During my junior year (college), one of my friends lost her grandmother. When she found out, I was studying in the basement of RH (my dorm) with another friend. Somehow she got drift of where I was, this wasn't so impressive because the way we lived in college, everyone knew where everyone was all the time. I remember sitting in a corner of the basement with her for a while, trying to comfort her, the two of us huddled together.
I think it was the next day, the friend I'd been studying with said to me something along the lines of "I could tell you were happy that she came to you." I probably muttered something in response, trying to brush it off, and the smarting sting that came with their assumption that I got selfish pleasure out of comforting her, overshaddowing my symapthy for her pain.
Yesterday, I held a patient's hand while she was being poked during several attempts of two different interns to get an ABG (read: arterial blood gas - you draw blood from an artery close to the wrist - considerably more painful than your average venous blood draw). When she let go of my hand, she saw the red mark she left, and apologized. I told her not to worry, that I thought I was holding on to her tighter than she was holding on to me. I'm still not that great at watching needles pierce skin or doing it myself.
Over the past week, especially, I've found myself finding excuses to take the 6:45 shuttle home instead of the 5:45 shuttle, and then the 7:45 instead of the 6:45, sneaking into rooms to talk to people for a little longer or weasling my way into the ICU to visit a patient from last week, who landed herself into emergency surgery for a perforated colon. The attention you get from patients, the trust people are willing to give, the dependence that makes me feel like even the tiny bit that I can do is appreciated, and really the way some people have amazingly opened themselves up - it's intoxicating and I've quickly become addicted. I come back to a campus that feels more and more estranged from me every day. To my room which is quiet and I won't lie - lonely. I feel totally dispensible here. Invisible. I could prance around naked in my 28th floor appartment and no one would give a damn because no one can see me, even with the lights on in the night and my curtains up. I'm too far away from the appartment building in front of me. From my window there is an endless expanse of buildings marching toward the bridges that connect the Bronx to Manhattan and Long Island. And beyond that more buildings.
So I run back to the hospital the next day because I have to - yes, it's my job right now, but now my entire sense of self worth is suddenly encased in the expression that plays over LR's face when I walk toward her bed in the ICU. Intubated, hooked up to IVs, tubes coming out of almost every oriface in her body, and a colostomy bag inelegantly poking out from underneath her blanket, she only talks to me with the faintest curve of upper lip and her eyes. I'm so much more dependent on this woman, who lies helplessly in her hospital bed, than she has ever been on me.
I think it was the next day, the friend I'd been studying with said to me something along the lines of "I could tell you were happy that she came to you." I probably muttered something in response, trying to brush it off, and the smarting sting that came with their assumption that I got selfish pleasure out of comforting her, overshaddowing my symapthy for her pain.
Yesterday, I held a patient's hand while she was being poked during several attempts of two different interns to get an ABG (read: arterial blood gas - you draw blood from an artery close to the wrist - considerably more painful than your average venous blood draw). When she let go of my hand, she saw the red mark she left, and apologized. I told her not to worry, that I thought I was holding on to her tighter than she was holding on to me. I'm still not that great at watching needles pierce skin or doing it myself.
Over the past week, especially, I've found myself finding excuses to take the 6:45 shuttle home instead of the 5:45 shuttle, and then the 7:45 instead of the 6:45, sneaking into rooms to talk to people for a little longer or weasling my way into the ICU to visit a patient from last week, who landed herself into emergency surgery for a perforated colon. The attention you get from patients, the trust people are willing to give, the dependence that makes me feel like even the tiny bit that I can do is appreciated, and really the way some people have amazingly opened themselves up - it's intoxicating and I've quickly become addicted. I come back to a campus that feels more and more estranged from me every day. To my room which is quiet and I won't lie - lonely. I feel totally dispensible here. Invisible. I could prance around naked in my 28th floor appartment and no one would give a damn because no one can see me, even with the lights on in the night and my curtains up. I'm too far away from the appartment building in front of me. From my window there is an endless expanse of buildings marching toward the bridges that connect the Bronx to Manhattan and Long Island. And beyond that more buildings.
So I run back to the hospital the next day because I have to - yes, it's my job right now, but now my entire sense of self worth is suddenly encased in the expression that plays over LR's face when I walk toward her bed in the ICU. Intubated, hooked up to IVs, tubes coming out of almost every oriface in her body, and a colostomy bag inelegantly poking out from underneath her blanket, she only talks to me with the faintest curve of upper lip and her eyes. I'm so much more dependent on this woman, who lies helplessly in her hospital bed, than she has ever been on me.
posted by tami at 8:11 PM
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