It snowballs now.  For months I’ve worked with people who weren’t certain of my skills or my knowledge base.  I’ve dealt with people questioning my judgement.  I’ve gone toe to toe with people over patient care, over paperwork.  I even questioned if I was going to fit in with this tightly knit, esoteric bunch of professionals.  Maybe I needed to go look for another job.  I knew I was a crotchety old broad too, but this was getting ridiculous.

Then, it all began to fall into place.  I worked with surgeons who complimented the job I did.  I stayed late, even though I was tired so that we could finish a case without delaying another.  I anticipated needs, grabbed the right supplies without consulting the preference cards.  My rooms ran smooth as silk, even when there were complications or blips.  One procedure wasn’t booked correctly; part of the procedure wasn’t booked.  We needed more instruments and I only had access to the implant rep via phone.  I ran for instruments, called central supply.  I shoved another table in the room and draped it out.  My tech hadn’t asked.  It’s not a huge gesture, but it’s considerate.  He thanked me profusely later.

Yesterday, a patient returned for obstructed bowel.  I knew it would mean another evening of leaving late, but I offered to assist.  The surgeon looked at me, and then asked for another nurse, R.  However, R had to “run” the desk, so I was the only one available.  I didn’t let it bother me; just another surgeon to prove myself to.  I helped the circulator prepare the room and position the patient on the bed before I scrubbed in.  The tech was an experienced tech, but it was soon apparent that she wasn’t completely comfortable doing an open abdominal case. 

For me, an open abdominal case is as familiar and easy as drawing breath.  Soon we’ve incised through skin, fat, muscle and fascia and I’m gently retracting bowel.  The adhesions are numerous and bind the loops of gut together.  We’ll need to join two sections that are damaged from the adhesions.  The surgeon asks for the “stapler”, but doesn’t specify the one he wants.  The circulator holds up the wrong one and the the tech gestures for her to open it.  Before I can stop myself (to let the surgeon correct the error) I alert the circulator that she’s opening the wrong stapler; then I tell her the correct one.  The surgeon looks at me, “That’s correct.  You knew what stapler I needed.  Good job.”  When he asks for suture to oversew the anastenosis, the circulator scans the preference card, the tech calls out the wrong suture.  Again, I speak up, “We need 3-0 silk pop-offs on SH (this code tells the size of the suture, the size and type of needle, and that they are controlled release).”  The surgeon looks up, “That’s exactly what I need.  You know what you are doing.  Why do they hide you from me?”  The tech stares, shocked.  When the case is finished she’ll complain that she doesn’t know that specialty as well as she does neuro.  She’s not comfortable that I may be better versed with some surgeries than she is.

I see that often here.  When someone doesn’t know a specialty, there are many excuses.  The egos are huge.  The “pissing contests” are epic.  I’m not like that.  I’m comfortable in my skin, and it makes me different.  J comes to help me prepare for my last case of the day today, “I’m having a party by the pool at my complex.  Only inviting the cool people so there’s no drama.  Just drinks and cooking on the grill”.  She runs through the guest list.  It’s sausage heavy, but I agree to go.  I tease that I need to lose a few pounds to look good in my bikini.  She was disappointed with her birthday party.  I didn’t attend but she confessed that she shouldn’t have invited certain people.  “DD acted like she was on drugs,” J shudders, “She was slurring her words, taking offense at nothing, acting weird.”  DD is on muscle relaxants and pain pills for a failed neck fusion.  I feel bad for her, but she’s not helping her case.

Today, DD announces that she’ll have repeat surgery on her neck sometime next week.  She tells us her wishes, that no one be allowed in her room, who can close her incision.  She tells us that she hopes she won’t need a catheter.  I shrug, “If you do, you do.  It’s nothing really”.  Then she goes on about how she doesn’t want anyone else in the room, staring at her body.  J looks at me alarmed, “But, you’ll be covered with sterile drapes.  No one will see anything.  You know everyone will be busy in their own rooms anyway.  People will come wish you well in holding, but no one will bother you once you’re wheeled to the room.”  I look back at her, concerned, while DD continues to tell us her wishes, which are slightly bizarre considering that she works in surgery and knows the routine.  J’s right, DD doesn’t sound sober or rational.  Personally, I think she’ll end up getting let go.  She’s not “getting it”.  I don’t tell J that I find DD’s concern over having a urinary catheter or that people will come and look at her naked body to be quite overblown.  After all, we’re working on her neck.  We’d hardly be ripping the gown from her body to look at her.  Inserting a catheter is something we all do every day.  It’s a mindless task, no more intrusive than starting an intravenous line.  It disturbs me that she worries that we will “look”.  That’s the sort of thing that unstable people who don’t work in surgery worry about, that somehow we admire and find something sexual about their nakedness while we are doing our jobs.  I wonder if DD does that, “looks” at our patients.  I know she looks at J and I.  She’ll compliment both of us on any variety of body parts or attributes. 

