Snapshots

if you were to take a mental picture of every day you worked in ICU, what would it look like? i don't know who this dood is, but you can see that it is a picture made from other pictures. cool right?

except......imagine if all the picture were of this dood sick and dying, septic, intubated, pooping, bleeding, combative, confused, etcetera. you get the picture. ICU nurses mostly see their patients when they are on deaths door.

i think it wears on your soul.

grinds you down, beats you to a hopeless faith-in-people less state. if you let it.

the original plan was to become an FBI agent. to that end, i was majoring in Russian at (Local Religious School). the fibbies require, like, a bachelors degree plus three years work experience. so i was gonna finish my degree in russki, then work as a copper somewhere and start applying for jobs in the military, NSA, CIA, FBI, etcetera.

then i met wifey. who decided, i mean we then decided that a life in the military or guv'mint service was not for us. she was already a nurse, so i too entered this glorious field.

so here i am. a trilingual male nurse, who secretly aspires to life carrying a gun and a badge and going after bad guys.

hmmm......

funny thing about plans, hey?

so, the thing i've learned is, don't get caught up in letting what you do define you as to who you are. i mean, the whole thing with being a police officer is that it is a super hard career that in many cases requires both spouses to be married to the profession. i've talked to many cops that feel like their profession contributed to the demise of their marriage.

i mean, if you are the first responder on the scene of a child dying cuz an unattended piece of playground equipment fell on a 3 year old and killed him, in his own backyard, steps away from his parents.......what effect can that have on you?

you do CPR anyways, for the sake of the parents. to at least make it look like there might be a chance. even if everything in your gut tells you-it's over man. when EMS gets to the scene, and looks at you like a crazy person, and say what the heck man? and you simply glance over at the already grief-stricken parents and continue CPR, the EMS guys will join in. then later, if you go home and your wife doesn't wanna hear about it cuz she's kind of a selfish bee-yatch.......what do you do?

the above, by the way, is a true story. how long do you think that marriage will last?

the truth is, i really didn't land very far being a cop. we all (nurses, cops, EMS, firefighters, docs, RTs) see some terrible crap.

at the very least, my wife is a nurse as well. so when i've had a perpendicularly hard shift, i can come home and vent to my wife, and viska versa.

and whatever i do, i need to remember to define myself according to how i want to be defined. no matter what the pictures i collect of work look like, who i am is what i choose to be. father, husband, son, neighbor, uncle, cousin, friend, future youth soccer coach, aspiring foodie, Landcruiser enthusiast, reader, funny happy-go-lucky guy, what ever.

my work will not define me.

i love my job, and i give it my best, twelve hours at a time, but when i go home.........work stays at work. it is more than a job, it is a career, but because of nature of the work, i need to protect my mental self from the rigors of the work.