The Nurse

Lately, I'd been thinking about pursuing a career in nursing. Largely because of things like this. However, thanks to recent events, I'm having second thoughts.

At the vets, while we were making the agonizing decisions about what to do with our cat, there was this one nurse who stayed with us the whole time. She held Patches, stroked her hair, and made sure the respirator stayed over her mouth. It was, obviously, not a good time to remember look at a clock but it took a while before things were over. And this woman stayed with us and our cat, trying to comfort and reassure us the whole while. I hope she doesn't have to go through things like that every day but I'm sure that wasn't her first time helping someone to let go.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was only a cat. I imagine the process must be orders of magnitude worse when there's a human being involved. Someone who can talk and respond, make decisions or demands, clamped, perhaps, to all sorts of machinery that keep them going, but still slipping away. That kind of thing must go on in hospitals every day. To say nothing of the unexpected deaths, the accidents, he people who seem fine one moment but die the next.

Becoming a nurse is something I've considered because, for whatever reason, people tell me I'm kind, and helpful. And I'd like to think that were I in such a profession, I'd be able to do the same thing that nurse did - offer what little help I could when it was needed most. But I can't help but feel that, over time, I'd become numbed by the experience. There would be just no way that I could be torn apart, emotionally, each and every time. So, I'd retreat. Distance myself. Just a little bit from each tragedy, each crying mother or daughter, each distraught spouse, or stunned friend. Until, in the end, I wouldn't be moved at all. I can't see any other way to survive in such an environment.

I'm not sure I want to get to that point. I'm not even sure that I could. Not without breaking down somewhere along the way. I think, of all things, I'd care too much.