Life

Just got home from work... haven't even changed out of my scrubs yet. I know, I know. Ewww. But I felt compelled to write.

I had a great morning with my friend Amy last weekend. She's graduating from nursing school soon, and she asked me what I did to deal with the stress from work. I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately. If I have time off, sometimes I just need to be by myself and go sit on the beach at Carkeek and read or pray or just BE. Other times I need the TV and a glass of white zinfindel. I've realized, though, that I do have one ritual that has developed over time. Whenever I've had a rough day at work, I drive home with the stereo turned way up, usually blasting some sort of rap or hip-hop or hard core rock. I mean I give that subwoofer in my trunk a workout. Tonight, as Dr. Dre reverberating through my body, it dawned on me what I was doing. I think I literally try to drown out everything in my head! Does it work? Who knows. I do feel some release, I think. But it doesn't really solve the underlying stress.

A month or so ago, one of my coworkers jokingly called me the angel of death, as I seemed to have an uncanny knack for getting the critically ill patients. I don't know how it works out if one were to actually do the math, but I feel like I have been surrounded by death an awful lot lately.

Today I walked into a patient's room, and he looked me in the face and said, "I have the strangest feeling. I think I am going to die today." Later he told me he thought he might be heading towards the light, and I told him that he needed to stay as far away from the light as possible! It did make him laugh, I will say. :) Sure enough, as the day went on, this guy got sicker and sicker, although he was still hanging on when I left.

There's something about having death be so near that always makes me think about life. I haven't written about all the patients I've lost lately, mostly because it's too much for me to even think about. But I have spent a lot of time thinking about them and the lessons I've learned.

Life's too short to waste time not living it. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I'm tired of making plans... I just want to live my life!

Enough philosophizing. Is that even a word? I'm too tired to care. :)