Four thought he knew what he was getting into when he started working in healthcare. He did it to help people, like most others who sacrificed their time and money to study and graduate and get certified.
But as the months passed, Four felt like something was off. He’d watch Legend, exhausted but earnest but broken, and wonder. He’d see his fellow nurses on the unit and make jokes with them after bagging another body and wonder. He’d watch people quit the field, disheartened and bitter, and watch new ones enter, eager and excited, and wonder.
What am I doing here? He thought one day as he lay on the sofa, too exhausted to get up. He’d spent the entire day here, mind numb, recovering from a three night stretch. Why am I doing this? Is it worth it?
It would be worth it if he made a difference. But did he? Anyone could do his job. Nurses were replaced all the time on his unit. He was in a teaching hospital, the entire building was a revolving door of jobs.
Every shift he would come in, check boxes, do tasks, make sure his patients stayed alive, and went home. That was. It was.
It was stupid that he was questioning this. As if ICU work wasn’t important.
It was. But was Four actually making a difference? Was it worth watching his body and mind unravel like his friends, if he wasn’t even contributing? Was he actually helping anyone, or just a cog in a machine, too exhausted to do anything else, too accustomed to this line of work to ever break free?
He knew this job would kill him. They all did. Suicide rates in healthcare were relatively high compared to other fields. Stress induced illnesses were common. Heart disease, stroke, cancer. This job would kill him if he stayed in it.
Was it worth it? Was it worth it to just push pills and watch vitals and move on, like anyone else with an RN license could do? Or should he be like the others who spoke of burnout and quitting and left the field altogether? Was he already getting too old for this job, having worked it a few years?
That was ridiculous and he knew it. But he still wondered, as his life outside of work slowly devolved into just survive long enough to recuperate and work the next stretch.
He thought about talking to the others about it. But Warriors and Legend were far more run down than he was, Sky was a depressed mess from both his job and the military, Wind was a student trying to get into this insanity, Wild worked hard but didn’t have lives in his hands, and Time was far too deep in the trenches to ever leave, wasn’t he?
But what about Twilight or Hyrule? They still seemed to be going strong. Four should talk to them.
“Do you ever… feel like you’re not doing anything? That the stress of the job isn’t worth the payoff?” Four asked one day, feeling awful even bringing it up. Payoff definitely wasn’t the right word.
Hyrule tilted his head to the side. “Payoff?”
“The stress, the exhaustion,” Four clarified, embarrassed. “I don’t—I don’t mean the money. I don’t care about that. I can make money in other jobs.”
Hyrule hummed, and smiled a little. “I mean, most of my transports aren’t life or death. It can be frustrating. But when I do make a difference, it makes up for all that, you know? Besides, I get paid to relax with friends at the station if nobody’s calling! That’s always nice.”
Four pondered the matter. He supposed the flow was a little different. Maybe he just needed a change of pace from the ICU, where one was constantly on edge and expecting the worst, where the slightest alarm made him glance at the monitor and gear up for a fight if his patient was dying or compromised somehow.
Hyrule was right. It made everything worth it when he knew he’d actually helped. Him. Personally.
But in such a regimented system, he wasn’t sure he personally was doing much of anything.
Until one stretch, he got the sickest patient on the unit. One stretch, he comforted her family time and again, explained things, argued with providers, agreed with others, he fought, he sweat, he stressed. He picked up extra shifts because he knew the unit was short staffed and he worked the entire week keeping that woman alive.
And then he went home, and his body unleashed the stress by making him violently ill for three days.
The next time he was at work, Dot stopped by and pointed out that he had a rash on his face, petechiae from vomiting so hard for so long. He felt a little shaky. But he noticed his patient was doing better, and had gone to the floor.
No goodbyes. No thank yous. None of that needed. Her room was empty like she’d never even been there. Four took care of a different patient, and then he went home.
And he smiled. Because he knew, at least this once, he personally had made a difference.
It was worth all the suffering for that.
