Emotional Scenes In The ER.
I can never get used to this.
I started working in the children emergency unit a few days ago. So far it’s been an entire rollercoaster of events. Everything and everywhere is so chaotic, and I can barely breathe.
I’m trying to get the hang of things, trying to be as thorough as possible and I wish I could learn a lot faster and be a lot better in a short amount of time.
Today during the night shift, a patient died.
And it’s not surprising, I’m used to seeing this.
Or so I thought.
I didn't even have any relationship with the child, I didn't admit him, had never interacted with him, I just came for the night shift and met him in a bad state. Of course there was a lot of work going on, a lot of attempts at resuscitation, but his clinical state was very poor and had been very poor since admission.
I expected that his death would be the outcome, I tried to be hopeful, but with the little knowledge and experience I have, I knew the prognosis was poor.
What I didn’t expect was to get so emotional watching a mother and father mourn their child after doing all that they knew to do to help the child.
What I didn’t expect was for the atmosphere in the ward to be so solemn, so emotional. To see other mother’s hold their children and mourn with these parents.
Maybe it’s my hormones, maybe I was just really stressed out because it was a very busy night, but then I cried.
I cried like this was someone I knew personally.
When I heard the parents wail.
‘this child is all that we have. what do we do now?’
When they prayed and begged God to bring him back to life.
It was just so overwhelming.
And no matter how many times I experience this, no matter how I try to make myself understand that death is part of life, it still hurts and it still sucks.
I’ve been in a weird headspace since I got back, I’m honestly not sure why the events of this morning affected me like this.
I’m also not sure how to feel better. But I guess writing my thoughts down and sharing them is always a good starting point.
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Thanks and God bless.
xoxo
-Sharon Stephen.
