In surgery there are moments that call for focus in the face of literal carnage and destruction. In the emergency room when a critical trauma patient arrives it is not unusual for 15 people to surround the gurney. Most have a job; all are supposed to have a job if they are in there. But it is so exciting, dramatic. They can’t help themselves. Pretty quickly, once the questions get answered (what happened, how sick is this person, etc), the crowd dissipates. Sometimes though the physical chaos of the injuries or the craziness of the mechanism of the injury will draw more and more people. The surgeon stands at the foot of this bed, the ER doctor at the head. I usually don’t do too much – an exam: feel the belly, touch the foot, look at the chest wall move with the breath. Think. The roiling around me doesn’t change, but I change. I have one thing to do. One at a time. I do them. Check the airway, check the breathing, check the circulation. ABC. The algorithms that I learned all those years ago as a student, pop up in my brain like a slideshow, and, in the quiet of my mind, in the frenetic noise of that room, I walk through, step by step, with the patient. I make decisions, sometimes right, sometimes not. I am not, however, paralyzed. I am in action.
In the rest of my life I am not so good at this. Maybe it is a lack of practice, or that there are not algorithms. Maybe it is because it is my own life that I trying to figure out. Even though I am acutely aware of the life in the balance in the ER, it is still not my life. While the noise of my own life and the the decisions I need to make are not life/death, they involve me. Harder to get perspective. What to do with that?
Another set of eyes, ask for help, step away. Learn the lesson of one thing at a time. ABC. I am currently feeling overwhelmed – way more than I can make sense of. I am deciding to wake up each day, look at the plate of things/people/events in front of me and do my best. The noise never stops. I don’t have the luxury of distance from myself. I am in it. This is why I need help in my life: I cannot see myself. I need the perspective you might have. It is better when I remember this, but I often don’t. Today I am remembering to remember that.
Personally I feel overwhelmed everyday. I know how fortunate I am to have my children, family, and friends. However, I keep feeling like there is more to life and it is passing me by. Sometimes I feel like the whole world is moving forward and I am not going anywhere. Recently I went back to school just to add some variety to my life. I am always taking care of others and needed to do one thing for me. I felt so selfish, but realized I needed a change. I have also in many ways walked away from ideologies I had and found my own spiritual awareness. It has made me a much happier person. I am ready to feel things I haven’t felt for a decade now and snap out of my routine. I just hope I can continue on my journey and keep finding each day a little more worthwhile and fulfilling. Perhaps one day we will both stop hearing the noise and just feel the bliss of the moment.
this sounds really cool. I like the vision of untarnished experienced – in the moment, as you said. thanks!
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