“Milkshakes?”. My eyes blurred as they read this text. Our palliative care clinic physician colleague, who was not working in the clinic that day, was offering to bring us milkshakes. I was surprised to find myself so touched. It was just a milkshake, after all.

This text came towards the end of yet another long, exhausting palliative care clinic day. I’m not a young nurse. I have seen years of suffering. Still, nothing prepared me for this pandemic. While working in the palliative care clinic offered me a position away from the front-COVID-lines, it presented a direct view of the world in which our patients lived as they tried to deal with the fear of yet another potential way to die. Our clinic team struggled to support SDOH with few resources. We took on the full weight of responsibility in keeping our patients out of the hospital as bed space was extremely limited (and besides COVID lived within those hospital walls). We struggled with technical issues as we fought to connect through telehealth. We attempted to support families remotely as they sought to care for their dying loved ones at home in parts of the state that had no hospice services. And we continued our campaign that surrounding states allow us to see patients across state lines.

Our clinic is slimly staffed, physically located buildings away from our inpatient colleagues, and housed in a cancer center that is not always sure what we do. The isolation adds to the exhaustion.

It is weary, depleting work. Not unlike all healthcare settings my nurse colleagues are working in these days.

Someone recently asked me why I stay. This gave me pause. Why do I stay? Honestly, at any given moment in the last 18 months, my resignation has lived at the tip of my pen. Why do I stay? I stuttered out my reply which at first sounded odd then grew in meaning. I stay because of my colleagues. Because I am so proud to serve with them. Because they listen to me after a heavy consult. Because they offer guidance, advice, friendship, and…… milkshakes.

In this time of thanksgiving, I am grateful for my palliative care colleagues and the opportunity to be a nurse in these formidable times. I send a special wish to my brave, courageous, steadfast, nursing colleagues everywhere to be surrounded by supportive colleagues of their own and well-timed milkshakes.  And this blessing….

‘For One Who is Exhausted’ by John O’Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

‘For One Who is Exhausted’ by John O’Donohue printed by permission: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue