Tribute to those in the medical profession and their need to grieve

                                                                       

Recently I had a conversation with a neighbor at a hardware store of all places.
This neighbor and his wife live across the street from us.  I was updating them on my grief journey. Knowing that he was in the medical profession he was one of the first ones  that heard my grief journey. He heard my grief as it ventured from the shock, depression, to anger.  They watch our daughter grow and since they live next to the play ground they watched me walk my kids over to the playground every night in the summer.  His two boys and their mom had a blast putting palm prints all over the fire hydrant in front of our home when they were younger.

They were heart broken as they heard about our loss. He is  a nursing administration at a nearby state hospital which meant I felt comfortable talking about the autopsy results that confirmed the medication toxicity issues as the primary cause of death. He heard me as I told him about the possibility exploring a wrongful death suit against the hospital.  He watch me travel the course of grief beginning with anger. He didn't try to move me along in my grief, but he simply listened to the pain that was present within me. In this hardware store I shared with him how  I was able to come full circle with the grief and actually forgive the doctor and the peace that we saw as a result

 I shared what I have discovered about doctors and grief and the pain they feel when a patient dies.I shared with him our families visit with the doctor who had treated our daughter for many years and as a result of that visit we learned that grief from a doctor standpoint can  be just as painful as the family experiencing that grief.

  He agreed that people working in the medical profession need to take better care of themselves from a emotional and psychological standpoint when a patient that they are assigned to dies. Instead of covering up the grief they need a safe way to process the grief they are feeling. Not doing so will only mean that other personal problems will develop in their lives.

A good friend who was a surgeon actually took his own life and I suspect part of the issue involved unresolved grief from the loss of some of his patients.  We have choice to either take the time necessary to work through all of the ugly and messy stages of grief and reach recovery, or watch that grief take it's toll on our bodies and cause a untimely death.