When it goes, it goes fast
After a one year hiatus, I restart this blog tonight with an excerpt from a well-loved book from high school, Memoirs of a Geisha.
After a one year hiatus, I restart this blog tonight with an excerpt from a well-loved book from high school, Memoirs of a Geisha.
“Back when Iwamura Electric was still a young company,” the Chairman began, “I came to know a man named Ikeda, who worked for one of our supplies on the other side of town. He was a genius at solving wiring problems. Sometimes when we had difficulty with an installation, we asked to borrow him for a day, and he straightened everything out for us. Then one afternoon when I was rushing home from work, I happened to run into him at the pharmacist. He told me he was feeling very relaxed, because he’d quit his job. When I asked him why he’d done it, he said, ‘The time came to quit. So I quit!’ Well, I hired him right there on the spot. Then a few weeks later I asked him again, ‘Ikeda-san, why did you quit your job across town?’ He said to me, ‘Mr. Iwamura, for years I wanted to come and work for your company. But you never asked me. You always called on me when you had a problem, but you never asked me to work for you. Then one day, I realized that you never would ask me, because you didn’t want to hire me away from one of your suppliers and jeopardize your business relationship. Only if I quit my job first, would you then have the opportunity to hire me. So I quit.’”
Well, this week I quit my job at a well-established hospital complex in Montreal. I cleaned out my desk today. And with my resignation I cast away the fear that this was all there was. I cast away the crushing idea I’ve been bleakly nursing that I’ve peaked at the start of my career, and that all my dreams and inspirations about the kinds of changes I wanted to make while I was in school were ungrounded pipe dreams.
The reactions I received were mixed. My manager did not seem surprised to hear my announcement. She told me she had been expecting it. Evidence that sometimes the truth is blind to the one who needs to see it most. Sometimes.
Colleagues were for the most part very supportive, understanding, even joyful for me. In contrast, the woman on payroll to whom I’d been speaking for less than 30 seconds gifted me with a most doubtful ‘I sure hope you’re making the right decision, honey.’ A secretary in the department seemed to find it necessary to ask if I had any idea how I was going to pay my rent (after she first assumed that the only reason I was quitting was because I was still living at home with my parents and not paying any rent. I have lived on my own for the last nine years).
My previous entry was almost exactly a year ago, on the first day of my employment in the hospital system, following orientation. Looking at the previous post — I had already felt this was wrong from Day One, and yet I persisted in trying to make it work for a year. A+ for effort, D- for listening to intuition.
It’s not I found my job meaningless in and of itself. I do believe that the things I did, did improve the quality of people’s lives, did help them to maximize their autonomy, did help them to understand where they were in their lives, and where they were going. But this work was meaningless for me. I struggled daily with this idea. I thought that maybe there was something untrue or insincere in me that I wasn’t able to value helping people in whatever possible fashion, no matter how menial the task. Frequently occurring thoughts include: ‘I went to university for three years 1) To tell someone they need to sit down while showering? 2) To clean somebody’s dentures? 3) To pull stringy sputum out of somebody’s mouth? 4) To tell patients and families that regular food is no longer an option, that everything from now on has to be in puree form, or given through a stomach tube?
In other words, I condemned myself for not wanting to be a universal caregiver, and for not being able to see the deeper meaning behind the tasks I was doing.
I also allowed myself to become over-identified with the responsibilities I had because of my position in the system. I felt like I had no choice but to do it this way; that no matter how inspired I might be to work in acute care, I would forevermore be checking patients’ swallowing with chocolate pudding and social tea biscuits, walking them to the badly designed toilets, and asking them if they knew what day it was (I have to check my watch every time, because most days, I DON’T EVEN KNOW).
Of all the things I did on my last day of work in the hospital, two are memorable:
1) I have been particularly vigilant to not step in the stool that often comes out of patients who have decreased bowel control. Trust me, I’ve tried very hard, and have had several near misses. I thought I was home free on my last day, but not so. On helping to transfer an elderly, unilingual Punjabi lady from the bed to standing to get to the bathroom, several drops surreptitiously splashed down onto the floor, and sneakily under my shoes as we ambled to the toilet. Nothing a little bleach can’t fix, but those shoes are going in the garbage. Here comes a brief segway where I present my opinion on being unilingual, and living in a country where your native language is not spoken by the majority of citizens: you are the one who loses. If ever you (but really, I’m talking about your grandparents who immigrated to come live with your parents in the West) end up in the hospital and your family is not around 24/7, believe me you will not get the care you need in the moment you need it. This goes from getting help to move around in bed because you’re getting a bedsore, to not being able to tell someone you’re having a heart attack. Folks, help your grandparents learn the language.
2) A patient formerly hospitalized on my floor had relapsed, and was now in ICU, mechanically ventilated, and about to pass away. I went to see him and his heartbroken wife one last time. She cried upon seeing me. Remembered me by name the second I came in. Wept that this elderly man dying before her had been her best friend for 40 years. Her grief brought on my tears as well. This was incredibly only the second time that I’ve been anywhere close to crying amidst all the people that I’ve seen die since I’ve been in the hospital. This was one of the only times that I’ve felt that my presence alone has been therapeutic.
I don’t know exactly what I will be doing, but I do know that after a year and a half of battering myself trying to make it work in the system, I am finally listening to the universe shouting unsubtle hints in my ear.
Originally published on livingleftunlabeled.blogspot.com, April 1, 2011