When I rolled over to get out of bed this morning the whole world started spinning.  I have vertigo, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, which means it comes and goes and it isn't going to kill me, unless I fall down the stairs.  Sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's stomach turning.  This morning I walked out to the kitchen like a toddler, unsure of my footing.  I sat down and my stomach started churning.  I tried the Epley Maneuver, three times and the vertigo improved only slightly.  Finally I gave up and lay down. 

The big guy went to work without me and I dreamed of a very nice doctor who came and helped me with my vertigo.  He was an older man, so kind and tender it was lovely.  I felt so safe, the kind of safe you feel when you're a kid and your mum can still give you that feeling.  I'm still a little dizzy but I can walk now without hanging onto walls which is nice. 

I went to see my doctor the other day to try and figure out why I'm so tired all the time.  We talked about life, work, stress, exercise.  She's a lovely woman who actually listens and doesn't rush you.  She suggested I figure out a way to work less and told me to relax more.  I don't relax.  I do.  I go.  I always have a list of things that that need to be done.  The big guy laughs at me because of my lists.  Maybe I need to let go of my lists. 

For so many years I took care of Katie.  Then I took care of my mum.  Now I'm taking care of my patients.  I'm not good at taking care of myself.  So today my poor body made me lie down, slowed me down.  Time to find a better balance for myself.

I'm stiff and sore today.  Yesterday there was a Code Blue in the parkade and we're the closest department to the parkade.  I ran faster than I knew I could.  The man was at the far end of the parkade and thankfully he was only dizzy and fell down, not dead.  My boss was the third person to arrive.  He asked how I got there so fast and I thought, but this is my job.  This is what I do.  I care about my patients.  They mean something to me.  I remember their names.  I remember their tattoos.  I remember their faces.  This is what I do.

Two days ago we had a woman come in by transport from a small town.  She was in horrific pain and vomiting.  We got her pain and vomiting under control and she had her MRI.  She has leptomeningeal disease;  it's a rare complication of cancer in which the cancer spreads to the meninges of the brain.  I've only seen it once before but it is memorable, the symptoms, how the patient presents.  It's also terminal.  I sat in the control room while she had her MRI, watching the O2 sat monitor.  The tech showed me the tumor in her brain, the leptomeningeal disease, the part of her skull that had been eaten through by the tumor and I wept. My poor lady is dying much more quickly than her family and friends realized.  Her husband is trying to get his crops in before the snow hits.  My lady was admitted and then came down again yesterday for an emergency central line insertion.  I stayed late to help.  It won't make a difference but both my lady and her family need some hope.  They can't let go yet.  I can understand that.  Acceptance comes at different times and in different forms for everyone.  She's four years younger than me.

The weather has cooled here.  It truly feels like fall.  Two days ago I walked in the river valley, admiring the fall colors, the yellow of the poplar leaves standing out so beautifully against the blue, blue sky.  And then last night the wind came up and the temperatures dropped and most of the tress now stand naked, ready for winter and their long sleep. 

And me?  I don't know.  I'm older and wiser, a little.  I keep my mouth closed more than I used to and listen more.  I still feel so deeply the pain of others that it wrecks me some days.  I'm still trying to understand suffering, still trying to accept suffering I guess.