On the same day this analysis was released, the New Old Age blog published a post from Theresa Brown, an oncology nurse, on how she and her colleagues deal with grief in the workplace.
My hospital also pays for us to have free individual sessions at the Good Grief Center if we feel we need them. This off-site arrangement works better for me because it means I’m not trying to process my grief during stolen time on the job.
I’ve gone twice now, once to talk over a particularly gruesome death, and most recently to discuss our very tough December. I thought the counselor and I would talk about death, grief and grieving, and we did some of that, but mostly we talked about how to leave work at work. One idea she had was to call a friend when I leave the hospital at the end of shift, making an immediate break with my work world. Some people, she said, sit in their car for 10 minutes listening to the radio, zoning out, before they take off for home.
While talking to the grief counselor I realized that riding my bike the two miles to and from the hospital transitions me from work to the rest of my life. My ride home is mostly uphill, and the last few blocks can be a killer after a 12-hour shift. But when I finally get home, sweaty and panting, I’ve mulled over the ups and downs of the day — the blanket I forgot to get someone, the home care nurse who drove me crazy, the impossibility of being three places at once — and I’ve also begun to digest the sadder kinds of events that weigh on me over time.