Sometimes it’s not very comfortable to listen to.  I realize that she’s bisexual, but it wouldn’t be comfortable listening to that from a male colleague either.  She has a locker right next to ours.  I notice she frequently takes a bathroom break about the time I clock in to work.  She’ll sit in the locker room and talk to me while I change my clothes.  I don’t say anything to J about that, because I don’t want to make waves. 

J ignores it all too.  We don’t want to upset DD, and we don’t want to contribute to the rumor mill. 

….for the stable transports, but they aren’t coming to us yet.  They’ve not scheduled the others for surgery either.

Today I go in early to find that my assignment has been changed.  The surgeon is pissed.  He has 14 cases, and he’s spewing fire.  I’m assigned to a room where a crucial part of the case wasn’t booked.  I end up having to run for instruments.  The surgeon is typically hard to please, but he compliments me and tells the supervisor that he wants me to work with him more often.  She mutters to the secretary, “Yeah, you and everyone else.”  I give lunch relief in the other surgeon’s room, “Where the FUCK have you been?” he growls.  His PA explains that I was assigned to another room.  He waves it away, “They gave me a fucking retard.  If ____ is here, then why isn’t she in my room?”

One of the anesthesiologist’s laughs, “You’re a popular girl.  How long before they have you working day shift?”  I groan and roll my eyes.  He laughs, “I’ve never seen someone who had so many fans.”  I give him the finger which delights him more.

Eventually, I feel bad though.  I text my kids when I discover that I will be staying until 5:30 pm.  I shoot a text to D, Happy Birthday….

He sends bright and cheerful texts.  They irritate me.  I post on his page  because that’s what’s done.  It’s obvious that I’m going through the motions because the greeting is about as spare as it could possibly be.  He’s on a great deal lately and he comments immediately, thanking me and complimenting the profile photo subject.  I comment that it’s just a photo.  Then I realize what he’s doing, and I delete the post.  I go back and change the photo, repost the spare greeting.  This time he gets the message and says thank you.

Then he proceeds to light up my phone with texts.  Fishing.  He takes a critical test today.  He assures me that he’s studied very hard for it.  It will take all day.  I’m polite and tell him that I’m certain he’ll do well and wish him luck.  I wonder if he’ll text or call when he gets the results.  Somehow, I think he will.

I text J and tell him that I’m too tired to deal with any of this at the moment.  J said to stay away as long as possible, but reminded me that eventually I go back.  I did, but that was before I knew that he told lies about me.  I’m not sure if I want to go back.  It’s not comfortable having him acting so chipper, as though nothing is wrong, when he addresses me.  I’m not even sure that I want to be his aquaintance.

Taking my uncertainty to work, because I don’t know what else to do with it.

I go in early at the request of my supervisor.  It’s diasasterous, we run late.  I’m called back to the “main” and asked to relieve on a complicated 3-part case.  I will leave almost 2 hours late.  I’m so tired.

I have to go in early tomorrow.  Surgeon request.  I snort in disgust when I think of D.  He was always acting like I was bragging about my work, crowing.  I wasn’t.  I AM that good.  D’s birthday is tomorrow, and he has his exam on Thursday.  I won’t contact him.  The lies still sting enough that my face burns with shame. 

My smile is gone.  I look sad.  I am sad.  I don’t want to talk to anyone, but J texts.  He gives me pep talks, but it’s to little avail.  I’m still in a harsh and bleak place, but I can do my job there.  J’s texts fly at my phone, but I’m too busy to answer them.  I check in later with witty, biting sarcasm. 

I tell him that I’m not contacting D.  I haven’t been.  D had sent a text on Sunday after his rich friend and her mom cancelled their dinner out ( much to J’s delight since he rightly figured that D was granstanding).  He didn’t ask J if he could come over, but he hinted to me that he was seriously considering coming out to the restaurant. 

“He’s playing you.  How long until you break?”  John asks.

