How far is heaven?

Yesterday was one of those crazy-ass days in nursing where you think, "Gee, I'd like to be a carnie."

And then you realize you are a part of a freak show, staffed by weirdos, and none of the rides work properly, sending hundreds of innocent folk--who think they are going for a crazy little loop around the rollercoaster--on a one way ticket to their untimely death.

Okay, so that metaphor doesn't work really well, but somedays I still feel like I work at a carnival, and not even a state-fair quality one, either, but one of those super-scary "Are you sure this is legal?!" kinds in the frontlots of Walmart. Don't ask me why. It just feels that way.

On a different note, one of my favorite patients ever has come back to the hospital, and she's only been out for a couple of weeks. She and her sister are the only surviving members of the family, and both are very elderly, and have no one to care for them. I mean, they live at some kind of old folks home, but that isn't family, nor is it really home.

It's terribly sad, because all she's got is her sister, and she worries about her constantly when she's in the hospital. "My sister is blind, and I'm deaf. What a pair we make." Then she worries, "Who will cut her food so she can eat it?" Talk about taking a piece of your heart.

I went to visit her today, and it was so sad: she was sitting in front of her lunch, staring listlessly out into the distance, looking sad and lost in the thought. She talked to me about how all she wanted to do was die peacefully in her bed, and that she didn't think she'd be back in the hospital so soon, and it scared her.

After I left I thought, "When she dies, who will go to her funeral? Who is left to remember her? And how many elderly people are out there, living virtually all alone, with little company and no one to look after them?"

The number is probably more than I want to know, or think about.