Today started off as a very weird day. I went into work and people looked at me saying, “Why are you here???” I was like, “Am I not on the schedule??” There was already another nurse there getting report from the night shift. During the summer I’ve been going in for every other Wednesday as part of the coverage for a nurse on maternity leave. I thought it went through July, but it wasn’t on there. When they looked up the schedule on their app and computer it was the other nurse.

I was kind of relieved thinking, “Yay, no problem. I’ll just go home.” But the day nurse, who I’d never met, said “Well is there any way you can work until 9?” It was the fifth anniversary of her husband’s death and a Catholic church in town was having a special morning mass in his memory. Something like that. Monday was the first she’d heard about it and didn’t think she’d be able to get off work in order to go. I said I’d stay and she called her daughters and said she was able to come now.

The morning from that point on had me internally thrown off. I’d taken all this time to mentally prepare, had gotten up early, and was ready to be there for the full eight hours. I hadn’t been back since that really bad shift and I was ready to just do better today and make a new memory. I started on the meds and took my time and double-checked. I still felt distracted. My phone was going off with messages from a child. There was an admission coming at eleven. A woman was nearing death.

Which I realized as soon as I went into room. Her regular meds had all been cancelled, and the only one left was scheduled morphine. I started at the med sheet for a long time before I signed out the dose. The MAR said it was scheduled, the bottle said the dose was .25. It’s clearly marked on the syringe. I took it into her and told her that I had her medicine. She said that I could give it, in more of a grunt rather than a coherent word. My heart broke. She’d been on hospice, but not like this.

I put my hand on her shoulder and asked if there was anything else I could do for her then. I couldn’t see how she would last the hour, certainly, certainly not the day. But I never did go back to check, or to say goodbye before I left. I thought about her on the way to the dining hall, and started to cry when I recalled the morning. I thought about her more, as we ate our hamburgers, fries, and applesauce. Another not normal day. I tried again to figure out the schedule app and gave up.