Everything I yearned to be but questioned if I could ever achieve, since I was moments away from a brown bag/rocking in the corner episode. Floating from one tiny human to the next with her shimmery grey bob trailing behind, nothing, and more importantly, no one ruffled her feathers. She was a reflection of confidence and poise that I assumed only twenty-odd years in here could give to you. I glanced back at superstar Nancy who was busy with her own neonate. Being here and mastering these skills was going to bring a semblance of meaning back to my life, a sliver of purpose to fill the gaping abyss. Did I trust myself with this child’s well-being? Could I ever trust myself again? “It’s a balancing act between empathy, confidence, and trusting your skills.” That sentence alone rattled me to the core and stirred the swirling vortex of self-doubt and second-guessing that took up camp in my head since I made the career change. Oh I felt the brick crushing my chest, the question was whether I was strong enough to lift it off and breathe myself. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel the weight on your heart.” “These are precious new lives at their most fragile. “Being emotional is normal, all part of the job.” Her words twirled around my mind. Blinking away the threatening moisture, I whispered the seasoned nurse’s mantra to myself. I wasn’t sure my last couple days of shadowing my preceptor really prepared me for this moment. For more reasons than I’d allowed my mind to wander… She was my patient, and since this was my third day of student clinical rotations at Presbyterian Hospital, or Presby as they liked to call it, it was a big deal. Didn’t make her any smaller in this great big world. And no longer required the supplemental oxygen. Born at thirty-two weeks, her premature lungs were not ready to breathe on their own. The only foreign equipment still in place was the small IV poking out from her wrinkly hand.
Her rapidly beating heart bounced under my fingertips, while the steady rhythm of her lungs inflating and deflating washed through me. My palm feathered against her back and then her stomach. It was the last place on earth she belonged.
How ironic, even the name sounded cold and lonely. I slid my shaking hands, the ones I scrubbed raw with a bristled brush-twice to be sure-through the circular chamber openings. Her.Īt least it sounded simple enough, and it should have been.
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