I have decided that medicine is like a roller coaster ride. There are ups, there are downs, there are twists and turns where you thought you knew where you were heading, but you end up somewhere else. There are times when it scares you. Times when you laugh. And times when you almost throw up. But at the end....you have the strange desire to do it again.
A lot of medicine these days I find scary - the up-chuck part of the rollercoaster, if you will - because it is frantic and high stress and everyone is anxious. But death...it doesn't scare me that way. It's kind of zen.
Tonight (in the very wise words of my mom) I midwifed a man's death. I happened to be in the next room learning to put in a central line when the nurse said they needed me. If I hadn't been right next door I would never have made it in time. In fact, they probably wouldn't even have called me. But there I was, and there he was.
There is a quiet reverance in holding a hand, and everyone speaking softly telling him its ok to let go, with our silent prayers filling the air in his room. And the more I prayed, the more I teared up, and the more I teared up, the more the nurse teared up. So we just stood there quietly, witnessing the culmination of a life's worth of stories and memories.
I'm happy I could be there with him. I hope my prayers were heard.
Lots of love
Pamela
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