....this one isn't uplifting at all.......

Tom Petty said, "the waiting is the hardest part." standing here, at my patient's bedside for the past four days, I have come to strongly believe it. this poor guy is dying, slowly. he's probably been clinically dead for the past 24-36 hours. but we hang on. we wait. a sister was due to arrive from TN last evening, but her flight was grounded for mechanical issues. the next flight out wasn't available until today. so we wait. and we increase dosages and settings. and we wait. and we console, and we listen to his favourite music from the Moody Blues.
and we wait.
because times like this are stressful for all, including staff, we (the staff) often find release in humor. and then little things creep in, like a glance from a co-worker taken the wrong way, or a percieved attitude in an email, and we snap at one another. at best. at worst, we take these things home and snap at OUR family; kids, wives, husbands, dogs, cats.
and then they wait.
for us to get better. for us to stop taking things out on them. for us to be able to take the pain and stress that comes along with our jobs and deal with it in a more productive manner; without the yelling, and the short remarks, and the unreasonable expectations.
and so I run. people ask me if i am running away from something, or running toward something. before i answer them, i wait.
when i give it thought, i do both. away from things in my past, decisions I've made, things I have done, demons that i have created. toward a better, brighter future. toward the ability not to better control my emotions and reactions to things that get me flustered.
so i run.
and i wait.

Duty Called

at 350 AM. We were all sleeping comfortably when I heard the phone ring. My first thoughts were that there is NO WAY that we both could have over slept by 2 hours. It was the VA. Listened to the message from the warm, soft comfort of our bed.
"Gary wanted me to call you to see if you could come in early. We have 7 patients. Ok, well, call us please."
ugh.
so i waited. i figured i would wait 5 minutes and then call. 2 minutes into that 'grace period', my cell phone rang. right above my head. so i answered....
"Hi, Gene, it's Albie. I really hate it when Gary does this to me, but can you please come in at 5 am instead of 730? we have a full house, and it is getting crazy."
"sure, no worries. i'll be there by 445," came my reply.
and so it went.
i worked too much yesterday. from 445-1600, then from 1630-2330. grand total of 19.5 hours. then got up this morning at 615 and worked from 730-1600.
yep. i need sleep. which collides with "i need to run". so maybe saturday or sunday i will go for a nice, LSD run. then Monday pick the MWF/TuTh cycle back up again.
c-ya!