...and further

As I think over stories I can tell about my hospital experiences, they all seem to sound gruesome, like psychological dramas, murder and mayhem that are on A&E that I click quickly past. About ten years ago, I typed twelve pages of my work memories and mailed them to my mother to read. She was aghast at what I was around in my daily work. Everyone who works in a hospital sees people at their worst and also sometimes at their best. We see life as it begins with hope and ends in suffering. We see families torn by opinion and shame and individuals who struggle with how to cope with the most difficult of situations. We do not have the time to give the attention we desire to give, and we are faced daily with ethical dilemmas. It has been the most interesting of professions. I have learned to see work as an honorable word and not something demeaning born from necessity. It has caused me to grow up and learn to adjust and adapt and to expand my capacity for love.