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Is it a useful thing, to witness suffering? Am I really a more compassionate person after seeing all of this end of life stuff? Sometimes it feels like the opposite, I can hardly listen at the end of the four hours, to these patients who have cried the entire time. Who can sit there and empathize the entire time? I shut down no matter how much I remind myself, there's still a limit to my empathy. Probably I will really have to study Buddhism or something if I want to overcome that limit. But there's also a point where, I've done all I can do, it's just got to be up to them to calm down at some point.
The suffering affects me deeply. I have dreams about the two chronic patients who we just lost. I'm really terribly sad that this was how it ended for them. I wish there could've been some kind of resolution. The idealist in me is so sad for them, having spent their last days with so much anxiety and fear. There's another thing. You get a glimpse of what the person was like before they were suffering so much, and, I don't know, it's just sad to see them go. It's sad. Later, it's ok (relief for the suffering). I'm not there yet for these two.
I wonder at the validity of comparing one person's suffering to another. I used to think it was entirely pointless. Whoever it is, their experience of pain is just as powerful to them as another person's, even if their suffering is on some level, greater. I'm not sure that I was right about that. But surely we should treat each other the same regardless. There is not nearly enough philosophy in nursing school. Some of this stuff, I have no idea what to do with it.
In any case, philosophy majors have shorter lifespans, so I decided not to be one of them. There's a time limit to how much I get to think about this stuff everyday. I've maxed that out for now.
I overslept yesterday, and didn't have time to take a shower, and walked around with my hair sticking up funny all day. Which was fun, b/c then I got to watch people pretend not to notice. That was fun. But I'm going to go wash my hair now. Probably take my books back to the library. Get some fiction or something. I'm thinking too much.
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Posted by randomname on 2008-02-15 12:14:49 | Rating: | Views: 52
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