Between the Worlds

Well, this is a new record. Three months without posting. It's no wonder my brain feels as though it's about to explode.

In synopsis, I broke my arm. Got it fixed. Had the cast removed. Am recuperating well. Note to self: Polyurethane wheels - old school - next time trying on roller skates. Duly noted.

After spending two months in the "fast track" section of the ER, it is altogether stimulating, infuriating, stressful, educational, sad, gross, inspirational, and illuminating to be back in the main department. In other words: situation normal. I once wrote a poem that included the phrase "snap like sternum." After a recent 16-hour shift, which included two virtually dead people within an hour, I have a new understanding of that phrase. 'Nough said.

I've moved into a home which is coming along much more slowly than I'd like, but is proving to be every ounce of the comfort I've been looking for. It's a labor of love, but it's so amazing to simply weed the garden, light a fire, sit in the hammock on the back deck and watch the stars move across the sky. Simple pleasures are everything these days.

I lost a friend several days ago, one who had fought sarcoidosis (a lung disease which essentially turns the lungs into fibrotic masses, not conducive to the exchange of oxygen, which is, as it turns out, pretty goddamn important). As the case would be, lung transplants aren't quite the efficient procedure for one whose lungs have turned into calcified masses. So it seems the bitch of attempting to survive becomes the impetus for a quick death. Congratulations! You've got new lungs. Bad news? Everything else got fucked in the process. Still reeling from the irony of it all, refusing to delete his phone number from my list of contacts on my cell phone. Still stubbornly hoping to see his name on the greaseboard at work, hoping he'll come in with a mild exacerbation of breathlessness, all the while knowing it's over and he's gone. Still having a hard time accepting that, accepting the fact that I will never again bump into him in the main lobby when he's exiting physical therapy at the same time I'm coming in to work. He may have been okay with it, but I'm finding I'm not. At least, not as okay with it as I thought I was.

My daughter is entering 5th grade this year. New school building, lockers, boy crushes and all. I'm both excited for her transition into preteen-dom and horrified at the prospect of having her hate me within the year. It's all I can do just to show her as often as possible how much I love her. I fear I am doomed to repeat my past as an angst-ridden teenager, only now through the actions, emotions, and struggles of my little beanie burrito. History repeats itself. I pray to a god I don't believe in that her transition into adulthood won't be as tumultuous as mine was.

And I'm going to be a stepmother soon. This is completely foreign territory.

Everything is on the line, and yet there's a sense of peace in knowing that I'm heading into the future with someone who is unequivocally THERE. Which is another foreign concept.

Is it possible that things will turn out okay?

Is it possible that life and love have taught me enough to bear the burdens this transition implies? Without driving him crazy?

These are questions I deal with every day, questions every human being deals with every day. There really is not much difference between me and the homeless woman who shows up in the ER looking for help and a safe place to sleep.

The proof is in the pudding, and although it curdles from time to time, I find myself in a place that is safe, secure, loving, passionate, and warm.

How did this happen.

Date Night

"If you could just sign your name here and provide an address... We'll be sending thank you cards for your attendance."

No problem! Here ya go!

"That'll be $150, please."

I look over at my date, whose eyebrows are now rising against the raised ceiling of the venue we've entered.

I look back at the door-woman. She looks at my date, and then back at me.

"How did you hear of this show?"

Um.... Not to sound like a douchebag, but.... my boyfriend's in the band.

She waves us in after accepting my donation (150 bucks is a bit steep for 3 songs for my ten year old, but I'm not going in without paying something, either)...

Do you want a glass of water? Some milk?

"No."

Do you wanna go up front?

".....Yeah..... 'My boyfriend's in the band'...." she says with a snicker. We laugh. She gets it. We laugh at the realization, that a line has been crossed, that she's suddenly privy to conversation that had previously been ignored, or at best, misunderstood. We're playing on the same level, suddenly. I explain: I wasn't trying to take advantage, just trying not to pay 150 bucks for a show we'd only catch 20 minutes of. She rolls her eyes. I ask, "Well, do *you* have 150 bucks?" Her eyes cast downward. "Alright, then. Let's go in."

