Jim and Edna were patients at a mental hospital. One day while walk past the hospital swimming pool, Jim jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in and pulled Jim out of the pool.

When the Head Nursing Director heard of it she decided that Edna could be discharged because her action in saving Jim showed a return to rational thought and mental health.

The Nursing Director wanted to tell Edna personnally, so she called Edna into her office and said, “Edna, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that I have decided you are well enough to go home because your action in saving your from from drowning showed me that you have a firm grasp on reality and an understanding of what others are going through. The bad news is that Jim hanged himself in his bathroom with the sash to his bathrobe afterwards. I’m so sorry, but your friend is dead.”

Edna replied, “Oh, he didn’t hang himself. I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?”

Today was my first Saturday on-call. That meant I covered both hospital campuses from 8-5 and am on beeper until 8 tomorrow morning. When I got to the University campus, I discovered that besides being homecoming, it was a full moon. I think everything we’ve heard about full moons is true.

There were 11 referrals waiting for me and I got 5 additional pages through the day. The first page was right away at 8:05 to the ICU to be with a family whose father coded and died about 30 minutes earlier.

At about 10 I was in the pediatric ICU with a mom whose 9 year old son had been helicoptered here from about 150 miles away. They were trying to determine which form of pediatric leukemia he had. In the meantime, while I was there, the doctor and nurses were trying to stop a fountain of a nose bleed that had been going on for 2 hours. When the blood would flow down his throat, he would gag. He was complaining about the amount of pressure the doctor was putting on his nose to stem the bleeding, he was crying about the pain in his leg from an IV for dialysis and the IV in his arm for everything else. As a child, he was open with his fear and frustration, “Mom! I don’t want to be sick! They’re not helping me! I’m not getting better! How come I can’t have just a teeny sip of water? Please!?” Of course, he couldn’t understand that the marrow biopsy (“the procedure”) was going to require a general anesthesia as he continued to promise “cross-my heart” that he wouldn’t throw up if they just let him have a drink. Mom hadn’t slept in about 30 hours, didn’t want to leave his side because he was so afraid, and so was she, and because they were from up north, had no support.

I finished the day listening to the tale of a woman with pancreatic cancer who is worried that it is all her fault somehow because of the choices she’d made in her life. Choices to stay with a battering, abusive husband that followed on the heels of a schizophrenic mother and an alcoholic father. She’s telling me all this through a haze of oxycodone they had given her for the pain.

And there were 15 other visits just like that.

And I know I have the inner strength to deal with this and that I am supported in this work by God’s hand. But I sure wish that God would send along an actual person to do that work instead of continually having to rely only on faith. I mean, I act as that person for others. And to be fair, many give a portion of that support to me. Friends and collegues. I couldn’t do it at all if not for them.

I just really wish that I could be with someone who could make me forget the saddness and sorrow and pain I’ve helped people carry all day. Someone who could remind me of the spark of life that’s in me and help me see the joy and beauty in this world instead of just so so so much of the other. Someone who could be part of a reason not to just give up.

Intellectually, I know that “not giving up” part only really comes from inside myself. But dear God, haven’t I “not given up” by myself enough yet???

I just want a basic human connection. 1:1. Intimate. Emotionally, intellectually, physically. Honestly, I wish I could come home to someone waiting to make mad passionate love to me. Heck, I think I’d even settle for mad passionate sex.

I guess that makes me “needy.”

NOTE: Did I forget to mention that it has been since August 2004 since I’ve even seen a penis? (Oh wait. I didn’t see it that time either. When X couldn’t be bothered to touch me the whole 2 week vacation, but had to relieve “his needs” the last night on the road with the boys sleeping in the next bed. Can we all just say “EEEEEEWWWWWW!”) And at least 6-9 months prior to that since there’s been a male assisted orgasm?

Not to play the pity card but, this whole dating thing with SaxMan is beginning to feel like showing a starving woman a 6’3″ buffet and saying, “Here, honey. Have a teeny little paté sandwich. That should do you now. It’s not polite to ask for more. You must wait until it’s offered. And then say ‘no’, like a nice girl.”

And I’d like to say that that last part was a prime example of blogging while drunk. But, I’m on-call. No drinking on-call.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

Theater prefigures Life 2009
Please. Just Vote 2008
Sì. Mi Chiamano Mimì 2007

November 4th, 2006 | Category: CPE, my crazy life | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL