Last Call

Tonight is my last call shift as a student nurse anesthetist. I am updating this blog from our call room, between cases. This call is the 16-hour overnight kind, which are usually very difficult for me. Tonight, though, I am irrepressible. I am bouncing all over the hospital, and the OR staff are cracking up at me. I am happy no matter what!

Tomorrow morning, my husband is taking me out to breakfast to celebrate the fact that I no longer have to pull overnight trauma call, and I am having pancakes. LOTS of them. :)

And, yet, I remember... the man with dissecting aorta whose life we saved, and the young girl whose face was mauled by a pit-bull, and how I comforted her before her surgery, and the stabbings, and the car accidents, and the gunshot wounds - all of them frightened and hurting and needing comfort and care. And, yes, I remember the organ donations (I've done six) which are the most difficult cases (emotionally) for me to to do.

And so, there's a tiny piece of me that's going to miss this trauma call thing. That isn't stopping me from celebrating tonight, mind you. It's just a tiny voice inside, saying, "Yes, but look at what you've gained." Indeed. Look at what I've gained.

And I can honestly say that, even knowing how incredibly rough the journey was at times, I would do it all over again. And those pancakes are going to be fabulous, come tomorrow morning!