It's 5:30am and I can't sleep, which is very annoying considering I went to bed at 2:30am. My back is killing me and I have a major cramp in my left calf. When I woke up and looked at the clock, anger immediately gurgled up in my throat. I despise not being able to sleep and this felt so unfair. My back sucks. It's throbbing at the moment, so bad I think I'm going to vomit. When I realized I wasn't going back to sleep for a while, anger turned into a full blown hissy fit as I ground my teeth, flung the covers back, and stomped into the bathroom to find ibuprofen.
Then I remembered a story from work last night. One of the RT's told me about going into work one day, complaining that he'd messed up his back and how annoying it was. A second RT said "Come with me" and led him over to stepdown where we had a patient with severe muscular dystrophy and scolioses of the spine on top of it. This patient, an adult, has a body the size of a child that is so grotesquely twisted and ravaged from both of those diseases that he can only lay on his stomach, literally. It's the one and only position his body is in 24 hours a day. He's also on a vent to be able to breathe. Again, 24 hours a day.
So the second RT pointed to the patient and told the first RT "Tell him your back hurts."
When I was told the story we both laughed. It's funny in a sick, twisted way, but it also is a profound example of perspective. After I thought of that my anger and childish pissiness disappeared. I'm still not happy to be up at 5:30am on 3 hours sleep but I'm thrilled that I was able to walk to get my own meds and then to come in here and amuse myself until the ibuprofen kicks in so I can back to bed.
It's 5:30am and I can't sleep, which is very annoying considering I went to bed at 2:30am. My back is killing me and I have a major cramp in my left calf. When I woke up and looked at the clock, anger immediately gurgled up in my throat. I despise not being able to sleep and this felt so unfair. My back sucks. It's throbbing at the moment, so bad I think I'm going to vomit. When I realized I wasn't going back to sleep for a while, anger turned into a full blown hissy fit as I ground my teeth, flung the covers back, and stomped into the bathroom to find ibuprofen.
Then I remembered a story from work last night. One of the RT's told me about going into work one day, complaining that he'd messed up his back and how annoying it was. A second RT said "Come with me" and led him over to stepdown where we had a patient with severe muscular dystrophy and scolioses of the spine on top of it. This patient, an adult, has a body the size of a child that is so grotesquely twisted and ravaged from both of those diseases that he can only lay on his stomach, literally. It's the one and only position his body is in 24 hours a day. He's also on a vent to be able to breathe. Again, 24 hours a day.
So the second RT pointed to the patient and told the first RT "Tell him your back hurts."
When I was told the story we both laughed. It's funny in a sick, twisted way, but it also is a profound example of perspective. After I thought of that my anger and childish pissiness disappeared. I'm still not happy to be up at 5:30am on 3 hours sleep but I'm thrilled that I was able to walk to get my own meds and then to come in here and amuse myself until the ibuprofen kicks in so I can back to bed.