It’s amazing how you can be like wow my body is broken and I’m actually falling apart and I am so sick but then you eat for the first time in 10 1/2 hours and you’re like, oh, nevermind.
Alone, exhausted, and desperate in a fucking GetGo bathroom.
This country does not care about me. It does not care about women. It does not care about nurses.
What am I doing. How do I continue.
It hit me hard today.
I worked a 14-hour shift, in my neonatal ICU, with incredibly sick babies.
I was in charge, census was full, I didn’t even have time for a bathroom break.
I finally finished report, drove to get gas, and finally went to the bathroom.
It was in the gas station bathroom, after a shift from hell, taking care of the sickest babies, desperately trying to peel a saturated liner off my underwear that I remembered the overturn of Roe v Wade.
And it struck me then.
In the gas station bathroom, I come to find my spotting had become a full blown period and there was a significant amount of damage control that needed to be done. I was so busy and stressed, I forgot my period even existed, and ran ragged for 14 hours straight.
As a NICU nurse, I am all too familiar with what happens to babies that:
Aren’t wanted.
Are born into under resourced circumstances.
Received little to no prenatal care.
Have painful and life-limiting illnesses.
Do not tell me “it’s for the kids.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m a high achiever. I would say I achieve certain things the way one might achieve a hangover.” -Henry, from The Great British Baking Show, describing himself, but also describing me.
Being a nurse in America right now means going to a bar with friends and having a great time, but suddenly needing to excuse yourself to cry real quick because something reminds you of a patient that just died and coming back like nothing happened.
LOVE that the host seating people at the comedy club has to specify “don’t worry, it’s not the type of show where you’ll get picked on so much you’ll cry or nothin”
Sitting in a cafe on a solo trip to Edinburgh, finally reading The Anthropocene Reviewed. John Green reminds me how profound the human experience is in these seemingly impossible times. I feel exceedingly alone, but somehow not lonely. Peaceful. I give the experience 4.5 stars.