One Is the Loneliest Number
I knew it had been a rough shift when I sat in my car outside the hospital for twenty minutes, too exhausted to drive home and too wound up to sit still. My feet were killing me, I had a headache that started somewhere around lunchtime, and I kept thinking about a patient I'd held hands with earlier that afternoon. I wondered if she was sleeping comfortably now, whether her family had finally arrived, and why I couldn't seem to leave any of it behind when I clocked out.
By the time I got home, all I wanted was a shower and something to eat. Someone asked how my day had gone, and I gave the same answer I always give when I don't have the energy to explain it. "Oh, you know. Just another day." I smiled, changed my clothes, and tried to settle into an evening that everyone else seemed to be enjoying.
I love the people in my life, and I know they love me. But there are moments in nursing that are almost impossible to describe to someone who wasn't standing beside you when they happened. The heartbreaking ones stay with you, and so do the absolutely ridiculous ones that make you wonder how you've managed to keep a straight face for twelve hours.
I was curled up on the couch when my phone buzzed. It was a text from one of the nurses I'd worked with that afternoon, asking whether I'd recovered from the incident in Room 214. I laughed before I even finished reading it, because I knew exactly what she meant. I typed back something I probably shouldn't repeat in polite company, and within seconds my phone lit up again.
We went back and forth for nearly half an hour, laughing about things nobody outside that hospital would have understood. Somewhere in the middle of those messages, I realized I wasn't thinking about how lonely I'd felt earlier. Somebody knew exactly what kind of day I'd survived, because she'd survived it with me.
That's why Shift Happens — Read Between the Texts makes me smile. There's the chaos of the shift itself, of course, but there's also that wonderful little change that happens when someone who understands your world reaches out and reminds you that you're not carrying everything by yourself.
I still think about that patient. I probably always will. But tonight, thanks to a few ridiculous text messages, I went to bed smiling.
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