My Rocky Mountain Heart

It always fascinates me when people talk about their dreams and life goals with the emphasis on “When I retire, I’m gonna…”

Hmmm….

That’s making a lot of assumptions in my book. The biggest assumption being that you WILL live until you retire someday. Perhaps this is my perspective because I’ve worked in hospitals for nearly a decade now. And perhaps it’s my perspective because my first month working in a hospital, I lost my first patient and I was with him when he died. It was a very sobering experience to say the least. He was a stroke patient who was making a miraculous recovery, he was getting close to discharge and was honestly the poster boy for stroke recovery. Or so we thought. 

I went to get him from his room for our OT session. He told me he needed to use the bathroom. He walked in there with his walker, gait belt and only needed me for stand-by assistance while he sat down on the toilet and then he told me he “needed a minute.” I always try my best to respect my patients’ privacy, especially in the restroom, as I would want the same. He asked if I would leave the bathroom (so he could take care of business) but something in my gut told me, no – don’t leave him alone. He’s not safe, just yet. I agreed to step out but left the door open just a crack so I could see him in the mirror by the sink. I stood outside the bathroom door patiently waiting. I would glance into the mirror every so often to make sure he was okay. He had some balance issues and so I wanted to make sure he held on to the grab bar at all times. Suddenly I looked over and saw him in extension, rigid, shaking, eyes rolled back…I went in and made sure he didn’t hit his head. I held his head with my hands and I frantically pulled the cord in the bathroom for help. I remember I wasn’t even sure what to say, which code was this? Blue? Red? What do I say? I just yelled “I NEED HELP NOW!!! BRING THE CRASH CART!” 

We transferred the patient from the toilet to his wheelchair. Then wheeled him out to his room and transferred him down to the ground and onto a large wooden board in case compressions needed to be performed. And then we lifted him up onto his bed. I was then ordered to run and page his doctor. Which I did. It was like a scene from a movie only I was in it. 

He had a grand mal seizure and they couldn’t get him to stop seizing. Less than 25 minutes later, he was dead. I was instructed to complete a write up of these events for the M&M conference. M&M stands for morbidity and mortality – and this is a meeting that the doctors and team attend to discuss the events which transpired and what could have been done different for a better outcome. The nurse manager told me I might be requested to attend the M&M conference, since I was the only one with the patient when he began seizing on the toilet. You can imagine the knot in my stomach. As I sat at the nurse’s station completing the “incident report” – I heard my patient’s wife arrive to his room and begin wailing. My heart shattered into a million pieces. I was 25 years old at the time. 

Now, this doesn’t happen to everyone at work. And certainly not to corporate cubicle people. In fact, one of the more seasoned Physical Therapists I worked with at the time said to me, “I have been a PT for 25 years now and that has NEVER happened to me! I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it!” I couldn’t believe it either. 

I walked around the rehab unit I worked on in a numb and very confused stupor. Finally, my PT partner said, “Sondra, what are you still doing here? Go home! Decompress. We have absorbed your patient caseload for the day. Go take care of yourself.”

Go take care of yourself.

Those words would replay in my mind for hours and days after this event. And to be honest, years. 

This is one of the many events that have shaped my #1 value to GO FOR IT. We hear sayings like “Life is short” and “You only live once (YOLO anyone?).” But internalizing these sayings and making it part of your core values is another story. It’s another way to LIVE. 

With regard to my life, people often tell me that we were was so “brave” to pick up and leave Dallas to move to Colorado with only 1 job (mine), no money and a lot of  hope and faith. But when I reflect on that decision, I don’t think of it as brave as much as I think of it as living in line with my (and our) values. 

So all that being said, I urge you to GO FOR IT because life really is short and we do only live once. Notice the word live, it doesn’t say we only exist once. We only live  once. So go out and live! Ask that cute guy or girl out on a date, say “I love you” first, take that trip you’ve always wanted to take, quit your job, start that company, write a book, start painting again, go back to school, move to the beach…have faith, you are a resourceful person, you will not end up homeless. 

Live your values.
Go take care of yourself.
Go for it!