Frustration...

People disappoint...government disappoints...circumstances disappoint...why oh why does this surprise me every time it happens?!  Why?  Because I always hope/pray for the best, get excited about opportunities, want everything to be "perfect" in the end and when none of the above happens I'm crushed!  My sweet husband has had to tell me over and over to guard my heart because guess what?  People WILL disappoint...government WILL disappoint...circumstances WILL disappoint.

Case in point...
 I'm going to tell you the story first - and then show you the photo.  We had a sweet elderly gentleman come into the clinic this week with multiple complaints, but his primary complaint was stomach pain.  Dr. Roger did the appropriate doctorly thing and started with an abdominal exam - only to find this...

An old bullet wound gone wrong.  Nine surgeries later, this is what this gentleman had to live with.  Botched work, bad surgery, clearly no skin grafts, and a mound of infections.  He has so much scar tissue internally that it is most likely adhering to his intestins which is causing the severe stomach pain.  What can we do?  Treat the symptoms...nothing more...that and pray with him and for him.

The other big frustration was a young (VERY young) new mother with a 3 week old infant.  She had not given her baby the medication prescribed to her earlier in the week and the baby was now so sick, Dr. Roger advised immediate hospitalization.  However, the young mother was more interested in the visit of the babies father to be interested in caring for her own child. Over an hour and a half after our clinic was closed, we were still working with this young mother to understand the gravity of her lack of decision and the immediate illness of her child.  Ultimately, I do not know what the outcome of this situation was...but I felt a sense of helplessness.  Levels of frustration that just tears at the heart of what it is to be a nurse and a pediatric nurse at that.  Babies this sick, in the States, are often times in the ICU and sometimes even on a ventilator.  If this mother doesn't make the right decision, and soon, it will be too late for her baby.  There is no means of intubation at the public hospital, and her baby could die.

I realize that things won't always work out "right" or how I want them.  I need to rest in the fact that we do the best we can, give the best medicine we can, share the best education to our patients as we can, but ultimately most of what we do is out of our hands.  I'm just praying the mom ultimately made the right decision...