Have you seen anyone die lately?

The longer that I have been in nursing, the less I talk about work. When I was fresh (16 years ago) and feeling elite and special about having a courtside seat to the best and worst of humanity, I used to answer people's questions about work life with great stories (carefully de-identified, of course, I mean...HIPAA!) about The Worst Trauma or They Stuffed Something Where??. I sometimes even offered up these stories for the sake of entertainment or conversation starters. I know, I know, I am completely besmirching your image of "the most trusted profession" in the US for 19 consecutive years (here is the link if you don't believe me: https://nurse.org/articles/nursing-ranked-most-honest-profession/ ). 

You know what I have found though? Mortality wears on you. It just gets to the point where it isn't funny or conversational or even morbidly interesting. It's just clarifying. And real.

How many people have you personally sat in the presence of, as their souls, and everything that made them who they were, left their physical body? For most people in the western world, it's one or two. For people in less privileged nations, it is certainly more. For some nurses, it is in the 10-20s. For any nurse that has worked in any critical care, hospice or cancer unit: it can reach the hundreds. Are you hearing me? Hundreds.

At one point, while I was in nursing school, I worked in the ER as a tech. I also, concurrently worked at a different hospital on an inpatient unit, and also as a waitress. Paying for school is a bitch. I can't tell you how emotionally paralyzing it was to go from working a shift in the ER, literally cleaning a 25year old's brains off the floor, to having someone verbally assault me at a restaurant for forgetting their extra ketchup. 

Can you understand why I don't talk about work anymore? 

I don't think that people understand what COVID does to medical staff. You go to work everyday and fight with everything you have and everything you know to preserve a life....and you fail. You watch them go. You share in the grief of their family. You feel mortality walking with you. And you feel your failure too, every time. Can you understand why we don't weigh in on the facebook arguments about the politics of vaccines? It's easy to politicize death when you haven't fought with it.

There aren't always tears shed by staff when patients die (unless they are children, of course, then there is just really no compartmentalizing that). This isn't because they aren't sad, shaken or impacted. They just know that they have to finish their shift. And come back the next day. And attend their friend's baby shower this evening. Grief is inconvenient. 

So if you haven't personally watched someone (or a hundred someones) die lately, just remember that someone else may have, whether in a hospital, while crossing the Rio Grande trying for a chance at a better life, or on the streets of the city... be patient. And don't yell about forgotten ketchup.