Sadness

Tonight I am sad. REALLY sad. The kind of sad that makes your heart and gut feel like it's physically twisting inside. Yesterday I found out a friend is sick. Really sick. Devastatingly so... as my husband so eloquently put it.... I wish in my heart of hearts that we didn't have a reason to be sad. The emotions get so mixed up.

As nurses we learn about stages of grief, and we learn how you really can grieve over anything, and the stages of grief still come. Tonight I see those stages of grief, and I hurt. I feel like these thoughts are jumbled and not flowing very well into my print, but take them as you get them because I'm still putting them out here.

Its hard to know how to tell this story. This wonderfully amazing person that I met through friends, who eventually became my friend too. She is out there fighting a fight like no other she has seen in her young life.... and here I am sad. Sad for her, sad that she has to fight and sad that we have to see her fight. And how to even describe what a strong, amazing, resilient, and full of life human being she is.... there seem to not be enough of the right words. All of that and I am not even half as close to her as those people sitting there, by her bedside, fighting with her. I cannot even imagine the sad that they must feel... and I know they do, physically feel that sadness and hurt.... through all different stages. I tend to be an objective person, for me it's easier sometimes to keep things at an arms length. Good bad or indifferent, that's just me. But this; so much harder.

As a medical professional, I tend to look at most things very factually ... lab values, test results, reponse to treatment, but this. This is different. When it touches you so close, and those values and responses and treatments are attached to an amazing spirit that you KNOW! Don't get me wrong, as mechanical as that sounds, I'm a nurse for a reason. I care about people, and what happens to them and all the other aspects of their life or their illness... it's not just a picture of facts.... and there is nothing like a situation such as this to remind us and put in perspective what we ask people to do everyday. This is hard. This is sad. This is all encompasing.

Situations like this aren't supposed to touch us, they are supposed to be out there for us to help our patients and their families encounter and move through... we are not supposed to be the family and friends.

It reminds me of another time I didn't want to be the family or friend of another very young life hanging in the unknown.

And as trite as it may be. Love the ones around you, squeeze them tight, and never let them wonder how much they mean to you. All the positive energy I can muster is headed on the night breeze to you my dear friend.