Constant Journey

inherent gay need to redesign my bedroom every 3 months

Barricade the door

Had to spend a significant amount of time at the bedside of a comfort care hospice patient tonight (really glad my overall patient load allowed me to do that) and at one point I was kneeling and the patient panicked and asked where I was, and I said that I was still here, just giving my aching feet a quick break, and this dying patient in the midst of a pain crisis said with what sounded like complete sincerity, “oh I wish things weren’t so hard for both of us right now,” which was so sweet and sad I almost started crying

Sometimes I write posts about patients and then I schedule them for later to provide a buffer of anywhere from hours to weeks between the event that inspires the post and the posting. This is because writing about patients is one thing, and live-blogging about them is another. Anyway, this post which just posted was written about a patient who did then die at the end of that shift. Those were their last words. What a genuine honor to care for this person and hear those words. The kindness, the grace.

"It's impossible to find peace when you're swallowing down rage. Where do you think it goes, when you try to bury it in your body?"

relatedly: probably no one has made greater contributions to Posting than dr roberta bobby

a small thing i learned from my sister dying is that i really would rather the people i love be a burden than be whatever the hell else they'd be if they weren't. yes even if it's messy and not always fair and hard completely inconvenient for everyone involved. even if it's weird. even if i'm rolling my eyes a bit inside sometimes. i just want you to bother me. please always bother me

like "it's rotten work" "not to me not if it's you" actually sometimes it's still rotten work. even if it's you. and i'd still do it a million times over

reminder to clench your jaw, slouch your spine, and put a dirty mug somewhere you will forget about it