Friday, January 7, 2011

Overwhelmed or My Brain is Leaking Out of My Ears!

…In the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. Psalm 42:7

I was two or three patients behind, couldn’t find the record I had had in my hand, just 2 seconds ago. The adorable spaniel with a sprained shoulder needed to have been checked out half an hour ago. I was as overwhelmed as I used to be when tumbled by an extra tall wave as a kid at the Jersey shore. I couldn’t catch my breath, “I feel as though bits of my brain are leaking out my ears!” I exclaimed. “I’ll catch them and put them back!” laughed one of my technicians as she cupped her hands beside my head. “Breathe, just take a breath” said the other one later that same night when the cases still kept coming. Everyone was limping or itching, had lost too much weight or too many platelets or was pooping too much or too little.

At 10 pm the door was locked, the phones turned over and everyone gone but me and a colleague. We still had records to update, x-rays to review and phone calls to make. And both fluid pumps were beeping. I untangled I V lines, flushed catheters and reset the pumps, then called home to let my husband know I wasn’t lying in a ditch somewhere. Would this day ever end?

The next day I almost fell asleep checking in for a mammogram, although being squashed like an orange in a juicer woke me up nicely. On the way home I stopped at the park. As I stood gazing at the patterns in the ice on the lake, I could feel my soul being restored. And yet I realized that I had been sustained all along. Lifted up by my hard-working technicians who never complained as I handed them three more things to do every 5 minutes. Supported by a colleague just as tired as I but still willing to discuss a case and comforted by a welcoming husband when I finally made it home. God’s presence is with me even when I’m too distracted or tired to notice so I will praise Him!

By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:8a, 11

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