And Sometimes…We Cry

 

Doing what I do, and what I have done for 14 years now, I have seen stuff come across my desk that makes me stop and think…and a lot of times I cry…and many times I stop…note the name of the patient…and shoot up a prayer. 

Sure, this is just a job and I should just type or edit whatever comes across my desk…

Well, sorry…

I’m a person, and regardless of the fact that i am supposed to just sit here and type/edit shit and some of my colleagues have told me before that i need to just not get so involved in the stuff that i have come through my desk…

Well, newsflash.

I am not that good at disassociating myself to the point that I can hear this stuff and not be affected. 

For instance.

At my old job, I was typing ER stuff…and i had this report come through about a dad who SET HIMSELF ON FIRE in front of his two kids and his wife…

Thanks to the fact that the dictator got real specific about what went down, I had to type up how his kids begged him not to run after he SET HIMSELF ON FIRE.  I had to listen about how his wife and children, 11 and 7, watched their husband and father incinerate himself, despite the cries of ‘DADDY DON’T RUN.’ 

That was the first report I ever did that i went back to see what happened after that…

and the dad died.  the day after he put his wife and children through something that they will never get past.

The second time I let myself get tied up too much in a report was this motorcycle accident where one of the riders was damn near decapitated.  It was just horrific enough that I needed to know what exactly happened, beside what the doctor was telling me…

which amounted to…

43-year-old female involved in a severe motorcycle versus automobile accident.

She didn’t make it either, and i cried.  She had kids…and grandkids.

When I started working for this company, I was placed on a high-end account that was a pediatric hospital. 

and i knew pretty quick that i wasn’t going to be able to type stuff about kids the same age as The Boy, whose parents took them into the doctor for a simple rash that turned out to be CANCER.

Or, when I typed for the genetics clinic and folks had kids who had genetic errors in their little bodies that made growing up and eating chicken nuggets and fries from McDonald’s an impossibility…and i typed up stuff where people brought their kids in to the doctor only to be told that their baby would never grow up.

And it absolutely KILLED ME.

The day that i asked my account lead to take me off that account was the day that i had to type the report where these parents brought their Boy into the doc to see what was the deal with his leg pain and they found out that the kid had cancer.

sue me.

i couldn’t do it any longer.

But you know what? 

Sometimes it doesn’t get better.

On other accounts i had, I got to type up reports about 35-year-old women with stage IV breast cancer who had 2-year-old babies to care for, and 60-year-old ladies who had beaten the cancer once, twice, three times…

only to come in and find out that their cancer had metastasized to their liver and kidneys and lungs.

It is those times that I stop what I am doing and make a note of this patient’s name and their loved one’s names and stop and say a prayer for them and their families.

never once, when i type up a report where the patient is discharged to hospice care, do I not stop for a second and say a little prayer…or a big prayer…for the patient and their family. 

And then this happened.

the other day, i was typing away, minding my own business, when my manager asked me if I could do a STAT.

So, being the team player I am, of course i said, yes.

So, what i wound up with was a trauma victim, a 15-year-old trauma victim, who had been beaten to death by two older men. 

As I typed about this kids’s mortal wounds and the ER staff’s efforts to keep this kid alive, I just felt sick.  Sick and hungry that they found the mother effers who did this to this kid.  i had to sit here and type about the blunt force trauma and the fact that his little heart just stopped beating.

it made my heart hurt, yet i was thinking OH GANG BANGER…

SO, today i decided to check into it…which is never really a good idea for us who type this stuff…it is much better to just type it with your ears plugged and go on about your business…

but for this case, i had to know if they’d caught the people that had killed this kid.

and they did.

and guess what they killed this kid over?

a cell phone and 10 bucks.

that boy died over a cell phone and 10 bucks that he probably would have just given the sumbitches that dealt the poor boy ‘blunt force trauma to the head.’

I love my job, but to try to do this job and not get emotionally vested sometimes…

well, it isn’t realistic.

I can’t do this job and not be emotionally vested.

When I type reports where people bring their kids to the doctor for something seemingly benign, like a rash, and they find out their baby has cancer, and when I type up stuff about folks who have cancer that has spread to their  livers….and when i have to type up TRAUMA 3…just know that I can’t do that on this end without getting emotionally vested.

Maybe some folks can do it, but they aren’t me.

So, what my job means is that i type a lot of tragedy.  And i try as best I can to take my Boy out of the mix, but the fact that I had an 8-year-old was the main reason that i had to quit it… because I couldn’t take my boy out of the mix anytime I typed a report where a boy his age started feeling poorly and got a rash…and the end find was bad.

So, I will glady type/edit an account where the biggest problem might be…uh

seborrheic dermatitis.

Seborrheic dermatitis does not make me cry.

So, yes, sometimes we cry…but sometimes we pray…

We, on this end of the medical record, and by ‘we’ I mean me…

well, i am here to tell you that when scary stuff comes across my desk…kids with cancer…or moms with cancer…or grandparents with cancer…or kids who are beaten to death for their cell phone.

i note their names and i say a prayer.

cancer sucks…random violence sucks.

all i can do is give them the respect of noting their names and sending a prayer. 

This job is great for folks who don’t note all this…sometimes not so good for those of us who do.