My Profession-simple pleasures

I see an average of 30 patients a week.  I see them at their most vulnerable state quite often, when they are laying in a hospital bed, often fear stricken, as their life is changing from what they once knew to what they have no idea will become.  I'm not a doctor, I can't "fix" them, I am there for an entirely different reason.  I am there to help them learn, adapt, prepare, adjust....cope.  What an amazing place to put myself in people's life.  Scary, often sad, but so very rewarding.

To avoid all HIPPA violations I will preface this with...my patients' stories are all different, they blend, they mix and often I lose names, but never faces, and most importantly never stories.  I won't name names, I won't tell you places, and faces.  I don't want to break any rules.  What I am telling you is my perception of their lives, as seen through my heart. 

Today I worked with a lady who has cancer.  She was having some difficulty with chemo and needed a short hospital stay to get back on track.  She was weak, dehydrated, having a hard time swallowing and a bit beaten down.  I walked into her room and a huge smile came to her face "Are you the one who is going to help me get showered?"  It's amazing folks.  Showering is one of the BIGGEST simple pleasures of life.  My patients appreciate showers almost more than anything else.  Showers seem so simple right?  When you can't walk, when you can't move one side of your body, when you can't think like normal, when you are in pain..showering isn't easy, but it can make your life seem ok again.  Simple pleasures.  After I helped her get showered, dressed in clean clothes, teeth brushed, and returned to bed she looked at me with the biggest expression of compassion and said,  "I have always appreciated people like you, you are patient and loving and caring. You helped me feel like life was okay, it was going to be okay, Thank you."  Simple pleasures.

I have the simple pleasure of helping people every single work day of my life.  Sometimes the job I do seems so minimal that I forget that what I am doing is often so maximal (if that is a word...).  I get to walk into a person's life in a time of crisis.  That seems a little exaggerated to some, but every person I see has had a life change.  Sometimes it's so tragic...a spinal cord injury that leaves a person unable to move anything except their head. A stroke the leaves a person unable to speak, to walk, to move their arm or leg. A head injury that leaves a person unaware of their surroundings, their family, their body.  Other times it's smaller, a broken hand that makes it difficult to eat, write, work.  A new hip or knee that makes it difficult to walk, climb stairs, get in and out of the tub.  Regardless, each situation is stressful and life changing.  Sometimes the situation alters someones life for a short time, others for a life time, but each is significant and important and I get the honor of helping those people push through.

I struggle at times with my job, not so much because it's hard to work with my patients, more because I have a hard time letting go of their emotions.  I feel, to my deepest core, the emotions of my patients.  I have been schooled, on many occasions, by many different professionals and teachers, to separate myself from my patient and to not own their emotions.  After 14 years I have decided, it's not gonna happen for me.  I let the emotions take over, and I work through them.  I come home sometimes and just cry and cry to get someone else's emotions out me, I do many different destressors, but in the end I have decided it's one of life's simple pleasures, the ability to be empathetic to my patients.  Honestly, not many can say the same.

I work to help people adjust to their new challenges, I problem solve ways to allow them to complete their everyday tasks in the best way possible, for them.  My methods are often unconventional..that's what Occupational Therapy is about.  I get the pleasure of watching people figure out how to do all the things we take for granted.  I feel their struggles, feel their joys and reward in their accomplishments.  I cry for their losses, rejoice in their lives and mourn their pasts. 

Today I watched my patient as she combed her hair, as it sat in her comb in clumps, she looked up and me with tears in her eyes and smiled..."and so it begins"  she said. 

I smiled back.." thanks for letting me be part of your new beginning."