Reflecting on the demands of the day

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/01/2021 (2117 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was our first encounter in the New Year, a time to ask a nurse at the hospital I work at about holiday activities and general spirits — the latter a regular topic amid the pandemic.

We soon found ourselves talking about the difference between being at work and hanging out at home, emerging each day from the cocoon to enter the arena.

With its ever-changing protocols, constantly evolving duties and uncertain outcomes, work on the intensive care unit can feel like a combat zone, where winning and losing is counted in deaths and recoveries and elite medical resources meet the unrelenting advance of the killer among us.

Things are different than the typical chaos of the ICU. New beds have been opened, and the unit is sprawling into adjacent (and remote) areas of the hospital. Higher staffing needs mean new and different people are around, many redeployed from other disciplines and work sites.

Physiotherapists lead “turning teams,” squads to help nurses with repositioning comatose patients. Respiratory therapists manage patient assignments from a hallway. New-to-the-unit aides and assistants try to learn the ropes from physically and emotionally stretched veterans. More doctors are around. Nurses from various backgrounds take on challenging new assignments.

Stresses abound. We’re in the arena, but it’s not a game any would choose to play.

When I asked the nurse how she was coping, she told me she came to work each day, put her head down and ploughed through it, grateful when the end came and she could go home. She did what she needed to do with minimal complaint, but plodding with fatigue and resignation.

What’s true for her is true for others. People are tired. The demands keep changing. The spectre of being overwhelmed looms like an impending cancer diagnosis. It can feel dire.

Each of us finds our own ways to cope. We go home and make comfort food and putter with our stuff, walk our pets, say our prayers, read our books, take drives, watch our shows, do our thing. We create our cozy. Then we come back to work and meet the demands of our day.

“May I offer you a New Year’s blessing?” I asked her.

As she faced me and opened her hands to receive, I pulled a paper from my pocket and read:

May your joys be as bright as the morning

And your sorrows merely shadows that fade in the sunlight of love

May you have…

Enough happiness to keep you sweet

Enough trials to keep you strong

Enough sorrow to keep you human

And enough hope to keep you happy

A smile washed over her face. We stepped around the table that separated us, bumped elbows, backed off a few paces and air-hugged pandemic style.

Then she returned to the work before her, and I went about my day.

Doug Koop is a spiritual health practitioner and freelance writer.

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