Growing up in church, God was never far away – I never had to search for Him. Church 3 times a week, 3-4 different summer camps a year, winter retreat… He was always right there, served to me on a silver platter. I went to church not because I wanted to, but because that’s what I was told to do. In difficult times I prayed not because I trusted God or thought my prayers could make a difference, but only because that was what I was taught to do.
It wasn’t until the end of high school and beginning of college when I truly discovered what a relationship with Christ actually was. The kind of relationship that people of this world could not offer. The kind of love that surpasses all logic, all understanding.
A relationship I chose to have on my own, not forced into.
Don’t get me wrong, I was blessed to grow up in a Christian household. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way and my kids will be attending church as well. But the kind of relationship with Christ you’re grown into and the kind you choose to have for yourself are two very different things.
Almost two years ago, I started working in the Emergency Department as a Scribe. To put it simply (very simply), my job is to follow the physician around the entire shift, see every single patient with them and complete all the medical charting on each patient.
I’m pretty much attached at the hip with the doctor for 10-12 hours straight. I see everything. Whatever they go through, I go through. What they see, I also see.
This was the first time my faith has ever been tested. It was the first time I realized how weak my faith really was.
When I first started my job, death was not on my mind. They didn’t warn me about it. Didn’t mention it at all. It might sound ignorant to say because I’m working in the ER, obviously I will see death. But I didn’t realize just how much…
I told myself I would remember every patient who ever died in front of me. I would remember who they were, what they looked like, what their family looked like and time of death.
I lost track a long time ago.
I questioned everything I was taught in church after watching the doctor tell three different patients they now had cancer, only an hour into our shift.
I questioned my own faith after watching two parents stand in front of their lifeless child, CPR in progress, tubes and needles hanging from every orifice.. waiting for the right time to “call it”. Waiting for the right time to say, “okay, doctor, you can stop trying to bring my child back to life now.”
I wondered if God was real after watching the doctor close the eyelids of a patient he spent an hour trying to save.
I was ANGRY at God after watching the doctor perform chest compressions on someone, doing everything in his power to bring this person back to life, only to have the entire family scream at him afterwards because he “wasn’t doing enough.”
I was ANGRY at God after losing the patient, walking to a brand new patient’s room while the doc and I frantically try to hide our emotions, and the first words spoken from the patient’s mouth was, “what the hell took you so long?”
I watch as the attending runs a code blue. He says, “okay, 30 more seconds and we’re calling it”. A nurse gives one final dose of epi while another gives CPR. Everyone is watching. Standing in silence. The only sounds you hear is the patient’s chest pounding in and out and the nurse taking periodic breaths in between compressions. We’re all praying to God that somehow a miracle happens and this patient is brought back to life. But they aren’t. The prayers didn’t work.
There are so many things I have been angry at God for.
One time, specifically, the doc and I had a patient who didn’t make it. I was obviously shaken up and he noticed. He said, “Go take a 5 minute break, step out of the ER for a minute, wash your face, whatever you need to do. Then come back ready to go, we have more patients to see. You have to move on.”
But how on earth do I move on?
I can’t even count how many times I’ve asked God, “why?”. Sometimes that is the only thing to ask. It’s the only thing left to say.
I’ve driven home crying.
I’ve cried in a patient’s room, simply because that’s when my brain finally decided to process what I saw 5 minutes ago.
I’ve stayed up late at night replaying moments in my head of mourning families and people screaming from physical pain.
I’ve sat in class thinking about the patient I saw pass away MONTHS ago, because I still cannot get it out of my head.
I felt like I was being punched in the gut every time I went to work. Each time I finally got over a patient, another death would hit me. Sometimes even several times a week. They say you get used to it, but the truth is you only get used to covering up how you feel. You get better at pretending that death doesn’t bother you, but you never get used to it.
The worst part.. not being able to talk about it. First, because HIPAA. Second, because no matter how hard you try, your friends and family who aren’t in healthcare, will never understand. It’s hard to put into words how much it hurts to see so much hurt.
Each time I felt this way, each time I couldn’t get a memory out of my head, I just wanted to be at work. Weird that I wanted to be back at the very place that makes me feel these emotions in the first place? Yes. But there is something so comforting about being surrounded by people who understand how you feel. People who just get it.
I vividly remember waking up in the afternoon after working nightshift and my heart felt so heavy from what happened the night before. It was something I’ve never felt. I actually had a faint pain in my chest, a heaviness. I always thought that was just a saying people use when they’re upset but it definitely is not.
Trust me, I’ve loved every second of my job because the good far outweighs the bad, but I didn’t know how to deal with the bad. I didn’t know how to cope. I became so numb to everything around me that eventually I felt nothing at all.
Another night in particular, we had a cardiac arrest come in via EMS. The patient didn’t make it. I felt empty. No sadness. No grief. I was literally numb and I hated myself for it.
I became so angry at God, so speechless, that I just chose not to care. It was better to have no sympathy than to grieve over every patient you see, right? Your own mental health is important.
Then, I would see a life saved.
I would hear a heartbeat on the monitor after an hour of not hearing one at all.
I would hope and pray to God that the last round of epinephrine given to the coding patient would finally bring them back to life, and it does. This time, it does.
I would watch as a nurse checks the patient for a pulse, one last time.. and there is one. It’s faint, but it’s there.
I watch a patient as they hug the doctor tighter than I’ve ever seen anyone hug another person, with tears in their eyes, just to say thank you. That is the most meaningful “thank you” you will ever hear.
I’ve had family members hug and thank me, the scribe. The person who stands there and watches it all unfold.
God is so real, you guys. I see it everyday. I see the power of prayer first hand.
I’ve been a part of families lives on their worst day. It is only natural instinct to turn to God when all else fails. Everyone starts praying when sickness is involved. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not.
Yes, medicine heals people. But God and God alone equips us with the intellect and the thirst to explore science that leads to medical breakthroughs. If God does this, then by extension, doctors, nurses, and all health care personnel are God’s answers to these prayers.
All the glory goes to Him, alone.
I spent so many days questioning my own faith. It was so hard for me to believe in God after watching lives being taken right in front of me. You find out really quickly how spiritually strong you are when you’re put in real-life situations that makes you question everything.
I was tested. Truly tested. Never in my life have I ever mentally wrestled with myself like that before. And to be honest, I am still struggling with it.
But it’s in those times of spiritual warfare when you choose to believe.
I had to work hard in my faith. I had to trust. I had to learn. I had to lean on people whose strong faith made up for mine when mine was lost.
Medicine is a difficult world to live in. And to think I am only a small portion of it, I’m not even the doctor, nurse or tech taking care of the patient.. Please, have sympathy for healthcare professionals. I understand you’ve been in the ER for 4 hours and have not seen the doctor, but little do you know, he spent the last hour trying to resuscitate a patient only to call time of death. He just informed the family and now all they will think about is the doctor who gave them the worst news of their life. Now, he is taking a deep breath, gaining composure and walking to your room; a fresh, new patient.
After seeing that, after being by the doctors side through all of this and watching them still have faith… I now have mine.
Real. Life. Superheroes.
*****No violation of HIPAA has been made due to leaving out names, dates, genders, times, or any identifiable information* 🙂
