Yesterday after work I came home like any other day. Four am in the morning, the cool air in my room after leaving the window open all night due to the blistering heat, ruminating on yet another a difficult shift working in what seems a constant battle that resets at midnight with no ground gained. Smelling like crap and covered in who knows what after wrestling yet another group of inebriated and disorderly patients. It’s been rough…. Even management are saying things are worse than they ever been in healthcare. it’s apparent to all of us “post-covid” has people sicker than they ever have been…..
I’m doing my best to lead my team. After all, I’m the most experienced and the responsibility falls to me to help the newer, younger “kids” learn to identify and intervene what’s needed to contain some of these people and the dangerous situations they bring with them. It’s frustrating seeing things be so hard yet the method to get things done is delayed by the politics of health care….. Damn the politics, do the right thing……
Anyway….. After work I sat at my desk, took out my contacts, let out a heavy sigh and just stared for a minute into the nothingness of my dark bedroom. Then, suddenly, I just wanted a bowl of cereal. Nothing fancy, nothing clever, just a bowl of cereal. I poured my bowl and grabbed the spoon and began to eat it. Simply savoring the sweetness of the milk and the crunch of the grains in my mouth. After I finished the first bowl, I poured another. This bowl was the better bowl. Somehow it felt magical. The milk already sweet and filled with remnants of the previous bowl, with some lingering flakes from the first. Only this time, a whole new crunch was added. That new feeling, feeling something tasty with the last morsels of flavor from the last bowl mixed in. it brought me a feeling of contentment, to balance the day with a simple cheap meal before my end of day shower.
This made me reflect for a moment about my current situation and how fragile and funny life is. We are just living a bowl of cereal every day.
Our life, the first bowl of cereal is new and exciting. We dive in, experience the first bite of something and immediately decide if we like it or not. Then the more we eat the better we feel. Filling, sweet, relieved. These are our first real life experiences. Making friends, getting that dream job, meeting that special person, going to school for something we really wanted.
Then after time the cereal gets soggy, and we begin to feel bitter and sour about the pieces at the bottom. We no longer like that new feeling, that excitement. Simply because it got old…..
Then, like pouring a second bowl in the last bits of that milk we feel that excitement again. We are renewed. We go bite after bite and continue to dive in and eat it. We love that cereal again!
The same concept I had to rationalize it through my profession. Its hard, it’s bitter and its truly not for everyone. The politics suck and the reality is that the people above us truly are out of touch with the people on the bottom who get things done. They may have the investors, but we are the invested! We get the results, we save the lives, we make those interventions. We sit with the people crying on the floor after they have endured some of the most traumatic events you can imagine. We are the people who hold you on the bed when your drug addiction has overwhelmed your mind and you are so erratic and manic that you don’t realize you have assaulted your loved one’s or have split your head open from jumping in front of a car without knowing it. We are the people who endure extreme verbal abuse while being accused of not caring when we may be the absolute very last people on the planet who do. Even if we are locked in a concrete hall together to make sure you are safe and cannot act on whatever your mental illness is commanding you to do.
We are there. We are there together.
This week is my second bowl of cereal. I am burnt out, I am soggy, I am dissatisfied with my results. But I am saving one person at a time, each day, every day. One person taken in where they truly may have killed themselves. I am here for you, as you are for me. We are eating that same bowl finding the silver lining in the chaos of what the world is creating. We are enduring these times as one unit. Yes, I have the key to the door. But I am also coming back tomorrow, and the day after that, and a week from now. I may not see you tomorrow, but I will see someone else. And then another, and another. I will see a thousand people come in that door, all as angry and pissed and probably self-medicating just as you. Like the one before you, and after. I will be there to greet you and tell you I’m glad you came in. You may spit, and cuss me out and even try to punch me. I will be there for you. I will be there because it’s what I do for a living.
I am that second bowl of cereal for you. I am that second chance to see the good in the world. Even if it’s a hot blanket and a cup of apple juice…… Find that silver lining in your life, find that second bowl of cereal….