I don’t know.  I’m exhausted from 9 straight days of work.  I will get no days off.  I will need some serious sleep soon. 

D will be working this weekend.  Not sure if it’s hell week for him, but it no longer matters to me.  The emptiness, the sadness, the lies…they keep me from daydreaming about those few good times.  It’s all empty and sadness.  One of the implant reps teases me to get a smile, “You look so serious today!”

I need to sleep.  I hope I’ll sleep all night.

At the last minute I go wash my face and change clothes to go out.  I still feel like shit but I can just as easily feel like shit with friends.  J arrives at the restaurant the same time that I do.  He confesses that C also knows about D and I.  I throw up my hands, exasperated, “Is there anyone D didn’t fucking tell?”

C arrives about an hour later.  We drink and laugh.  I tease them when they check out our young and pretty waitress.  We take silly photos.  We text the others, but only one more will join us (and only after she finishes her shift at another restaurant).  Mostly, we’re boisterous and obnoxious.  We eat and crack jokes.  I giggle at the guys checking out the women.  I even join in, gasping wide-eyed at some hideous creature to make them turn and stare.

J checks his phone often and relays the texts.  He snatches up his phone and looks at the screen with a critical gaze, eyes narrowing.  C and I grow silent.  J looks at me momentarily, “His dinner out was cancelled.”

I shrug.  C shakes his head.  He reiterates a lot of what J told me.  He adds to it, “He said he didn’t like dating a woman with kids.  He said you were looking for a daddy,” he looks at me, “I told him that wasn’t the impression I was getting from you.”

Lies.  But the guys know me well enough to know when someone is feeding them a line of shit.  Still I’m distressed and they know it.  C puts an arm around me and gives me a squeeze, “It’s not you.  We know that.”

J told me that C wasn’t at all happy that D showed up last night.  He didn’t like the way he acted in Leesburg.  My heart sinks.  J waves it away, “C said that D drank a lot of hard liquor and didn’t want to hang out.  He only wanted to go on specific rides.  He told J that he suspected D was seeing me then because he acted very peculiar”.  One of the guys mentioned that he would be glad when my divorce was final because he was going to ask me out.  D reacted quite openly to that.  C watched his reaction carefully.  D was obvious.  I’m sure C wasn’t the only one who knew.

I would calmly tell my side.  Exposing all of D’s lies, without effort, but it was heartbreaking.  When J told me what he’d told D in the bar, “You need to make up your mind about how you feel about her.  Then you need to tell her,” tears threatened.  C shook his head, “He said he was an asshole.  He is.  But the things he said about you were untrue.”  I looked at him sadly.

I couldn’t find words.  The lies rolled in like a tide.  D claimed I was looking for a daddy for my kids.  He claimed that I sought to live with someone (especially puzzling since everyone knows I own a house).  He scoffed that I was wanting more of a relationship than was necessary. He joked that he should call me, but J told him to leave me alone because it was cruel to continue the cat and mouse game.

Eventually I couldn’t respond.  I realized that it was beyond salvage.  He didn’t want me.  He never would.  He even admitted that he would tell me that he loved me to get more sex.  I know I must have looked completely sad, because J stopped telling me things. 

I didn’t cry, but the emptiness was painful.  I realized that it would be there for the long run.  It won’t go away.

I really can’t trust anyone now.  I realize that now. 

So now it’s just me and my kids.  I won’t venture into the world and give my heart again.  My heart is gone. 

The text arrives when I’m pulling into my driveway.  D texts that he nearly went to the sports bar when his dinner was cancelled.  I send a scathing sarcastic text back, “Too bad you didn’t.  I picked up the tab.  Had a great time!” I stop short of suggesting that his friend may give him a raincheck.  I probably should have, so the sarcasm wasn’t lost on him.

Part of me is happy that he didn’t get to go out.  That was a dig to begin with.  J saw that when D sent him a text saying his dinner was cancelled.  He was looking for an invite.  J wasn’t biting.  He didn’t answer.  Then D texted me and I didn’t respond.

I dropped his birthday card in the mail today after work.  Simple card, signed “Best Wishes” with a broken heart. 

Closure.

Now off to bed.  I have to work 12 hours.  We’re waiting on a dozen transfers from another trauma center.  It will be ugly.

I went to the benefit.  I went and met my colleagues at the beer garden where the event was held.  It was nice.  The weather was beautiful.  We all laughed and enjoyed the company of those we never get to see dressed in “normal” clothes. 

We all clean up nice.

