If you don't already know I am an ER nurse. Often, patients really touch my heart despite attempts to hide in a secret and protected place. This is one of those times where life and the people in it just crack you wide open.
My first patient today is in their 50's. Very polite, nice, crying at times so quietly. Heavily addicted to methadone, oxycodone and a host of other substances over the years. First needle in the arm at the age of fifteen. So sitting there talking describing the life to me . . .
'So yeah, I was fifteen and it seems like yesterday and I wish I could really go back in time and tell myself to stop, make that choice not to and live it different. But then, a little bit at a time you find yourself walking along the streets and soon there's no place to live and every single thing you do . . . and it sneaks up on you . . . till you're just a hustler that you've hated your whole life . . .and every single interaction you have is trying to score, to get something up on the next guy, working every angle until finally . . . you're just another addict, there . . . alone, on the streets . . . standing in and staring up at the rain'.
This job breaks my heart more often then not. And I am used to some patients, maybe one percent - trying to hustle me, to lie, cheat and steal their way to enlightenment, the next big score and high. But sometimes they break through in an open and searingly honest plea for help. And then we both laugh, because they and I know there is nothing I can do . . . it is all up to them - I can only help pave the beginning of the path.
Later I get another patient - in their late 70's. Living alone, multiple medical problems of which thankfully drugs and alcohol do not play a role. This person fell out of their bed and woke up later and found he had urinated all over himself. So much upset, sadness and shame came upon him. We are doing our best, as he is, to find out where he can live in a place at a higher level of care so he is not alone. As I wrapped a warm blanket around his all too thin and shaking shoulders he looked up at me, with tears in his eyes and said 'Thank you so much David, I am really sorry to bother you'. And this finally brought tears to my eyes.
It is people like these that bring deep meaning to my life. I recognize my luck and fortune. I am grateful to bear witness and in some small way bring relief, a sense of hope, humor and caring to another human being. Because in the end - none of us should be alone, in a room by ourselves at the end of our life. None of us should be homeless, alone in the streets . . . standing in and staring up at the rain.
