death and dying

a theory that we were all told to read up well for our exam; death and dying. knowing the differences between the 2 did not really evoked anything special but subtly it reminded me a few patients whom i had the privilege of being part of their dying process and eventually their death. a few whom had touched me tremendously, left an unknown scar in my life chapters. yet, i did repress my feelings because i don't believe in being too involve in any patients' or relatives' lives. i believe as a health care worker, one needs to be able to take those bonds whenever needed.

grieving is also a process. weeping is the process for 1 to get go and regain oneself. from calling weeping to deep weeping to finally the letting go weep, all these sound no... rather it painted a wonderful visual of how a therapy is. a shrink sitting on the chair and the patient laying on a couch as they revisit the past, the patient is encouraged to grief over the lost. and the types of crying is exactly as i had remembered from all those chinese drama; the wife will weep and call out the died man "why... why must u leave us? come back! come back!!" as she cries out for the died man, she hit the corpse and accuse him off leaving. then come the 2nd stage. she then started to hit herself calling herself a wretch, jinx and stuffs like "what am i to do now?" finally over lots of scenes of crying kids and relatives gathering around the widow and kids..blah blah blah... she finally cries and look deeply and fonding at the pictures of the deceased and utter crappy stuffs like "i love u. i will always love u but i am letting u go now. be at rest now. i will be fine." then she seals it with a kiss onto the picture. (crappy and so over used but boy! don't we fall for it forever!?)

i guess the next time i nurse a patient and the patient falls under either one of this trajectories:

• linger
• crisis
• expected-quick
• spot
• danger- period
• unexpected-quick

i will do the same grieving process/ work to ease my sorrows... but then who will remain to care for the family and the rest of patients?! hmm... i think i need a shrink!