1:30am Reflections

4/25/2020 @ 1:31am

It has been almost five years now since I have found myself awake and pacing the house in the middle of the night.  The panic is trying it’s best to barrel its way back into my life.  In a time of such negativity in our world, I’m finding it increasingly harder to keep it out.

Today, I did my second of two orientation shifts in the emergency room as a surge-trained nurse who is ready and willing to change my daily role and help out in the emergency room at the drop of a hat.  While it has been invigorating to get my feet wet and jump back into patient care, it has come with many subconscious stressors that I wasn’t prepared for.

My life has been one that has been based off of compassion and caring for others.  Most of it has included putting others before myself.  I also thrive on the adrenaline rush of both being needed and wanting to help in an emergent situation—almost to the point of allowing it to validate my existence. 

Today, I worked the covid wing in the emergency department.  I was acting in my surge roll as a resource nurse to the primary emergency room nurses.  Today, I was supposed to be training, but I earned my first stripe in frontline experience.  What better training is there than being thrown right into it, right?

Living in that moment was fulfilling an inner contentment that I have not felt since being in patient care.  Feeling needed, helpful—important.  This time around, I am armed with an arsenal of knowledge that I didn’t have as a brand new nurse who was phased by everything.  This time, I was confident in my knowledge and my ability to act on intuition and assessment findings.  I found myself unafraid to speak up.  Unintimidated.  Smart. 

Yet, I also found myself in a position that threatened my family at home.  There are similar characteristics that I find in my family at home and my work family.  With both, I find myself able and willing to jump right into the midst of the chaos to help diffuse situations and resolve them to the best of my abilities.  With my work family, this includes jumping right into the thick of it with people who I may not know personally, but share a common calling as I do.  With my family at home, it is a husband that I chose and two babies that we brought into this world together.  Since I’ve had children, I find it increasingly harder to allow myself to be consumed in my role as a healthcare provider.  While I am still all-in with my patient care and willingness to help, my subconscious constantly reminds me that there is not just a threat to myself anymore, but my family as well.  I may make decisions that put myself at higher risk of contracting a virus from others, but now instead of just affecting me, I run the risk of bringing it home to my family.

If I make a poor decision, I am undoubtedly going to take full responsibility for that decision and the repercussions that arise because of it.  But—when I make a poor decision that affects my family, whose lives I am responsible for and whom I love and value more than all others in this world, the weight of those decisions are suffocating.

What would the point of helping others be if I brought that very virus into my own home and infected my family?  What point would my life’s work make if I destroyed my own family unit by allowing the monsters in that I work so hard to educate about and fight against on the front lines?

As I sit here feeling bodily symptoms of the panicked thoughts and subconscious worries that are ever-present, I cling to my faith.  I cling to the fact that the battle is not mine, but the Lord’s.  I find comfort in knowing Who my Shield and Protection is.  I claim Psalm 91 and I rest in the fact that my God has a plan for my life and has seen it through before I have.  But I still struggle.  I still choke down the panic.  I still sit awake, restless and sleepless.  I still allow this bout of fear to win—for the time being, before I will rise up, rebuke it, and truly walk in my faith.

Tonight, I sit here on the couch with the never failing “anxiety leg” keying me into the fact that my body feels as though it’s in turmoil despite the fact that my mind seems okay.  Differences to my current state this time around versus the breakdown I experienced five years ago include the fact that I have a compassionate face staring at me, sitting right at my feet because she knows something’s not right.  I’m telling myself it’s because she cares so much about me and not so much about the fact that she’s sharing goldfish crackers with me.  I wonder if it would have been different five years ago having her right here with me.  Because of our move and not being settled, she was living with a friend at the time.  Tonight, I am finding comfort in having my faithful companion of 11 years here with me.  She has gotten me through some difficult times and she has been my quiet supporter through it all.  She’s nudged more tears off my cheeks than I care to recall.  Yet, here she is with her tail wagging and her quiet stares, letting me know she’s here for me.

So, tonight as my heart races—tonight as my mind races—tonight as the “anxiety leg” races, I am choosing to cling to the God who has seen me through panic before and will see me through it again.  I cling to the God who forgives me as I give into fear time and time again, wavering from my faith and trust in Him.  I cling to the Lord of my life who walked this earth and felt the same emotions that I felt.  The One who willingly came to walk this Earth to experience human emotions, feelings, and temptations.  The One who gave His own life so that I could have mine.  The One who is above all.  He’s the Name above every name.  He is the Lord of Lord and the King of Kings.  He goes before me and He is my rearguard.  He loves me and He gave His life for me. 

Tonight, I am choosing to place my faith in the God who has never let me down.  He has never left me and has never forsaken me.  He sits by idly as He waits for me to cast my cares to Him and come running to Him in surrender, rather than choosing to fight these demons on my own.  Because, let’s face it—I have nothing to fight with if I do not have the Word of God and the words written in red.  I cannot fight these battles on my own.  I am ill equipped.  But the One who can fight these battles equips me with the strength and resources needed to make it through any battle.  He will not allow me to be tempted with more than I can handle.  He will provide The Way out of any temptation.  He will be there to catch me time and time again.