This journey will be riddled with mistakes we make along the way…take the time to learn from them.
(Picture by Lisa R.)

I learned an important lesson from today. I have worked in my current facility for five years. During that time many things have changed: policies, procedures, management, etc. The one thing that has never changed, our relationship with our patients. We strive earnestly to make the atmosphere as close to family as we can. I have had patients tell me they’d rather be at our center than at home. That’s saying a lot…because we’re giving them chemotherapy. I have felt many emotions in my five years: anger, irritation, happiness, and sadness. The one emotion I have never felt…fear. Well, it turns out there really is a first time for everything.  Today we all sat on pins and needles waiting for one particular patient to come in. Why? The cancer had been resolved. The patient is now cancer free. For most people this would have been AMAZING news! For this particular patient, not so much. Why? Well, because now we can’t supply pain medication. Here’s the problem the medication has gone from something used to control pain; to I can’t function without it…addiction.  A mind altered by addiction is unstable. It doesn’t think logically. All an addicted mind knows is that it wants, and anything that stands in the way of that want is BAD. Add to that an already explosive personality and you have a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode. Today did not end up bad , although there were some tense moments (we prepared ourselves for all possible scenarios). After the patient left I realized this truth: just because something is good, that doesn’t make it right. We gave the patient pain killer because we wanted to do something good, we wanted to stop the pain. However, it ended badly because it wasn’t what was needed. Sometimes the best medicine is NO medicine at all. This lesson is true in life as well, we all at some point cover up pain. But in place of medication we use money, power…stuff.  Let’s stop covering pain, let’s instead “heal” the need. Today would have been a much different day had this been the prevailing perspective.

So what am I thankful for today? Hard life lessons (not every lesson is easy and some come with casualties).