Penned approximately late December 2009
Before I was diagnosed, I used to have to do so many chemo people's bloods. Sometimes on the hospital wards they would be so close to the end and I would have to take their blood, a task made notoriously hard from all the scar tissue which had formed on every one of their vessels over time. I have written down the names of every patient I have ever lost... to cancer. I keep the list in a book, kept in a safe place. It was only fitting that I be struck with it too, so that my empathy could become truer than ever.
Are you an oncology nurse, or were you .. or what kind of work were you doing prior to diagnosis?
ReplyDeleteI bade my time as a pathology collector. I worked at a private hospital which prided itself on being the lead facility in 'comfortable' chemotherapy treatment as well as voluntary psych and alcohol rehab. The treatment offered was less aggressive and therefore we had quite a few fatalities. Our time with the patient became a partnership between them, the oncologist, the chemo nurses and us.
ReplyDeleteI lost my position at the hospital when I was diagnosed. I locked up the doors (always the first one there and last to leave) and had no idea that I would never be back.
Thanks Amadeus.