TWO entries within mere minutes of each other? Yeah. It’s 3am and I am a w a k e! The only quiet hobby I have is blogging, so here I am!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a few days anyway. In my unit, we don’t often see young people. I VERY rarely take care of people younger than I am (although this gets less rare as time marches on…) and those I do come across usually do fine, depending on their particular malady, of course.

Recently, I had to take care of a 20ish-year-old with cancer. I am not able to get from the chart what the prognosis is for this kid, but yikes. I’m aware that there are pediatric cancer wards out there, and I have to tell you that the people that work on THOSE floors must be either saints or masochists because a mere 1/2 shift with this guy almost reduced me to Nurse Jelly. (What is Nurse Jelly? you might be asking. It’s 3am. Gimme a break.)

He has a lovely sense of humor. Our chest tube drainage system contains a reservoir of water that acts as a sort of “seal.” Usually, the doctors write for us to hook the chest tube drainage system to suction, which makes that reservoir of water bubble. How vigorously it bubbles depends on how much suction you’ve set the meter for. When I went in to assess this patient, it was a violent hurricane of a suction sound, and that’s just really not necessary. It was so loud that it was almost difficult to hear him talk. I turned it down and being the engineer that he is, he noticed right away that I was messing with it and gave me The Look, which I correctly identified as “What the heck are you doing with my chest tube suction, lady?”

I explained to him that a violent hurricane suction was not needed and that I usually shoot for more of a “babbling brook” sort of sound when titrating my chest tube suction. He grinned and said that he was relieved; it was really loud, and was negating the need for the lovely Sharper Image Nature Sounds Machine he received for his birthday.

For someone so young, I realized with that one comment how strong his spirit must be. He’s bald from chemo, while his equally young wife is beautiful and has lots of hair. He’s skinny, he has no appetite. He has to wear oxygen and move around with a chest tube (ow), IV lines, EKG monitoring wires, pulse oximetry wires, blood pressure cuff, etc. It practically takes an act of congress to get this poor guy out of bed whatwith all the wires we must navigate with.

Yet he still wants to get out of bed. He goes from bed to chair several times a day and has even managed to manage his own wires for himself. Unfortunately, every time he exerts the amount of energy necessary to move from bed to chair, it takes him quite a long time to catch his breath again. His heart rate shoots up from the activity and feels like it pounds in his chest. I asked him once if he was having pain and he said no… but not being able to catch his breath was very bothersome.

I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine not being able to catch my breath after such a small amount of activity and I do not want to imagine it or ever experience it! It’s absolutely beautiful out this time of year. He should be outside with his wife at the beach or something, not sitting in a CCU looking out the window.

So if you’re reading this now (and clearly you are), get up and go run around for awhile. Enjoy being able to catch your breath after doing it. We really take breathing for granted, you know. Appreciate being able to fill your lungs with sweet oxygen! Appreciate being able to go outside! Appreciate getting to go to the bathroom without having someone have to help you manage tubes and wires!