salt water :: a cure all

people ask me all the time..."how do you do what you do?"  dealing with illness, specifically cancer, weighs hard on the soul.  it's tough stuff....to that i will admit.  i see a lot of sad things.  i watch as families come to grips with the reality that the future will be shorter than they had imagined and that goodbye will come sooner than they had hoped.  a lot of the time, i'm able to find the beauty in those moments, despite their sadness...but sometimes it's much more difficult.  it's hard not to get emotionally involved and the day that i don't will be the day that i stop doing what i do....for i believe that part of that is what calls me here.  many a mentor has told me "this will be your greatest blessing AND your greatest curse."

each person is different and all of us in this field learn to deal with that balance, between getting involved yet remaining objective, in our own way.  no one can claim themselves an expert. it's an ebb and flow and some days are far better than others....

today was a tough day. i spent a fair portion of it holding the hand of a woman who's husband is dying of metastatic sarcoma, a form of soft tissue cancer.  she is my age and her husband just a few years older than ryan.  they are loving and kind and in the cancer world that is always a bad prognostic sign.

i find great truth in the following quote by isak denesen and feel it applies immensely to my life....

"the cure for anything is salt water. sweat, tears, or the ocean"

today, in particular, tears.  sometimes they are the only answer i have to give.  i cried with my patient's wife and it was therapeutic for us both.  she told stories of his life and it gave me pause to remember that i'm not just caring for a person in a stage of terminal illness....i'm caring for a whole life.  as strange as it may sound....that brings me peace on days when it's really hard to find.

for the sake of completion....i have been sweating {i.e. working out} lately and it has been doing wonders for my body and my head.  when i got home from work we worked on the ocean part too....more in the form of the pool (i.e murphy beach) but that will totally suffice today ;) the afternoon was filled with bright smiles, big splashes, and warm hugs from the folks i love the most....and for me, that is always the answer.

wishing you a wonderful week filled with all the things that bring you peace. even in the tough moments.