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July 21, 2004

Hard. Damn.

Hard. Damn. Hard is a shape-shifting thing. Hard is able to tailor itself to fit into all the cracks of my psyche. It knows exactly what it’s doing. It knows how to teach. Yet, Hard has coated me with lovely layers of veneer and varnish. A coating that seems so seamless, smooth, and shiny. My coat is an awesome thing. The eighth wonder, but Hard knows how thin the coating is in spots. Hard knows just where to pick and chip, jab and twist. Almost daily, at work or at school, Hard hits me head on. And, I say, “Yeah baby, bring it on! Is that the best you can do? BRING…IT…ON!!!” My pride and prowess grow. I think I am tough. I can handle Hard. I can. I do. I handle Hard every single day, but Hard knows me. Hard will bide its time.

I see men and women, who should be alive and healthy, die or face a future of permanent, crippling alteration. Another layer of veneer. I see men and women, who should be dead, have their lives stretched out over agonizing days – weeks – months – years. A fresh layer of varnish. I see the constant stream of family members until their faces blur together. Everyone I see seems familiar now. Did I tell the women in front of me in the Wal-Mart checkout line that she had to leave her father’s side because the unit was closed during shift change? Did I fetch that man, sitting at the next table at IHOP, from the waiting room after his son had done a header (sans helmet) off his motorcycle into the side of an SUV? Did I look that woman pushing past me at the TRAX station in the eyes and tell her that everything was going to be all right, whether her husband survived or not? Veneer, varnish. Varnish, veneer. The thinnest of layers day after day.

Hard slipped me a good one this week. Looked up from my desk this weekend to see an acquaintance roll by on a gurney. Not the usual admit on many levels. He hopped off the gurney and into his hospital bed. There was no 1-2-3-heave. No slick ER’ish slide from one surface to the other. No trauma alert called overhead. No blood. No charcoal stool projectiled across the room. No vent. No moaning, groaning, wailing or whining. He looked like he did every night at work, except he was wearing a hospital gown instead of greens. I had no personal investment in this man. He wasn’t a close friend, just an acquaintance. He was actually on the gruff and grouchy side most of the time, but we had gotten to the point where I could tease him a little and occasionally get a smile. Didn’t know anything about him. Didn’t know if he was married. Didn’t know if he had children. Didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up. Didn't know what he was afraid of. (Well...that's not quite true. I knew that he was afraid of being a patient in the ICU. Everyone that works here is afraid of that.) Until this weekend I didn't care or think much about him except how fast he could get his butt up to the unit and get busy doing what he did.

When I first got into work last night he wasn’t in the unit. That’s not unusual for his kind of surgery: in and out to the floor in under 24 hours. No big deal. Routine stuff. I briefly wondered what floor he had been discharged to, but it was busy and I was tired. There were too many other things on my mind (playing catch-up, admits, labs, chart checks, new residents, homework, damn computer giving me fits). The twelve was at an end. I felt wired, anxious to finish up and get to school. Anxious to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Please, just get me the hell out of Dodge.

Then my ears picked up a snippet of conversation. One person asking another if they knew how he was doing. “Not well…back and forth to surgery…in a coma…non-responsive to pain…wife…young children.” I am speechless (a rare occurrence). Hard just ripped me wide. I had to go sit in the back room and catch my breath, and cry, and pray; but the split widened. Widened because the same protection that I use for work and school, I use at home. Thinking about this man who is close to my husband’s age. Seeing the stunned look on his wife’s face as she sat with him. Hearing about his children (close the ages of my own) crying at his bedside. Oh my god. I had to look at the soft, pulsing underbelly of my selfishness, my self-pity, my pride, my self-absorption, and my smelly, rotten attitude.

So, I’ve cried off and on all day. I’ve tried to distract myself. I’ve inspected myself. I’ve berated myself. I’ve called my husband and tearfully apologized for being what I’ve always been (and will probably continue to be). I’ve promised myself to step out of the veneer and varnish when I pull into my garage. Leave it hanging outside on the deck. I’ve told myself that I want to be naked (so to speak) when I am at home, with no deep-seated need to protect myself from those I love. I’m still at home alone, waiting for my husband. The boys are at my brother’s. I want to be naked, vulnerable but can I? Will I? Don’t know. No sleep in over twenty-four hours and I am wrung out. Fortunately, Hard doesn’t care what I want, or what I will or will not do. Hard does not care because if I haven’t learned my lesson this time Hard will continue to rip me wide until I do. Damn that Hard. Damn.

Posted by swift at 5:26 PM | Comments (2)