Just a Nurse: Memoir on the Heartbeat of Healing

by Ashley Chancellor

Health-care workers experience and handle more traumatic events, usually on a daily basis, than some people ever face in their lifetime.

Nurses must mourn deaths fairly quickly; there is no room to take it home with us. But we all do. And we are a little snarkier and more jaded about life because of it. Mostly, we hold it in for our rant sessions with fellow nurses, knowing that society at large can’t handle the sorrows we consume daily. We have no moment of silence or the chance to cry it out. We swallow our grief and move on with life because we must. There is always another patient who needs us, and our families and communities need us. We must don the brave armor of being totally unscathed from moments that break most people. And we are expected to do it with a smile while catering to the demands that come with working in a health-care system.