So we do. And she actually *likes* it. She thinks the lead singer is funny, and laughs when she recognizes the guitarist, wig and all. He plays a brief solo. "Is that him?" Yup. She smiles, curious, and dare I say... proud.

They take a break, and he shows her around backstage.

"I'm on stage! Can they see me?"

Yes, Madi. You can see them; they can see you.

She giggles.

We leave early, stopping at the Palomino for some take-out dinner on the way home. I used to work there. She used to come with me to work for a few hours at the beginning of every shift, waiting for her dad to pick her up. And would stand beneath the bar, which stood a full six inches above her head, and ask me to ask Bill, the bartender, for some cherries. And he'd give her four toothpicks full, with oranges and everything. The menu's listing of tater tots used to read "tater nuts" in honor of what she called them when she was only two years old.

And there we were. And she asked for quarters to play pool while our food was cooking, and she asked me to play with her, and I did. And she used the cue and everything. We talked of math, the geometry involved in shooting pool, and I thought, "This is what I want you to learn at this age. The connection between boring school stuff and how it might serve you in everyday life."

And when we came home, she told me she wasn't sure if she believed in God. "Sometimes my dad and I kind of make jokes..." and she ducked her head, as if waiting for the invisible lightning bolt to strike her down.

And all I can think is... Who is this beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate girl, and how many days will fly by so fast before she's standing before me, arguing politics and defending herself against the questions I pose regarding her latest relationship.

Answer? My daughter. And not enough.

Hold tight to what you've got, Milwaukee. It changes so fast.

And, Madi? I'm more proud of you than you could ever imagine.

Dear ER...

Well, babycakes, it looks like we made it.

I never would have imagined a few years ago that we'd even know each other before I'd gained more experience with your type, and yet it's already been a whole year that we've been together. I'll admit, it's been a struggle. For example, today's debauchery - had it happened in our honeymoon phase - would surely have forced me to totally break up with you. This being our anniversary, however, I'll let it slide.

In spite of your negative qualities, you have introduced some wonderful people into my life, friends that I hope to still have in my life even long after I've given you your sweater back. You know I'm only with you because I love your friends, right?

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll never leave you. This is probably the most.... wait. Lemme think about that.

Nope, it's not even close to the most destructive relationship I've ever been in.

Still.... you stinker, you.

So here's to Us. Here's to you challenging me to the absolute end of my wits, to teaching me how to say Fuck You in the smartest and most polite manner, to failed IV attempts, to the subtle application of empathic hands, to knowing better, knowing when, knowing how, learning, growing, moving forward.

Next year at this time, you will no doubt insist that I take the next step in our relationship: triage. I have to admit, I'm dreading it. But I know the next year will afford us more opportunities to grow together as a couple, giving me the strength I'll need to take on your most heinous attributes.

We're far from Bogart and Bacall, but we're not exactly Sid and Nancy, either.

Just make sure you get that nasty stuff on your dick checked out. We can work around it as long as you're honest with me.

Love,
Steph, RN

Dear Madi,

See? I changed the spelling for you. Personally, I've always preferred "Maddie," but it's your name and you'll do what you like with it.

That seems to be the theme, these days: you, growing, changing into who you will become; me, struggling at times to let you do this without my input. It's harder than I thought it would be - simply allowing you to be who you are instead of trying desperately to shape who you will become. Too many parents these days raise their children in fear of how the world will corrupt them. I have to remind myself that these corruptions existed when I was a kid, too, and somehow my generation turned out alright.

And you're doing alright, too, in spite of how many hours of tv or internet I lazily allow. I can't really tell you to get off the damn computer when I spend so much time on it myself. And honestly, reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on Netflix are probably teaching you more about morality, friendship, and sticktoitiveness than you'd ever let me lecture you about. At least, that's what I tell myself when maternal guilt looms too heavily and persistently over my heart.

I remember when you were born and I thought, "I couldn't keep hamsters alive when I was growing up. How the hell am I going to pull this off?" So far, so good. There are things I'd like to do better, but many things I think I could do worse on. I hope you agree. Currently, my Mommying philosophy is to take it a little easier on you and myself and just let these days with you, these precious hours when I'm not working, be what they are: slow. Lazy. Lovely.

