additional rhetoric

[faethverity]

I guess there's another side to the question which deals with emotional exhaustion. I'm canceling anything I had scheduled tomorrow so I can decompress. After the hardest week I've had on this job yet, today was a piece of cake. However, had I worked today towards the beginning of my training (or even a month ago), I might not have handled it at

Comments

[derdriu]

Rose quartz. On a necklace.
Or amethyst.

That's the only thing that worked in the call-center when people were yelling at me and angry all day.

::hug:: That's super rough, though.

[faethverity]

That's a very good point... I have a quartz for the purpose that I wore in high school, but I just need to find it. It's in a box somewhere. Thank you.

[codingparadox]

It's interesting - I've had the same question for the radiologists at childrens. What do they see in MRI all day? Kids with tumors, of course. Every day, several cases are given the "very little chance" unofficial diagnosis. It's interesting to see that the radiologists kind of disconnect themselves from the world when on duty. They turn everything into an interesting teaching file, or find what's unique about the case and if they can learn anything from it, and sometimes make jokes about the cases. It seems almost insensitive, until you realize that they have to do this day in, day out, year after year, seeing several doomed people a day, and it's the only way for them not to go insane.

[faethverity]

*nod* We were joking about cleaning brain matter off of things today (after those folks left) and it was only partly horrible. We sure did see a lot of death in the past four days.

[ibnfirnas]

I think it's a matter of disconnect-entirely-or-submerge-entirely. Either they have to become cases, and not particularly real except as puzzles and situations, or you have to give Death a hug and a smile every day, take a deep breath, and welcome it in.
Keep an eye on the mercy and relief and the comforting the bereaved. Keeping an eye on the moment of death is like watching the shiny penny.

[faethverity]

Welcoming is hard, because it's an always thing. I need to ease my way in, but I don't know where the shallow end of the pool is, let alone where to dip my feet to test the water. I'm worried that if I disconnect to far, I'll lose myself entirely.

PS Are you working tonight?

[skadi]

Your job would be really hard for me to do. On one hand, you are helping so many animals. But seeing the death would ... well, suck.

[faethverity]

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. I can never tell what will happen on a particular day before it does. *le sigh*

[linettasky]

I don't have anything more to say that hasn't been said, but I do want to offer hugs. The people like you and Garth, who do these things full-time, however "minor" the version of it, are awesome. I say I can't handle it, but I don't think that's true. I think I could...I'm just glad I'm not.