the people who wasted the time of the people who were really sick.
The paraplegic who got into a screaming argument with me because she was on four narcotics and we can't give those all at once in the hospital- where was her pain anyway?
Then there were the husbands. Some men really can't handle their wives or mothers or girlfriends being sick, and they leave. Never show up. Or come halfheartedly and can't stay. Men with the opposite issue who can't stand to see their wives in a hospital bed and take it out on everyone- every nurse who walks in the door gets an earful of verbal abuse.
Speaking of abuse... then there are the families. A daughter who comes in at 7am right when I get on shift and demands to know why the night nurse didn't medicate her mother for pain, when she did at 6am, and screams at the top of her lungs until you find the doctor on call and give her some more, or the daughter who does the same thing and then calls you a liar and screams at you all the way down the hall... these were the people I got to work with.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Soul Lessons
There are quite a few unpublished posts on this blog from the last three years, posts that just sounded wrong, or inauthentic, or just plain whiny. I would write them and look at them again later and want to just trash them, but I kept them. I thought maybe they were part of my process. In 2010 I started on the road to energy healing, Healing Touch and Reiki... and when you start pursuing the path you need to heal yourself first.
Each piece of life and writing and journaling is a little bit of clarity. However it wasn't until after my father died almost 18 months ago that the pieces started to click into place. Everything that I had ever been through started to make sense. My whole life was like a jigsaw puzzle that started to come together into a clear picture. Gluing the parts together seemed simple, as if my inner or higher self knew all along what it would all mean, and my conscious mind was just starting to get it.
When my father died, I pushed my grief down way, way below my feet, into the Earth. I buried it so deeply that I would either never find it again or never have to touch it. We were prepared for his death. He was sick for years, his mental illness got the best of him, he had tried to end his life before, he didn't want to live past 65 when his disability ran out, and he wanted to leave money for his daughters. The reasons went on and on, and they all made sense.
Monday, July 22, 2013
What suicide does to your psyche
My father killed himself. Actually, he shot himself in the head with his father's gun. Right through the palate.
Right when I am coming into a time in my life that I can say what I need to say, to the people I need to say it to, I am having to be silent on this issue. I really don't like it. I am not sure what it is about the above statements that scares people so much.
Yes, it is an ingracious way to die. I really don't think that is the problem though. I think it is our society's fear of mental illness and what they believe the ramifications are if you have a family member who kills himself.
Does that make my family crazy? Well, yes, and no. When someone you love commits suicide, you go over and over in your head what you could have done. You rehash over and over again the events that lead up to the death. And then you beat yourself up for what you didn't do. And the kicker is, unless you have people who understand to talk to about it, you are not going to discuss your process with anyone.
When our father committed suicide, my sister and I were unknowingly initiated into a club. In case you didn't know, there is a club out there of people who have had a family member die by suicide. Our first person to talk to us about it was the woman at the funeral home who set up the internment and lettering on the grave. She had been through a loved one's suicide, and she said that people will come forward once they know.
That is the other thing about not being able to talk about the manner in which your parent dies. If others don't know, your support doesn't show up. I have been surprised by the number of people who have approached or talked to me about their own losses from suicide. One of my friends has become one of my very good friends, now that we have unfortunately suffered the same loss.
You also lose a lot in the process. Suddenly you are part of a group that understands, and everyone outside of that group does not. Your closest friend in the world really doesn't understand because they haven't been through what you are going through. Suicide affects you for the rest of your life, because family members are left wondering what they could have done for a long time, sometimes until their own death.
Like another parent's death, you start to live more. You start to want to do things that you were afraid to do because you know life is finite. You start to appreciate others and life more. If your parent was mentally ill, you really look at yourself and your mental quirks and try to figure out if there is a solution to any problems you inherited.
If your parent died by suicide there is a darker side to the equation. When someone complains about bouncing a check, or their husband coming home late, or missing an appointment, there is a side of you that says, "I'm sorry, my father shot himself in the head and I am still dealing with that. What exactly is your problem??" It may look callous, but it is reality. The consequences of grieving a suicide are much deeper than what appears on the surface.
From what I know my father's road into mental illness started with a mental break when I was three. He was hallucinating and paranoid and thought people were coming to kill him. He tried to commit suicide three times when I was a tween. From what I understand the first attempt put him in the hospital and out of our home because he was supposed to be watching me and my sister.
There were nuances to his mental illness that were clues he was considering attempting suicide, that I didn't know about. There were signs and paths he had been down before, but because they were part of a mental illness, they were taboo subjects.
Right when I am coming into a time in my life that I can say what I need to say, to the people I need to say it to, I am having to be silent on this issue. I really don't like it. I am not sure what it is about the above statements that scares people so much.
Yes, it is an ingracious way to die. I really don't think that is the problem though. I think it is our society's fear of mental illness and what they believe the ramifications are if you have a family member who kills himself.
Does that make my family crazy? Well, yes, and no. When someone you love commits suicide, you go over and over in your head what you could have done. You rehash over and over again the events that lead up to the death. And then you beat yourself up for what you didn't do. And the kicker is, unless you have people who understand to talk to about it, you are not going to discuss your process with anyone.
When our father committed suicide, my sister and I were unknowingly initiated into a club. In case you didn't know, there is a club out there of people who have had a family member die by suicide. Our first person to talk to us about it was the woman at the funeral home who set up the internment and lettering on the grave. She had been through a loved one's suicide, and she said that people will come forward once they know.
That is the other thing about not being able to talk about the manner in which your parent dies. If others don't know, your support doesn't show up. I have been surprised by the number of people who have approached or talked to me about their own losses from suicide. One of my friends has become one of my very good friends, now that we have unfortunately suffered the same loss.
You also lose a lot in the process. Suddenly you are part of a group that understands, and everyone outside of that group does not. Your closest friend in the world really doesn't understand because they haven't been through what you are going through. Suicide affects you for the rest of your life, because family members are left wondering what they could have done for a long time, sometimes until their own death.
Like another parent's death, you start to live more. You start to want to do things that you were afraid to do because you know life is finite. You start to appreciate others and life more. If your parent was mentally ill, you really look at yourself and your mental quirks and try to figure out if there is a solution to any problems you inherited.
If your parent died by suicide there is a darker side to the equation. When someone complains about bouncing a check, or their husband coming home late, or missing an appointment, there is a side of you that says, "I'm sorry, my father shot himself in the head and I am still dealing with that. What exactly is your problem??" It may look callous, but it is reality. The consequences of grieving a suicide are much deeper than what appears on the surface.
From what I know my father's road into mental illness started with a mental break when I was three. He was hallucinating and paranoid and thought people were coming to kill him. He tried to commit suicide three times when I was a tween. From what I understand the first attempt put him in the hospital and out of our home because he was supposed to be watching me and my sister.
There were nuances to his mental illness that were clues he was considering attempting suicide, that I didn't know about. There were signs and paths he had been down before, but because they were part of a mental illness, they were taboo subjects.
Monday, April 15, 2013
What life is like...
are you afraid to go to the gym because you don't know how to work the machines?
are you scared to go to the grocery store because you'll forget something and have to go back because you panicked the first time you thought of your list and forgot half of it?
do you panic when you are riding your bike and think that maybe the garage door opener in your pocket has a battery that is dead and your neighbors aren't home?
No?
This is how I lived.
are you scared to go to the grocery store because you'll forget something and have to go back because you panicked the first time you thought of your list and forgot half of it?
do you panic when you are riding your bike and think that maybe the garage door opener in your pocket has a battery that is dead and your neighbors aren't home?
No?
This is how I lived.
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