Please breathe

One night at work we extubated a patient. For those of you unfamiliar with med terms, this is essentially taking a patient off a breathing machine that was doing the breathing work for them. This woman had come in with all the symptoms of coronavirus and was intubated (due to respiratory distress) in the emergency room. I got the pleasure of watching her breathe on her own again. This woman is a honey bun, super sweet and sticky. She was, and still is, completely delirious and so very sick, but somehow looked more alive than I did that night. Every time I’d leave her room she’d holler “I love you!” and I’d turn and toss an “I love you!” back over my shoulder. Patients like this are why I do what I do. I adore my job. Am truly so very grateful for it.

Someone asked me once why I chose to travel— don’t I get lonely, isn’t it awfully hard to say goodbye, or say hello? Isn’t it draining to learn an entire new floor and charting system every couple months. To pack up everything and bring your life someplace new, growing comfortable and safe in your new home, always knowing you’ll have to leave it. My answer was that I don’t do it for any one reason. It’s not about the money for me, it’s not about job education and experience (although these things are beautiful benefits), the reason I travel is because of people. I am floored by humanity in each place I go. People’s capacity to create and invite community—the differences within that, the struggle, the newness, the connections, the brightness of love revealed—it all floors me. I have learned so much about humanity in the short time that I’ve been traveling. You always, always will have someone, you just must be open to them being in a place you wouldn’t expect. You must trust that people are generally good, that we all love and appreciate new connections. You must believe that you are a person who is worth knowing, and the idea that you are “temporary” doesn’t ever truly matter in the long run. Love is never temporary. Kindness is never temporary. Newness grows into other beauties, and beauties always remain.