![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Slowly, slowly, I'm organizing thoughts about my job, what is hard, what is rewarding.
I work as a neurodiagnostic technologist, which is a fancy way of saying I'm in the class of techs that do EEGs, nerve conduction testing, intra-operative monitoring, etc. Much of the work I do is routine, testing of children with a history of seizures, but otherwise healthy.
I also work in the epilepsy surgery program, for kids with intractable seizures that can be treated by removing the epileptic focus, or starting point, if their seizures meet that criteria, or children who benefit by a surgical separation of the hemispheres of the brain. Many of these children go through a two-stage procedure - a surgery to open the skull and place arrays of sensors directly on the brain surface, followed by several days of intensive monitoring and mapping, and then a second surgery to remove the unhealthy brain tissue. A mother recently asked me how I could do this work, how hard it must be to see kids like this, and I replied that really, it wasn't. The recovery kids make from these procedures is jaw-dropping and amazing, and it makes me feel we are doing GOOD.
But I don't talk so much about what is hard about my job. Because my hospital is a major pediatric facility, we get children transferred from hospitals throughout the state (and some from Canada, if their trip would be shorter than the trip to Toronto), along with local children from Detroit. I do quite a bit of work in the critical care units, as neurophysiology is used both diagnostically and for prognostication in critically injured or ill children.
Shaken baby syndrome is terrifyingly common.
Babies are born daily who will live out their short lives in the NICU, never to leave.
It is horrifying that each time a child affected by gun violence makes the news, I wonder if that child will end up being my patient (often: yes)
Tragedies strike without warning and to anyone, and tragedies cluster: drownings Memorial day weekend after the pools are opened, car accident victims in snowstorms, deadly disease during flu season, and so on.
Because the procedures I do are not quick, I spend usually over an hour with each patient and their families, and I hear so much: the heartbreaking conversations as stunned parents try to make sense of what happened to their child, detailed reconstructions of the last day before (whatever) happened, how little sense it makes that just a few hours ago, they were talking, or fighting, or being bratty, or joyful, and now they're unconscious surrounded by equipment. Or I get to hear the kind, but horribly painful conversations between a physician and a mother about end of life for her terminally ill child ("when we decide, next time, that we're not going to intubate her and put her on a ventilator, it doesn't mean we're giving up on HER. It means we're giving up on ventilators...."). I get to see the different ways race and class affect how my colleagues treat a family dealing with tragedy, and that's heartbreaking in its way too.
Of course, not every day is like this. Like I said, the majority of kids I see are relatively healthy, for routine testing, and that's a joyful thing. But there isn't a lot of space to process the pain I see: sharing it with my colleagues, since they've been there too, but because we're at work, there's generally not a lot of time, or emotional space there. It doesn't feel like sharing it lessens the impact, and in fact the opposite, hearing what others have seen just spreads that pain further. And I can't generally process with people outside of work, they either really don't get it, or I can't eliminate enough details to preserve the patient's privacy and still have the conversation be meaningful (because when tragedy affects children, it so often makes the news).
So I guess, I write it. I keep notes at work. I process slowly. I try not to store things up. And I try not to keep so much emotional distance that it affects my compassion to the parents and children I interact with, too.
I work as a neurodiagnostic technologist, which is a fancy way of saying I'm in the class of techs that do EEGs, nerve conduction testing, intra-operative monitoring, etc. Much of the work I do is routine, testing of children with a history of seizures, but otherwise healthy.
I also work in the epilepsy surgery program, for kids with intractable seizures that can be treated by removing the epileptic focus, or starting point, if their seizures meet that criteria, or children who benefit by a surgical separation of the hemispheres of the brain. Many of these children go through a two-stage procedure - a surgery to open the skull and place arrays of sensors directly on the brain surface, followed by several days of intensive monitoring and mapping, and then a second surgery to remove the unhealthy brain tissue. A mother recently asked me how I could do this work, how hard it must be to see kids like this, and I replied that really, it wasn't. The recovery kids make from these procedures is jaw-dropping and amazing, and it makes me feel we are doing GOOD.
But I don't talk so much about what is hard about my job. Because my hospital is a major pediatric facility, we get children transferred from hospitals throughout the state (and some from Canada, if their trip would be shorter than the trip to Toronto), along with local children from Detroit. I do quite a bit of work in the critical care units, as neurophysiology is used both diagnostically and for prognostication in critically injured or ill children.
Shaken baby syndrome is terrifyingly common.
Babies are born daily who will live out their short lives in the NICU, never to leave.
It is horrifying that each time a child affected by gun violence makes the news, I wonder if that child will end up being my patient (often: yes)
Tragedies strike without warning and to anyone, and tragedies cluster: drownings Memorial day weekend after the pools are opened, car accident victims in snowstorms, deadly disease during flu season, and so on.
Because the procedures I do are not quick, I spend usually over an hour with each patient and their families, and I hear so much: the heartbreaking conversations as stunned parents try to make sense of what happened to their child, detailed reconstructions of the last day before (whatever) happened, how little sense it makes that just a few hours ago, they were talking, or fighting, or being bratty, or joyful, and now they're unconscious surrounded by equipment. Or I get to hear the kind, but horribly painful conversations between a physician and a mother about end of life for her terminally ill child ("when we decide, next time, that we're not going to intubate her and put her on a ventilator, it doesn't mean we're giving up on HER. It means we're giving up on ventilators...."). I get to see the different ways race and class affect how my colleagues treat a family dealing with tragedy, and that's heartbreaking in its way too.
Of course, not every day is like this. Like I said, the majority of kids I see are relatively healthy, for routine testing, and that's a joyful thing. But there isn't a lot of space to process the pain I see: sharing it with my colleagues, since they've been there too, but because we're at work, there's generally not a lot of time, or emotional space there. It doesn't feel like sharing it lessens the impact, and in fact the opposite, hearing what others have seen just spreads that pain further. And I can't generally process with people outside of work, they either really don't get it, or I can't eliminate enough details to preserve the patient's privacy and still have the conversation be meaningful (because when tragedy affects children, it so often makes the news).
So I guess, I write it. I keep notes at work. I process slowly. I try not to store things up. And I try not to keep so much emotional distance that it affects my compassion to the parents and children I interact with, too.
no subject
On the other hand, I'm a very good listener because I can intellectually understand many types of emotional pain, having experienced them, and they don't drag me all the way down during the conversation. I can be supportive without drowning.
*hugs*
You will find a way to work it out. I believe in you.
no subject
I react some later. Some cases just haunt me, so I revisit them a lot. I don't know whether that's healthy or unhealthy, it just is.
no subject
It must be tough not to have many people to process with.
I love you.
no subject