Thursday, April 23, 2009

Death and Life.... in God's hands

Squeamish alert-this post is all about the dying part of my job-I need to journal it somewhere. So if you don't like stuff like this then pass over this entry......

This new job (nursing coordinator) has its rougher spots-mainly in the fact that I see every dead person from the hospital AND all the medical examiner cases for H'burg and Rockingham county. Needless to say it is a rare day that I don't spend some time down in the morgue-which apparently is the lowest tech morgue around per the organ donation people! I guess the new hospital's will be more up to date. I feel so helpless sometimes talking to families. Some go well-the person was older, they had had a good life, the family was fairly prepared. And then you get the ones where none of that is the case. Working with the medical examiner has been interesting too-he gets called for any suspicious deaths, homicides, suicides etc. But this all is absolutely NOT my favorite part of my job. I'm not sure I had seen more than 3 dead people in my whole life before last month and I've seen 6 or more since then. Ugh. The other coordinators say it gets easier, you get numb-er maybe or you have to learn to distance yourself a little. But let me tell you I come home and hold my sweetie and my babies so tight and pray to God that nothing ever happens to them. And then I wake up and pray some more-for us and for those families who are hurting so badly. I will say one thing-the families who know God are so much more at peace than those who don't. It is amazing to watch. They talk about the hope that they have in Jesus and that they will see their loved one again and that the person is free from pain. I am so thankfull that I too have that reassurance-do you?

Tonight is my last night of orientation. Yikes!

3 comments:

The Liebers said...

I can't imagine trying to go through life and figure things out without my faith in God! I hope that you can have the opportunity to minister to some of these families in thier grief.

Margaret said...

I have been able to-I prayed with a family the other day and it was so powerful to be able to do so! What a blessing!

Jodi said...

wow...i don't know if i could ever get used to seeing a dead body....especially if i've seen them alive earlier that week. i think i would just have to approach it like on TV. "it's a mannequin" or something like that!

but Praise God that your sphere of influence is soo large!