VBS week is over, and now it is VBS detox week. I will miss it, but am definitely tired. I've been up early every day the last nine days (except today of course) and am ready for a little break. I don't go into work until Monday either, which is excellent!!

Saw my first full-out code on Thursday at work. Walked in, 0640, patient starts coding, and they weren't able to save them. I didn't get to watch all of it, because I did have to start getting my report (life goes on in the hospital, even after emergencies) but it was weird. I walked in at the very beginning to see if they needed help, and you could just see that the patient was basically dead. I'm not sure though how it would have been for me if it was a patient that I had taken care of, spoken with, fed, bathed, etc.

They always taught us in nursing school to be sympathetic, not empathetic. You start getting into dangerous territory when you begin to put yourself in your patients' or their families' shoes, sharing their emotions, etc. And I realized Thursday how odd it must seem to others that an emergency happens, a life ends, or whatever may be, and yet hospital staff must go on with their day. We will still talk and laugh with our co-workers, and we still must provide the same care to our other patients, even after experiencing or witnessing something horrible. It isn't that you don't care, it's that you can't emotionally put yourself into that situation.

Sometimes it is hard. I have come home and cried for my patients a couple times, and once I had to step into the bathroom at work so no one would see me cry.

Speaking of crying, I saw Toy Story 3 this week. Definitely a tear-jerker. If you want a good cry, or just to feel a little sentimental, go see it.