I really, really, really need a new hairstyle.  I also need a makeover.  My fingernails are very short, all broken and splitting from the drying effects of the constant handwashing and the gloves.  When I look at my hands, they don’t look very pretty.  Acrylics are out of the question, since often I “scrub” in and assist or pass instruments.  I look at my hands after I’ve applied my makeup.  I can remember H giving me a hard time about my hands.  He liked acrylic nails and manicures, but I could never have them because of my specialty area.  He always accused me of lying, of wanting to be unattractive.  It rolls in, like the tide coming in.   I close my hands so they look like fists.  I wonder what it is about my hands that requires them to have long nails in order to look pretty.

I’ll be self conscious about my hair and nails for the entire time I’m at the benefit. 

I leave fairly early, close to 9 pm.  I drive home, and I very briefly entertain the notion of stopping by the bar I was supposed to meet J at after the benefit.  Maybe he went anyway and is there with some of our friends, I think.  I decide to go home.  I’m feeling very tired, and when I look at my hands, overwhelmingly sad.

It turns out to be the right decision.  D sent J a text at the bar, “Is you-know-who there?”  J replied that I wasn’t, and D keyed in, “Good.  I’ll come by then.”

J tells me this later.  My heart sinks.  My voice cracks with tears when I say that I’m glad that I went home.  While I talk to J on the phone, my IM box lights up with a cheery note from D.  He’s going to dinner with a friend and her mother.  I say nothing to J, and read it silently.  J says that he talked D out of contacting me today, “Leave her alone for awhile.  She’s really upset over all this.”  D said he knew that.  It wasn’t his intention to make me feel better.  He didn’t want a relationship at all right now.

Tears fall.  The swifts that have been darting through my head for days increase in number until I can’t see, and wings beat at my insides incessantly. 

J tells me to come out anyway.  Meet him early.  I can always bug out early.  I don’t want to, but I can always leave. 

I’ve never felt so empty and alone.

It moves slowly.  The fresh-faced young woman who is showing us step by step how to chart patient information on the new program points at the page projected on the wall.  She’s not prepared for our department.  She shows us how to chart information that we won’t be entering.  She writes down questions about non-existent forms that we would need.  She’ll get back with us.

After lunch, we are all dragging.  The slow pace has us fighting the urge to doze off.  Our instructor asks one of the night shift employees how many operations we do at night, and what kind of surgeries.  C tosses her curls and smiles brightly, “At night, we do emergencies and trauma.”  The instructor doesn’t really know what is meant by trauma, “You mean patients who come into the emergency room?”  C launches into some of the more memorable cases she’s done over the years.

The instructor looks horrified.  Soon we’re all trading tales about unfortunates who were shot, stabbed, run over by trains, ejected through windshields.  One of the girls recounts a surgery she worked where the man attempted to commit suicide by blowing his brains out.  The recoil of the weapon caused the path of the round to change, so he blew his face off. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” the now green-faced instructor says, shaking her head, “I would be paralyzed with shock to see things that you work with.”  C tells her that it’s not that we’ve become immune, but that we’re a different breed, “In surgery, the only ones who really thrive are the ones who can face the most horrific injuries and not be shocked into inactivity.  We work with the most critical patients, and we stay calm.  You don’t learn that.  It must be part of you from the beginning.”  We all nod.  Many of us had backgrounds in critical care, but we were drawn to surgery.  It’s an exclusive, mysterious, elite group of nurses.  It hasn’t taken me long to prove my mettle with my new colleagues. 

My thoughts wander to D for the briefest moment.  He was always amazed at my work.  He’ll be going out with the fair weathers tonight to celebrate his birthday.  I’ll be attending the benefit.  Then I’ll come home so that I can get to the training tomorrow morning.  Then tomorrow night I’ll meet friends for dinner and drinks.  D will have his whole weekend with his fair weathers.  Another significant day not spent with me.  One of my colleagues pats my arm, “You okay?  You look a bit sad.”  I assure her it’s nothing more than a headache.

Later, after we’ve badged out and we’re headed to our vehicles, I find myself walking alone.  Angel me falls into step beside me and her hand feels warm on my shoulder.  She doesn’t speak until we’re in my car, “ARE you okay?  I know you’re wondering what it would be like to have someone actually want you around on a birthday or a holiday.  You can’t let that happy asshole get under your skin when you’re working.”  I nod.  I’m okay, just sad.  I’m also at loose ends.  Do I send a birthday card?  Do I walk away? Is he just acting the ass so he can go party with his friends, or is he pursuing someone new?  Why do I have to be such a fool over someone like him?  What the hell is wrong with me that I can’t kick myself in the ass and find someone who will love me and want to be with me? 

