How can I do it?

I was asked that today.

How can I do it?

My first response was do what?

Be an EMT. To see nothing but suffering, hurt and pain.

Yes.

I see a lot of ugly things, but you need to know where I have been to realized why I WANT to make a difference.

This month is when I my oldest son was born. He birth was a total nightmare. We both almost died. He got stuck in the canal, they surgically removed him from me. Then I almost bled to death from the procedure.

I survived.

This month 13 years ago, I lost my best friend, lover, and soulmate. No matter who we tried to "love," we always came back to each other.

He was killed while riding a go cart.

Yes, a go cart.

The kind you can purchase at any big box store.

He was not wearing his helmet or his seat belt. he was throw and suffered a major head injury.

I was at my parent's house when this all happened. I came back the next day to retrieve my love and send him back to North Carolina. I trip I was hoping to make in a few short months.

He had an eight an half inch skull feature. His brain was swelling. The actually remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure.

They told me he was under heavy sedation, and could not communicate with me. They were wrong. He would cry with me, try to mouth words to me to say he was sorry, and we would cuddle with me.

He knew time was short. We tried to make the best of it. I didn't leave his side for six days. I lived at the hospital.

On the sixth day, a blood clot reached his heart and he had a heart attack.

It took a while to get him back, but they were able to get a pulse, but I could tell he was bearly hanging on.

When everyone left the room again. I finally told him how much I loved him. How much he meant to me. And that the baby, Dakota and I would be fine. I was strong. If he was being called to go I didn't want him to suffer anymore. I love him too much to see him hurting anymore.

I was asked to leave again, so more of his family could see him, but I stayed in the family center down the hall.

The doctor then made their rounds and right before I was gonna go home for the night. I heard the code blue to his room number.

I screamed in pain. It hurt so much. Like my soul had been ripped in half. He had a stroke and his suffering finally ended.

No one can understand how much I loved this man.

This is where a lot of my compassion comes in for my patients. I was all alone for most of this ordeal. Imagine 22 years old, and shouldering this burden of being a widow and and single parent in the matter of six days. All because of a simple error of being safe.

I lost the baby later on that day, when I nurse at psych hospital I was admitted to gave me something for "acting out."

I woke up in a different hospital. Covered in mine and my child's blood all over my lower half of my body on a mattress in the middle of a dayroom. I screamed for hours until I couldn't anymore. I was only two, maybe three months pregnant. I searched the remains, but found nothing.

I told my RN I was pregnant. They rushed me to the ER to confirm.

Yes. I WAS pregnant.

I lost it. It was the transport EMT, that held me while I sobbed. It was the transport EMT, that held me as I was returned to the psych hospital. Then I was strip and cavity searched after the hell I just went through. I was discharged after 72 hours without a diagnosis.

So when I say I have been there.

I have.

So when I say I treat all my patients with respect.

I do.

That transport EMT re-enforced there is still good in this world.

That transport EMT made a huge difference in my life.

So, I continue to strive to make a difference in their lives, no matter what it takes.