My Time Volunteering: What I've learned and Where it's taking me

So I have been volunteering at a local hospital for two years. I worked up until last Friday in the ICU waiting room on Saturday mornings. The surgery waiting room is actually not staffed on the weekends. This means that families of patients having emergency surgery (they don't schedule non-emergency surgeries on the weekend) were sent to my waiting room. There weren't always many people in the ICU waiting room. Often, I had time to study and there was a TV at my station--I watched reruns of America's Next Top Model when it was on. 

I always hoped there wouldn't be many people in the waiting room. Walking in to find consult rooms with notes taped on the doors saying "Please don't disturb" and family members asleep on the couches and in the chairs scattered in clumps throughout the main waiting room, meant long nights and even longer days. It meant tears that I couldn't help. Hearts breaking as loved ones live their final hours. 

The end was not always near. Many families would enter a consult room with a doctor halfway through the morning, come out several minutes later, and you could tell, even though the day was almost half gone, the sun had just come up for that family. 

But the ICU is a place of contradictions. Hope and Fear. Death and Healing. Exhaustion and Rest. And many families who enter that waiting room do leave hurting. 

In my time in the ICU waiting room, I tried to not intrude in the lives of the people who were worried and tired--which meant I tried not to intrude on anyone. Everyone was there for a reason. I did try to offer conversation if they initiated. I felt like talking about mundane normal things could offer them almost a vacation from the situation they were in. 

I was often doing something unique--crocheting dish clothes, studying biology or looking over MCAT stuff. Doing something unexpected intrigued people walking by. They would ask what I was making, studying and we could talk for a while. Often it was just about me to start. Eventually, talk would come around to the loved one they were waiting for. What happened? Why? I wasn't allowed to ask the questions, but many times after we talked for a while it would just come out. I was able to ask people if they minded if I prayed for them and their patient. I was never told not to.

Many days I went home feeling like I had not helped anyone, like I hadn't made a difference. I would go home and cry for the families that were hurt and broken. For the mother and the husband who came out of the ICU crying, carrying the giant stuffed bear and tennis shoes of the daughter and wife who had just passed away. For the 20 people who were there for their mother, grandmother, aunt, wife, and came out of the meeting room (there were too many to fit in a consult room) with the doctor, crushed because there was no hope left. 

Life in the ICU is hard. It is draining. I have more respect for the nurses and doctors who help give dignity to the families and patients than I ever could have had I not had this experience. But I am worn out. I went to see my coordinator last week and we talked about where I can go. Since I got married Saturdays don't work very well. The newlywed in me wants to be home when my husband is. :) Plus we are gone many weekends. Also, I wanted somewhere less hard. Somewhere I can talk to more people. Somewhere that I won't go home from and cry. I need a recharge. I am getting my recharge.

BUT. When I have recharged, when I am happy again, I am going to the PCU (Palliative Care Unit). The PCU is where people who are dying go. To Palliate is (according to dictionary.com) to relieve or lessen without curing, to alleviate. We can make them comfortable, but not make them better. The cool thing about the PCU though is that it is one of the only places in the hospital where I (a volunteer) can get direct patient contact hours. I can basically do the work of a CNA and actually HELP. I can see the patients and do what is needed. I will need additional training but I am excited.

I am not scared of death. I know I need to have experience with it. All life ends in death in this world and being a doctor I will see it more often then most. However, how I look at my job as a doctor in relation to death will make a difference in if death is a drain on my life or not. If I am crushed every time I lose a patient,  my heart would not be able to continue on. A good friend of my parents and me is a doctor. He told us that he looks at it as a privilege to help escort each person from this life to the next. I want to look at it like that as well. 

This is long. I will be done for this week. Looking forward to next week, I will be blogging about a recent trip to Des Moines to see my cousin. You might even get a pic of us decorating cupcakes. (We both love cake decorating). TTFN.