I just need to get my head on straight.  My thoughts are flying around like swifts chasing mosquitoes at dusk. 

…But some things stay the same.  I’m sent to relieve a nurse who is working the same heart wrenching procedure we did yesterday.  I no sooner walk through the door and I’m sent out in search of a powerful anti-seizure medication.  We take that patient straight from the OR to Radiology for a scan. 

The scan is negative.  We are amazed.  The same surgeon looks at me, “I can’t believe it.”  I shake my head and smile.  He’s a tough one to win over, but after yesterday, I think he’s okay with me.

I waffle on the benefit, but the woman organizing it tells me that she really wants me there, “People are asking me if you’ll come.  You need to be there.”  So I promise I will be.

When I find some down time, I check the training schedule for tomorrow.  To my horror I find that I’m scheduled for Saturday AND Sunday.  That amounts to 12 hours of overtime (or at least 10 hours).  I’ve worked all week, and I’m working all week next week.  Twelve days straight without a break.

I take it to my supervisor, who is also horrified.  She tells me that I still have to come in.  I risk suspension if I don’t.  She looks at me helplessly.  My other supervisor is heartily pissed, “But you had NO days off this week!  How the hell did they miss that?”  I shrug, too uncomfortable to state the obvious:  they’ve let too many people have the week off.

When I get in my car I call J, “I can’t make it Saturday night.  I have to go to work for training on Sunday.”  It’s only a half day, so we decide to meet on Sunday evening for dinner and drinks.  J is mobilizing the friends.  On the social networking site he tells a close mutual friend that “we need to cheer up a dear friend”.  My words, but no less heartfelt. 

He’s skeptical about his newest relationship.  It isn’t moving as fast as he’s accustomed to so he’s disconcerted.  I reassure him as much as I can, but it’s not enough.

I confess that I feel like shit, that I miss D.  J reiterates what I already know, that D is just spending time with friends.  These are the same friends who view him as a pathetic eunuch, “You know this isn’t about him hooking up with someone.  I’ve been out with him when he’s like this.  He goes on and on about you like you’re still around.  Bragging, almost.  Remember?  I was the one who told him to shut the fuck up because I didn’t want to hear about the sex he had with you.”  He reminds me that he went so far as to mention my name to some of our old acquaintances out of town, “He was ‘broken up with you’ then, remember?  Only in his mind, he wasn’t.  I think it’s the same way this time.”

I tell him that I told D that I wouldn’t email, text or call, that he should destroy all videos and photos.  J scoffs, “As if he did in the past?”  I make a disgusted noise.  J is right.  D never deletes anything.  I exist everywhere.  “He’s never done with you.”

I’m too tired to give a shit.  I’m going to bed.

I end up texting J before I go to sleep.  I fill him in on D, and he bemoans the fact that neither of us can seem to get relationships right anymore.  I tell him that I’m attending a benefit after the training on Saturday after all.  Then I suggest that we meet at one of the smaller bars.  It’s generally not terribly rowdy.  I ask him to see if he can drum up some others.  I can drink some wine while the rest of them sip beer.  We’ll all joke, laugh and bitch.

It won’t be a perfect time but it will be world’s better than sitting around here crying in my drink over D leaving me again.

It makes me wonder if he met someone when he was out a week ago.  Maybe he thinks there’s something there.  My heart sinks.  Devil me pokes me in the arm, “Think about it.  Even if he’s got sights on someone, she might not feel the same.  He might be misinterpreting signals and might find out that she’s not interested at all.  How often did men misinterpret you?”

She has a point.  I look at her sadly, “It still means that he doesn’t want me.”

I’m tired of not being wanted.

Uncharacteristically, she leans over and kisses the top of my head, and gives me a little squeeze.  She tells me not to cry.  I’m too tired to cry.  I hope today is a good day, less emotional, steady but not crazy.  I will drop off the boys after I get home.  I don’t want to come home to an empty house.

Tomorrow I will be okay.

Monday I will go in early.  I’ll do the same on Wednesday (when I get the boys again).  We’re all counting down to the end of the school year.  I’ll be happy when they’re out for the summer. Maybe we’ll go somewhere on a weekend, a little road trip somewhere.  They’ll have summer camp for a week.  Everything will be good.

