Its been a strange week.. one of those times that reminds you how fragile life really is. Felt pretty much the whole rainbow of emotions in one week. At work this week had a patient who came in for a cyst removal and the next day her surgery was canceled as we discovered she had HIV and was too immunocompremised to take chances on a good recovery. She spoke another language far from mine, found it difficult to know how to console her, sad to bear the defeated look on her face, scary to know i had taken some blood work off her the other day and it was a simple glove and my skin that protected me from such a deadly virus. Caring for VVF ladies whose smell is much more than i anticipated, shocking me into the reality of what they've been through, but delighted to see the brillant smiles on their face and eyes light up as i walk by their beds seeing them recovering beautifully from surgery. In a state of awe as i had an OR day yesterday and watched the surgeon recreate what once was, with the graceful sutures gliding in and out.. Then 2 days ago, was working on the ward again when an emergency page went off to a shipmates cabin where CPR, meds, shocks were started and stopped after 35 minutes. We lost a beautiful, old security guardman who was scheduled to fly home to Nepal the next morning. We never talked much, he had very broken English, instead we exchanged smiles, his was very warm. Our ship has a spirit of heaviness over it, but the wierd thing to think about is that life waits for NO one, then next day we return to work.. as life fades.. life continues to go on. A good reminder to make the most of it. I am thankful for what i have, for every experience~ the bad makes the good sweeter.
