The need to keep breathing fresh air in an environment steeped in living and dying becomes a survival priority over time. I am no stranger to the business of working with children who are facing a short life before the dying part. It’s been my privilege to nurse some wonderful children and families in this situation. There’s not one thing I would change about my career direction but the cumulative burden of teaching, researching and spending all my time immersed in this field brings a weight that need to be managed.
It’s like a game of jenga, unless you have solid foundations of knowledge, resilience and take time to attend to the constancy of the emotional load of children’s palliative care, you will buckle. I have solid foundations, I have resilience but I don’t always attend to my emotional needs. I don’t think health professionals collectively have the time, the resources to attend to themselves or think that they need this kind of attention when others, their patients, are far more needy. The fact is unless we attend to ourselves, we will be unable to attend to others.
As a researcher on a current project, I have clinical supervision with a counsellor who is facilitating that need to ‘attend’ to myself due to the psychological burden of the research I am undertaking. However, I’m not sure once a month is enough. Many other health professionals involved in the daily business of caring on the frontline of neonatal and children’s palliative care don’t have such luxury. The need to maintain confidentiality reduces the ability to have a meaningful conversation with family or friends about this burden and shifts are often too busy for a stress-relieving conversation.
As I feel my scales unbalancing with burden, my need for conversation arises so that the air stays fresh and my mind remains healthy. This is my place to do that.
For the love of catharsis 