Some Thoughts on a Hard Day

This morning when I got to work I had to deal with a situation that I am finding quite difficult. I work in a hospital as a pharmacy technician. For the last ten years I have worked in pharmacy in some form or another. During this time I have become pretty numb to the things that happen. I just accept it. Of course it is sad when people pass or have to be taken off life support, but dying is part of life and if I let every case bother me then I would not be able to live my life. However, this just seemed very different. It was a 28 year old woman who was having a baby. She had an allergic reaction to the anestesia (very rare) and coded twice. Both the OB staff and the ICU staff spent the entire night just trying to keep her alive, and she did make it into the afternoon at which point she was life flighted to another hospital. I hope that she pulls through. I'm not sure why this has been so hard for me, but as I was mixing her IV medications I began thinking about her as more than just a name on my label. I started to wonder what she did for a living, if she was married. Was this her first child? Surely it must be her first or this would have been known. I also thought about her significant other. If he was in the picture or not and how he was taking all of this. The reason I am writing about this situation is because it really has me down. People die all the time in the hospital, but when you work in a small county hospital like I do most of the time these deaths are not very traumatic. It is usually very old people who are expected to pass away soon. That probably sounds really cold, but I do not mean it that way. Like I said before if I let all of the cases get to me then I would be depressed all the time. Unfortunatley now that the patient has been transferred there will be no way for me to know if she pulls through, but I am hoping and thinking about her family and her baby tonight. I wish them the best in this ordeal.