FOR or AGAINST

[NB: addiction, part 2 still to follow.]

something occured to me just now, while watching the CBC morning news. the story of the violence in gaza caught my eye. the governing Hamas put out a call to all women to submit themselves as human shields. human shields - to protect the unworthy asses of those cowardly militants, hiding in a mosque. hiding in a holy place? putting civilians in harm's way? hiding from the israeli soldiers whom they have engaged in gun battle. cowardly ... ANYWAY... in all this, something ocurred to me. what? well, that any society becomes like this [ie like gaza] when they oppose something so much - they forget that for which they stand. y'know? when the entity you oppose becomes that which defines you, you have lost the struggle... and fallen toward darkness.

GRASP the light, people. lest the darkness swallows you whole.

tossed into the deep end

totally. that's what they do. in a defined sort of way. well, its how it feels to a rookie nurse. surrounded. by all the hostilities of disease. apathy. despair. urgency. i remember feel utter paralysis at bringing myself to do even the smallest, most inconsequential task. like changing a post op day 3 hip surgery dressing. i felt so anxious. so ... inadequate. not about my skill. just ... about my worthiness of assuming such a role. could i really pull this off? i secretly asked myself.

i remember feeling so scared. like treading in a dark and haunting unknown cave. and i could feel the loss. the despair. the rage. the sorrow. the apathy. the impatience. in my patients. in my colleagues. in visitors. in myself. though, i could not focus enough strength to reach out and touch these raw emotions in myself. or in my colleagues. i succeeded with my patients. and their families. at great cost, i think. it seemed so attractive and easy to develop and intimate psychic connection with patients. particularly the very ill. it drained me ... it infused me. i awed at the hand of death and its wake. looking back, i believe those times i saw the hand of g-d. felt his breath. that's what i think. still ... i felt so frighteningly humbled.

i eventually got paired up with a great veteran nurse. no-nonsense. a gifted teacher. a kick ass nurse. and a nice person. we clicked. she seemed to get me. gave me enough space to explore and assimilate my new role. but not so much i felt paralyzed by anxiety. my learning curve rose. it felt exhilarating. i felt so connected to the human collective. in a most primordial way. as i gained more and more independence the reality of workload, and its impact on nurses, cast its shadow upon my face. slowly. oh so slowly. i did not see it at first, focussing so much attention on the minutia and paraphenalia involved in executing the role of 'unit nurse.'

but just a week before christmas, we worked our way thru 3 code blues.
my patient died. a first for me. but ... not a last, for sure.

compassionate ephiphany

i felt the despair in that man's eyes. on the tv screen. i could see the resignation and sadness pressed into the weary creases of his face. failure of the surgical team to retrieve a clamp from his abdominal cavity wreaked devastating consequences on this man's health. the show, on TLC, documented cases such as this which occured worldwide. i felt the fear and loss thru the tv's photon screen. i did. and a feeling chilled my heart. i turned to M. and said quietly, 'i don't want to have that kind of power over people. i simply can't.' and that sentence embodies the reason why i cannot allow myself to return to the practice of nursing. and the battle i waged throughout my own practise of nursing. from day 1.

on my very first day as a graduate nurse - the day after i wrote my gruelling 6 hour nursing exam - i peed myself as i stepped off of the elevator and onto the 4th floor of the small urban hospital. my first day responsible for my own practise. sure, i would be paired up with a veteran nurse for several weeks. still, to have live-or-die control over another human. in such a hostile, technical environment. that a human could die at my hands ... by my own action ... as a result of a careless error, or worse yet - as a result of circumstances over which i have no influence at all!

how similar nursing and soldiering seem me now.

words of my patients

1. don't make me brave. just make it easy for me.
2. am i gonna die?
3. how long does mom have [to live]?
4. i'm scared .... i'm dying you know.
5. will it hurt?
6. when will it be over?
7. have you done this before?
8. how do you nurses do this job?

addiction - part 1

ADDICTED
- defined - physically and mentally dependent on particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without adverse effects; enthusiastically devoted to a particular thing or activity.

