Jesus Loves Me

I cried for the second time ever at work Monday. Not a big all-out sob, but just enough tears welled up to call it a cry. It didn't help that I was on hour 16 of my shift and physically and mentally worn out.

I just got done assisting with a procedure with this patient where I give her enough drugs to make her loopy enough to not feel us taking two samples of her bone marrow from her hips while keeping her awake enough to follow directions. I was sticking around to take one last set of vital signs and her husband came in after the bone marrow people left.

Now this lady is not all with it. She knows who she is, but she talks nonsense most of the time and says the most hilarious things. Some weird virus is making her this way. We're working on figuring out what it is and what we can do about it. But until then, she basically acts like a 90-year-old Alzheimer's patient instead of a normal mid-50s woman.

So she keeps talking while I'm standing there, just like she has all through the procedure. Except she makes sense for a few minutes. She's talking about how hard this disease is, how sick she is of being sick, how she wishes they could find answers....but that she still has to praise God. "Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me" she says over and over while starting to cry. "Jesus loves me and my husband loves me and Jesus loves me....."

Her husband kneels on the floor next to her bedside, puts his head in her hand and silently starts crying himself. Neither of them are paying a bit of attention to me, but I just take her other hand and let my own tears and prayers come.

Life is hard. But Jesus loves me.