I’ve worked in a children’s ER for over four years now. I am well aware its not for everyone, and for some people its just too hard. For me, it’s my favorite place to be. Seriously, I love my job and I love my hospital. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get sad sometimes.

The longer I work in the hospital the more I am convinced that some people are simply made for the work they do.

My position has me training new hires in the administrative side (i.e. registration) and one of my personal priorities is to make sure they know what they are walking into. It always sounds fine, sure you can handle it… until a trauma rolls in.

Its a desperately sad fact that even children are subject to traumas. I believe it is easier to loose an adult than a child. We work incredibly hard to fight against that fact, the ticking of the clock, the count down of compression and how many rounds of medication we can justifiably give the child before the doctor has to make the call that I thank God daily is not mine to make. I can not put into words the feelings that pass through you in those moments.

The brief pause of time that is too short. We do not always have time to acknowledge those feelings. Another child needs us. There’s another patient.

There’s the walking wounded.

I don’t just mean the other children who could be hurt. We still have families to notify, to care for and siblings who may not understand or worst, they do. It is sometimes too much. It can be too hard.

That’s OK.

We don’t hear that enough. We don’t tell each other its alright to be touched by circumstances, to hurt for the child and their families. To cry because it was out of your control. To weep because you wanted to keep trying, if only you could try harder. To wish there was something, anything you could have done to help.

In my position, there seems like there is little I could do. We take IDs and insurance cards. Verify demographics, obtain signatures and move on. But a piece of us can often be left behind with the child we could not help. With the families that we don’t have the words to express our sorrow for.

My two favorite places to show new hires are in order, the Trauma Bay and the Meditation room. I make a point to show that last room. I tell each person I train the same thing.

Yes, trauma’s happen.

Yes, I’m sure you’ll be fine with it.

But if and when you find that you are NOT fine. Here is a place for you to go. Tell you’re team you need a minute.

Should you have nightmares or find yourself thinking of a particular patient for days after the fact, we have help. We have resources. And we all need them.

And then I tell the stories that are seared into my memory. The ones that still make my heart ache even after all these years. New ones are added every year.

Some of the worst are the near drownings. And this last week, when my three year old niece fell into the lake off of a STATIONARY boat wearing a life vest, my mind flashed with images. She was perfectly fine. A little freaked out to say the least but I was in that water in seconds that felt like hours. I pushed her into the air even though it meant going under myself. I calmed her down as I swam with one arm back to the ladder on the other side of the boat.

“I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. I wont let you go.”

My sister and I laughed at my calm voice, my “mom” voice as she called it.

I called it my Trauma Voice.

It’s the same voice I have heard my friends on the medical staff use daily. The unshakable voice that comes from some unknown place inside of you when you have no choice but to steel yourself. When someone else needs you to be the strong one.

We go to work.

We wait for the next time we are needed, we steel ourselves again and get to work. And we try our hardest to carry it with us without allowing the things we see and do to carry us under. There is a balance we fight for daily between being strong and being calloused.

So I ask you, please be kind to your medical staff. Be gentle with the medic taking your vitals and the registration staff asking for a date of birth. Be patient when it takes some time for a doctor or a nurse to be with you. We don’t always get even a few moments to recover from our heart aches. We want to take care of you and your loved ones. We may just be struggling to hold it together.

Just. Be Kind.