So it looks like I missed the big Camp Widow contest......Win a scholarship to Camp Widow, yada yada yada...Yes, I missed it. I have been running myself ragged and am plumb wore out. Let's say, in theory, I'd won...I'd still have had to scare up airfare out of thin air. And expenses. And hotel fees, assuming a friend didn't let me crash on their sofa for the weekend...only to return to another two weeks of insanely intense CPE. I said uncle. Next year, I hope...
That's assuming I'm not scheduled for an on-call shift that weekend. I can't remember. I'm only keeping track one week ahead. This week, I had Tuesday night. That was Tuesday all day at the hospital, then all night, then into the next day. I was there til 4 pm the next day. That is a long time.
The trouble with CPE is that, what with HIPAA and privacy and everything else, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to share. Suffice it to say that three people died on my on-call shift last Sunday night, and I spent time with a dying man and his family last week. I'm spending time in the borderlands...No, it's not all people dying, but last week definitely marked a mental boundary shift in my mind. Just like with Nelson's death, there's the Time Before and the Time After.
I hear that you can get a job doing chaplaincy work in hospice with only the first unit of CPE. Part of me finds that idea appealing. But is my job right now a major PTSD trigger? Um, yeah, and I had it beforehand. I need to do something about that so I can do something for others. Because doing this just reinforces that I want to do this. This resonates with me. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment...or maybe I've found my charism, as my priest puts it....