Know you have shaped me as a mother just as much as I've influenced you, if not more, and the lessons you've taught me are just as crucial. We've raised each other to some extent, and I'm so grateful for the gifts of your beauty both inside and out.

Now go clean your room. ;)

Love,
Mom

Distillery

Within the next month, I am to distill two particular experiences of my choosing into two separate stories detailing my growth as a nurse.

There are days I don't know up from down, days that compress hour into hour, lifetime into lifetime, days that crush and compress and condense every sound into one aching and continuous roar so loud, so BEEPing, so wailing and cacophonous I can't even hear myself think long enough to distinguish the puking from the crying, let alone imagine how I'm going to help fix it.

There are days I feel like an assembly line worker, churning out product, fixing this, adjusting that, and calling out for the next person in line. Someone literally pisses on us, and we put on a new pair of scrubs and march straight back into that room.

There are days I hate the American health care system and the fact that I'm at the front line of it. There are times that someone tries to end their own life and we're the ones who just barely save it, hooking them up to machines to keep them alive long enough for their loved ones to decide what to do, how to cope, how to wrap their brains around what has already happened and yet is seemingly prolonged by "life-saving measures." And we count the drips, do our math, hook it all up, plug it all in, warm this, ice that, knowing all the while that the person connected to it all is now just a body; the person is gone, the essence of that human being is irretrievably lost.

But we do it anyway, because people need it. The living need it.

There are days I'm floored by how easy it is to speak to people on their own level, to relate to so many different walks of life.

There are days I'm shocked by how wrong we all were, by how much an allergic reaction can look like a heart attack, how easy it could be to be presumptuous, to make a decision, to do one thing or fail to do one thing that makes all the difference in the world to those who sit in the chairs in the room, looking at us with that helpless stare, asking what this or that number means, asking what happens next, when we are no more in control of the situation than they are, and we're watching those numbers flip just as closely.

There are days the docs challenge me to learn something I didn't know; there are days I wish they'd just give me the orders and give my brain a rest. There are days we teach them something they didn't know, and we nurses celebrate those moments - the moments in which we become We instead of Them and Us.

There are days I feel respected and smart; there are days I feel like I'm stomping through water, my knees lifting achingly, hopefully toward open air for the freedom and lack of pressure to simply take another step, to move forward, forward, forward.

There are days I'm grateful we're able to speak to people frankly, and days I'd do better to remember proper adjectives.

There are days I wonder where the rest of my life went - my child, my personal life, my outside interests - and know the people around me are thinking the same, and that we've all made the decision to be here, together, in this room, cracking ribs, emptying catheter bags into specimen containers, filling tubes and jars with blood and spit, writing orders that mean the continued or ending life of someone's sister, someone's dad, and I wonder what the hell is wrong with all of us that we've chosen to do this, to be here.

It's still, a year later, one foot in front of the other. Baby steps to the elevator, literally. I drive to work in silence - no radio, no CDs - because I know the next 10 hours will be nothing but sound and suffering. I take deep breaths and revel in the silence, trying to make myself feel at one with the traffic around me. Lockstep. Part of a bigger picture.

I can't fix the health care system. I can't make your wait any shorter; it's not in my power to give you health insurance and a primary care physician and the money to pay for such.

It is in my power to tell you that your diet of McDonald's and Parliaments is not conducive to improving your current state of health (or lack of).

It is in my power to tell you that doing cocaine, even just once a week, for years on end is what has led to your ongoing bouts of chest pain and shortness of breath.

It is in my power to tell you that this is an Emergency Room and if you are not having an Emergency (defined as Risk of Loss of Life, Limb, or Eyesight), then you'll have to wait.

And it is in my power to tell you that I'm no better than you are, that I smoke and drink and fuck and swear and make mistakes just like you do. I just happen to understand the consequences, biologically, a littler more clearly. Do I make better decisions with this knowledge? Not always. So let's figure it out together.

Most importantly, it is in my power to be here, to learn more, to grow. A year ago, I never thought I'd have the privilege of working in the environment I've grown to love so much, in spite (and because) of its challenges.

Yet, here we are.

Two experiences?

Are you kidding me?