Saturday, April 19, 2008

Shitty Day turned okay (excuse my language)

So my day started as usual, not wanting to get out of bed but finally making it to work. I get to work and everything is the same as any other Saturday. We get a few calls before Alicia and I head over to Miller West to provide distractions to a few patients on the core. Then we headed over to our playroom and patients. We return to lunch at 12:40pm, I take a 30 minute lunch to prepare for a birthday on the core. I check messages in the middle of my art project and that's when it all began. Can not really go into details due to confidentiality, I am doing this mostly to vent and get some stuff out of my head.


A patient passed away and they needed child life to help the 5 siblings cope with the news and answer any questions concerning the cause of death and organ donation in SPANISH. Great now who can I turn to for support? Alicia agreed to go and help me, fortunately as we go to the room One Legacy has already started the process and are very well familiar with child life and happy that we are there ..phew.... So Alicia went back to attend to our kids in miller west as I stayed to support this family. To try and make this short, the immediate family was interested in organ donation but had various other family members attempting to change the parents minds about donating, even though this was something the patient had mention to mom while alive and well that she wanted to help others if the time came. So many things happened during the 5 hours I spent with this family that I went home so frustrated and upset. I could not think of anything else but what this family has been through and instead of deciding for themselves and going through with what they wanted they kept having someone else in their own family question their decision. I kept going back and forth thinking as to how I would react being in their shoes and as a professional wanting the best for the family. I guess I would also be listening to all my family who would be telling me to think twice about approving to organ donation just because I would like to hold on to any type of hope for a miracle to happen. But then I think about everything that One Legacy had explained to the family and it made perfect sense to me that there was no miracle waiting to happen. The only thing left was to try and help someone else in need by donating organs. All of this might not make any sense to the reader and even in my head it still seems confusing with all sorts of emotions involved that what I am writing so far is making sense to me.


I got home and I just wanted to sleep, not talk to anyone, not even my husband. Him on the other hand knew I had a hard day and wanted me to talk or to get up and do something fun to get me out of my funk. We went to get dinner came back and even during dinner I could not stop thinking of what just happened at work. So to try and forget I went to my room and began playing solitaire. Then my husband comes in with two shots, salt and lemon. At first I was a bit upset that he wanted me to take a shot because I hardly drink let alone to feel better for a while. But then I remembered what Michelle from One Legacy told me after we were done with the family "go out relax, and take care of your self." So I thought why not, let me relax, enjoy the night. We put on some music and all of a sudden we started our own little karaoke fun where I was the only one singing. It was fun and hey I began feeling a little lighter emotionally. No, I am not drunk it was only two shots and I am starting to feel okay. Everything will be good and I learned from this experience. I decided to become an organ donor, so to my family; if the day comes, do not argue or go back and forth with the medical team. If they say there is no hope for me to live or am brain dead and i can help someone else live, please listen to the medical team and let me help others. After all if a miracle would happen then it will occur at any time whether you decide to argue or not.

3 comments:

Kandra said...

You did a good thing by taking care of you. Drinking doesn't usually make things go away, it just relaxes your frame of mind to better take the world on. Your great at what you do and you should NEVER forget that! Kudios to your hubby for helping you get out of your funk!

Cori said...

Wow, I really enjoyed reading that (gee, I wonder why ;)) I have never had a day that hectic... I applaud you! You must have been absolutely physically and mmotionally spent.

Ismael is so sweet, I love that. He just adores you! Thank goodness for wonderful husbands.

It was so great to see you yesterday at the CAbi party. I wish I saw that cute dress on you. Yay for shopping days!!

Lira said...

I'm sorry that you had to go through that but that is pretty awesome that you want to be an organ donor when you pass away. I am super happy for you and Ishmael and that he is a great support system. I am glad he found you.