- word origin - from an obsolete adjective/adverb, meaning bound or devoted; slaves given to roman soldiers to reward them for performance in battle were known as addicts. eventually, a person who was a slave to anything became known as an addict.

do a google search on the word "addicted" and the hits returned by the search engine include 'are you addicted to the internet,' the wikipedia addicted and drug addict entries , and a smattering of links providing the lyrics to a song of the same title.

the song reads like a lament of an addict. the song speaks to an entity that holds all the power, and entity from which one runs, but can never escape. the song speaks of the feeling of being unable to breath without a fix ... of being unable to see anything else. the song speaks to feeling stuck, to feeling haunted, to feeling lost and overpowered. any addict will know - the song truly speaks of addiction.

does this sound like a choice a person would make? does an addict really choose this life? i'm inclined to think its definitely NOT an informed choice. informed choice: knowing what the choice entails, its consequences, and side effects. does an individual contemplate the choice to use drugs in this way? its unlikely. and, this adds another dimension to the state of being known as 'addicted.'

society, the mass media in particular, villifies drug addicts. casting them in a blame-the-victim light. it seems to appeal to our initial intuitive reaction. after all, no one held a gun to their head and forced them to take the drug. still, this view of addiction simplifes the issue. addiction simply cannot be distilled down to such naive simplicity.

ask any street urchin who became homeless and street bound because of an addiction. ask him if he feels his life has settled where he envisioned it would. ask him if he feels happiness and joy in his life. perhaps his answer will shock you. perhaps you will not believe your ears when you hear the addicted street urchin wish for death.

i worked as a nurse, at north america's first official supervised injection site for illicit drug users. hundreds of nurses applied. and the applicants got distilled to 8 finalists. of which i happened to be one. in accepting this job offer, i unknowingly entered a dark and foreign world. of drugs. of desperation. of marginal lives. i felt excited at being a part of something so revolutionary, so new. i had no idea. no idea at all.

"yankee, go home"

that's the first english phrase my husband learned, as a young boy growing up in 1960s switzerland. he says he had no idea what it meant. just that its what people said back then. and still say, to this day. when i asked why, M. replied, "they never left after the 2nd world war!" indeed. ask any german citizen about this - they will utter expressly anti-american sentiments. i recall, about 7 years ago, having dinner with a relative visiting from germany. i'll never forget the tone of her voice when she told us, "germany is still an occupied land." i could her the angry despair in her voice as she said those words in her native german.

just thought i'd share an interesting, european perspective.

sacred life - part 2

still contemplating life. this time, though, its end. i'm thinking of issues that pressed themselves into my frail and weak soul. end-of-life issues. euthanasia. life support. resuscitation. futility of treatment. i've faced this stuff. in my career as a caregiver. and, now that i have achieved a safe distance from that role, i see things differently. and, i'm inclined to think it hinges upon the way i see suffering. read on. it will become clear. i hope.

terry schiavo. tracy latimer. do you remember these stories? different circumstances. different people. yet, the same issue at play in both cases - the value and definition of life. so ... know i ask. does cognition constitute life? does cognition serve as a criteria upon which medical treatment decisions get made? do only we only allow life for those individual with physical and cognitive capacity to contribute to society? who are we to decide such? to decide when death should visit? to decide when life should end?

the soul - its the spark of g-d. the breath of g-d, that gives us life, existence. its not ours to destroy. its not ours to create. its ours to honour. and love. in the face of disease. in the face of suffering. in the face of physical pain. in the face of emotional pain. in the face of psychic pain. does suffering have a purpose? i believe it does. and so ... it seems selfish, vain, short-sighted to end a life with a view to ending suffering. does death - a la assisted suicide - really end suffering? i don't believe it does. it merely makes it easier for those of us who remain standing.

i sympathize with michael schiavo. and with robert latimer. but ... i cannot condone the actions they took. it seems selfish, vain. it dishonours the sanctity of life. such actions put our own selfish fears and despair ahead of g-d. they reflect a lack of trust. in g-d. in ourselves. while i appreciate the cruel irony of removing a feeding tube from a woman who, indirectly, sustained brain as a result of an eating disorder, i cannot agree with the action taken. instead, i just think it underscores the importance of making treatment decisions with complete information, based upon reality, and not hope. [of course, hindsight is 20/20]. it also underscores the importance of each and every one of us making our wishes known to our loved ones - in writing. what treatment would we want to undergo? and what would we want to refuse? one of my assigments in nursing school involved writing my own living will. it had to be specific. and articulate. and it opened my eyes to a world i had never before entered.

with respect to the latimer case. i sympathize. i have felt the crushing despair of having a child whose care needs i cannot meet. of having a child who lacks the cognitive capacity to return my love. its worse than death, i believe. for, having a child like this involves loss of the child on so many levels. and never-ending, at that. still. it never, ever occured to us to kill our child, to take his life. i could not imagine snuffing out such a beautiful, angelic spirit. in fact, i am inclined to believe that 'special children' possess a special sort of divinity. their spirit - contains such frail and divine beauty. anyone who has worked with these kids will know what i mean.

and so ... i conclude that what the latimers did they did out of fear, out of despair, out of selfishness. do we ever want to destroy the thing we love the most? no. and that makes me think about a reminder that mayden, dearest provided us in her blog, today. yes, indeed. the difficulty in loving lies in knowing that the needs of your loved one takes precedence over your own.

image - a collage by moi!