O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and
count myself a king of infinite space, were it not
that I have bad dreams.
- Shakespeare
I woke up this morning with my pillow wet from tears. I have, in the past, woken up and then cried but never have I woken with tears coming from eyes. I couldn't believe I was capable of such a thing and I didn't understand why I had this reaction...all from a bad dream.
I was walking down a tree-lined street in a neighborhood that was run down. I imagined that at one time, this street was a beautiful family area with children playing in the yards. But now the yards were overgrown and the houses unkempt. As I was strolling, I saw a white bundle in the tall grass. Upon closer inspection, I found it was an infant, not making a sound and barely moving. I picked up the child and noticed that it was list and barely breathing. I screamed for help and a few people showed up around me. At that moment, I saw the baby's head was bleeding, his mouth had fallen open from lack of strength and his right eye had been enucleated. With its other eye, it communicated (because it could not talk) to help save him, that he was dying, that he was having a hard time breathing and that he was very cold. He started to bleed from the head more heavily and I yelled to get more blankets. I sat on the ground with the baby still in my arms and tried to provide more warmth by using my body as protection.
Suddenly I was in a hallway with a blanket warmer just in front of me. Still holding onto the child, I scooted across the hall, pried open the blanket warmer door and pulled blankets down. I began to swaddle the baby, my hands shaking in fear and screaming for help, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. The people that had gathered around turned into doctors, nurses, emergency techs, and hospital administrators. They all whispered at the same time, "no more blankets. He cannot afford it". It was then that I noticed no one was trying to save him, no was reaching for supplies, no one was running around. They were all just standing there, looking around at each other. I couldn't believe that no one was helping this innocent, defenseless child who was obviously trying to survive. I began to cry and futilely asked why no one was helping to save this child. I felt my chest trembling with pain and sadness and I felt the tears start to fall down my cheeks.
That is when I woke up and found I had been crying...in my sleep. The pain and sadness was so real that I couldn't wait to wake up and realize that it had only been a dream. I cried for another 20 minutes before I calmed down.
I tried to rationalize what had happened and began analyzing my dream to figure out why I had such a bad dream. I'll never know for sure.
Was it because we had 3 trauma calls yesterday at work that never came upstairs for surgery? Was it the panic I felt about being the only free person to respond to a trauma yesterday? Was it a reaction from the conversations we had the other day about our feelings when we get victims of guns shot wounds, stabbings, assaults, and especially babies or children? Was it a prophetic dream about the state of our hospital? Could it be that I'm just now releasing the repressed pain, anxiety, and stress of the cases we get in the operating room at this trauma hospital?
I don't know.
All I do know is that I have got to find a way to deal with all of this before I go insane.
ninibud92 posted on May 12, 2007
| views: 345
Comments
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secretlife said on May 12, 2007....
i believe it's all tied to your job. and the stress of your job.and yes nini, you really do need to figure out a way to deal with it -- burnout must be rampant in your profession- what do others do to deal with the stress? -
ninibud92 said on May 12, 2007....
Honestly, I don't really know what others do. We just don't talk about it. I'm sure there is a lot of repressed feelings where I work.
My best friend (who also works there) and I like to have cocktails every so often when we have to blow off steam. We seem to loosen up and talk about the things that bother us. Unfortunately, it seems that showing this kind of emotion to our co-workers in surgery and trauma is a sign of weakness. We just don't do it.
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dailyachesandpains said on May 12, 2007....
Nini: I would say it's related to your job too. Just waiting for those trauma calls that didn't make it up there, had to get you thinking!I still don't know how you do it!{{{hugs}}}Daily -
ninibud92 said on May 12, 2007....
daily, i've just been in survival mode lately. it seems I panic easily anymore. too bad really cuz it gets in the way of clarity.
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anonymous said on Jul 22, 2007....
ninibud92- When you think about the horrible things that we hear or see every day, it's amazing that we don't collapse under the weight of it all. The media only makes it worse because we feel the pain of many people far away as if it was our own. Maybe we were only built to feel the pain of our own natural communities...and not the world over. Your job is unnatural in a similar way. While the media brings us average citizens the pain of thousands, ambulances bring it to you. You are exposed to more than the share that would normally be alloted to you as an individual living out his or her own life. It's no wonder that it plagues your mind. Maybe those that can block it out without bad dreams are the abnormal ones. In any case, the world is a horrific place filled with pain and yet filled with such beauty. Unless you can find a world view that makes sense of that, I fear it will crush you. The Bible has an idea that the world is broken, that this pain that we see is unnatural and will one day be fixed. This has been some comfort to me in similar circumstances. In any case, you still have to get up each morning to face hurting people and go to bed each night facing the dreams. It's an awesome undertaking. Josh
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