Night Shift

 
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Continuous Mistakes and Continuous Vowing

Late in August, I went to the laundromat when there were a lot of wildfires and a lot of smoke, and had a mild conflict with a fellow in there who wanted the door left open to let the COVID out, whereas I wanted it closed to keep the smoke out. The laundromat has probably been the place of greatest tension in my life these past months.

One day I found Duckworth chewing the toaster wire and was mainly just surprised it had taken him so long to think of doing this. I concluded I would have to wad the wire up and conceal it underneath the toaster somehow, but when I started to devise a procedure, I discovered there are hooks on the underside of the toaster for precisely this purpose! I never knew they were there.

One of the most exasperating thing the cats were doing that month was to hop onto the counter next to kitchen sink, then onto the windowsill, and then into the dish drainer or into the sink itself. Exasperated, I finally tossed a handful of water into Duckworth’s face and then of course felt terrible. However, when I confessed to my friend Marian in Santa Fe, in our monthly phone conversation, she said she didn’t think that was so bad, and told me about a friend using a squirt bottle of water to bring an end to selected cat behaviors. My father said the same thing.

The SPCA does not advocate any negative response to behavior unless it’s “remote”—something that happens when the owner isn’t around, like a cat putting a paw down onto previously installed sticky tape. Nonetheless, I started employing with the cats the squirt bottle of distilled water I use for ironing and it worked like a charm, though I hated seeing their shocked little faces the first couple of times. One good thing about this is that it’s a method I’m choosing rather than a heated reaction; I’m not necessarily angry when I squirt the squirt bottle. If anything, sometimes I’m mournful, but I was also thrilled not to have one cat after the other leaping onto the counter.

With travel to New Mexico on hold, we had our graduation from the chaplaincy program at Upaya Institute and Zen Center over Zoom. Roshi talked about us expressing ourselves in the world in a way that is “generative” for us. I often think of the Zen idea of “one continuous mistake,” which is comforting to me; on this occasion, another teacher reminded us that along with our continuous mistakes, there is continuous retaking of our vows.

When my boss and I had a planned conversation about the possibility of my hours being reduced (as for other per diems), I told her that I knew she was doing her best for everyone and for the department as a whole, and that whatever she needed to do, I was on board. She smiled (over Zoom) and thanked me.

I decided that if I were to hear about a per diem chaplain position becoming available at the hospital where I did Clinical Pastoral Education, I would apply, and within 24 hours, I did hear that, so I applied, was invited for an interview, and now am working there, as well, which is wonderful. At the interview, the director and manager, both people I like very much indeed, asked me how my chaplaincy has changed since I graduated from CPE. I told them that I now have even less idea how it’s done, which made them smile.

It is somewhat stressful to trying to schedule shifts for two different jobs—what if I tell Job One that I can’t work on a certain day so that I can offer it to Job Two, but then Job Two doesn’t give me that day, either? The timing is quite beyond my control, so I just have to work with the information I have.

At Job Two, there are day shifts and night shifts. I initially vowed to myself that I would never, ever do a night shift, because managing sleep is already a challenge. But a night shift pays twice as much as a day shift because it’s twice as many hours (some of which are spent sleeping), so now I request night shifts only, and just have to spend the following day recuperating. It’s worth it, both financially and because I get to do a lot of interesting things at Job Two at night. It is thrilling, in fact.

NYC

 
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Tragedy

Sorry to leave this blog stuck for so long on an unpleasant yet ultimately gratifying occasion at Rainbow. Various things happened after that. One day at work, I spoke with two patients who had received terrible news, including one who had been removed from the transplant list—a death sentence—because other medical complications had arisen, making him ineligible. He went from waiting for a kidney to going home with hospice.

As I was on my way to another room, I heard someone yelling loudly, “There she is!” At first I just walked on, but then conscience impelled me to double back and see what the patient wanted. It turned out to be one of my very favorite patients of all time, last seen about 18 months ago. How lucky that I had to go to this other unit and that the room of my favorite patient happened to be one of the four, out of about 60 on a floor, that I would pass en route to my destination. The patient and I reminisced about our prior time together. I had given him a stone and he said he still had it on his night stand. I decided to go back to carrying around a polished stone, so I can give it away.

While I was with another patient, a care team member came in carrying a box made out of thick metal.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“Something radioactive.” After this person gave the patient a shot, preparation for a scan in a few hours, she said to me, “He’s radioactive, so you might want to move over there.” She pointed toward a spot at the farthest possible remove from the patient. I took her advice.

I also had quite a long talk with a young patient who said, toward the end of the hour, “You’re a recovering alcoholic, right?”

I said, “Well—yes, as a matter of fact, I am, but how did you know that?”

He said, “Oh, I thought all chaplains were recovering alcoholics.”

One horrible afternoon, I was paged because a patient in the ICU was being transitioned to comfort care. This happens all the time and generally means that a respiratory therapist performs “terminal extubation” of the patient, who is unconscious. After extubation, the patient often dies immediately, or sometimes in the following hours, or sometimes days or even weeks later.

On this day, the RN said, “The patient is conscious and communicating.”

That was shocking. I said, “Oh, no!” and the RN said, “Yes, I know.”

I’m not even sure what “transitioning to comfort care” means for someone who is perfectly awake. As I write this, I guess it just means only providing care that is geared toward comfort, and no care that is meant to be curative. But then, why call the chaplain? That implies something more imminent.

I entered the room to find the patient, indeed awake, with two weeping relatives at his bedside, and I wept, too. This was happening because insurance wouldn’t pay for the care he needed, and that in turn was because he was an undocumented immigrant.