D will leave me alone.  Devil me snorts laughter, “Don’t count on it.  He’s just waiting.  He’ll be back.  He’s playing you like he did L.  He might be back with her again for all you know.”

She’s right.  I don’t know. I don’t know a damned thing.

After a rough night, I go into work hopeful and smiling.  It’s a beautiful day.  I’m sent to relieve a colleague for lunch (the surgeon is a nortoriously difficult one, but that doesn’t bother me in the least.  He and I get along fine).  I end up finishing the case because the nurse doesn’t want to return.  I’m reaching for the door handle so I can get the stretcher, when my supervisor comes in, “I need you to help ____ in room 5.  They’re doing an emergency craniotomy.”  I give my colleague a brief report on her patient, then I trot to the next room.

I shifted into that mode that only comes with decades of experience…that place that where calm professionalism rules.  Like a key turning in a switch, I slipped into my competant role.  It was like old times, and I was comfortable.  I was part of the team.  None of that ran through my mind at the time.  It occured to me much later. 

But sometimes, for all the technology we have, for all of the knowledge, for all of the skill….we don’t save everyone.  Sometimes they come to us past saving.  Sadly, that was the case today.  We still did everything we could.  When I left the room to get instruments, supplies, medications, blood, I left at a dead run.  We did everything because sometimes miracles happen when the patient is younger.  Hours later, the patient showed no signs of improvement.  We moved him back to the bed he arrived in, and made the somber procession to the unit. 

I imagined that all of us were praying that somehow the patient’s condition would improve.  Eyes would flutter open and focus.  Extremities would move.  Instead we moved a limp and unresponsive patient through the hallways of the facility, the anesthetist squeezing the ambu bag to deliver breaths to what used to be a dynamic, active person….now just a shell.  A soul released to the afterlife while we maintained the body that was left behind.  We walk in silence, dignified in our defeat.  Humble.  We give report in turn and return together, cautioning each other not to cry.  We can’t debrief each other in the hallway; that will wait until we are in our department. 

It is during that debriefing that we get the news.  The patient is showing signs of further deterioration.  There will be no miracle.  We nod because we expected it, but it’s unwelcome news.  Our prayers will be for the family now. 

When they offer me the option of leaving early (since there is nothing on the schedule to start), I leave.  I call my kids to tell them that I’m on my way.

Then I text D, “Since we are both working on your birthday, I was wondering if I could take you out for dinner on Saturday.  Would that be possible?”

I kick myself when I hit send, because I know what the answer will be.  When he responds, I’m devastated.  He says “No”.  Of course not.  He’s going to go out with the fair weathers.  It’s a significant day, so of course he can’t spend it with me.  I reply that I figured as much, but wanted to give him one last chance.  Then I asked him to destroy all photos and videos of me.  I told him that I wouldn’t call, text or email. 

Then I deleted him from my phone.  I cried a little, but I shouldn’t be surprised.  Mostly, I’m just drained.  I don’t even want to waste time analyzing it, because it doesn’t matter. 

I need to move soon.  Because when I move I know his lazy, fat, balding ass will stay far away.  He won’t come to see me.  That will be fine.  I might be lonely, but I won’t be sad about being a big zero.  I saw what he dated before me, he tossed away a good woman, a smart woman, a beautiful woman.  We had chemistry, and shared a twisted sense of humor.  He’s thrown away a jewel.  He’ll regret that.

I even have backup plans for Saturday night.  I’m attending a benefit.  I even have a new dress.  I’ll be beautiful, even if no one is looking.  I’m not going to look for anyone.  I’ll do everything on my own.  I’ll make my list of what I need, research it, and do it myself (or hire it done).  I will be fine. 

I won’t let anyone else in my heart though.  It’s not worth it, really it isn’t.  I’m tired of being the only one who loves. 

Up every couple hours.  Thank goodness I go in late today. 

Another friend emailed with devastating news.  Her husband has brain cancer.  Three other friends have been accepted into Hospice care.  The prayer list grows. 

One of my dearest friends is married to a minister, and lives on a Reservation.  She asked me if I ever pray for myself.  I laugh and tell her, “No.  I never do.  There’s never any time.” 

“You need to….you should always pray for yourself…”

So after a rough night, I will pray for myself this morning.  I’ll pray for peace in my heart, and hope that this sadness will lift. 

Maybe it will be a quiet day at the trauma center.  That would be a refreshing change.