Loving what you do

For the first time my job has really come home with me and sat in my mind. After all the things I have seen and experienced 2 within 3 days have stuck with me and I think will never go away.

Saturday afternoon we had a man come in who was in full cardiac arrest so we do what we are paid to do try to save him. So we worked him with all we could. I was on top doing chest compressions. This was a man who had just been discharged from the MICU (medical intensive care unit) earlier in the day. So here we are family watching trying our best to do all we can, after about 20 minutes the son came into the room and this is the thing that I will never forget that will hang with me for the rest of my life. He came into the room put his hands gently around his fathers ankles and said "Oh pop, oh pop, why?" I looked at this guy and just was not sure what to say he then said "Its ok you guys can stop its just his time" after that he reached up and touched my arm and told me that it was ok to stop. Nothing had ever really freaked me out quite like this before and with all the of traumas and family's I have seen in distress this is the one that has been burned into my mind after a year and a half of doing what I do.

The second one was Monday night a man was trying to cross the street and got hit by 2 cars. The man came in, in real bad shape with a lung contusion and possible heart contusion (bruise), because of this it was making it difficult for him to breathe to the poing where he was blue and gray in the face. The doctors decided to intubate him (put a tube down his throat to breathe for him because he was having trouble). When the doctors told him this I finally saw what fear looked like, the look in his eyes was terrifying. Most patients we get that are intubated are not really conscious when this is done and if they are they are so disoriented that they dont realize the intensity of what is about to happen to them. But just the look of fear that I saw was something I have never seen before and is forever going to be implanted in my head.

What I wanted to say about the second man was that I saw what true fear really looked like, there is no way to ever put into words what true fear looks like, you just have to be able to see it to understand it.

The good news is that the man will be ok.

I love what I do and will never stop doing what I do, Emergency Medicine is my nitch the intensity, unpredictability and the amazing things I have helped do and seen done to save lives and better lives is enough to keep me there. But sometimes I am left with some memories that could be used as good or bad.

Loving what you do for a living is truly important and I have realized this with my job. I dont think I could imagine myself anywhere else but the ER of a level 1 trauma center