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Meet Maria.
She struggles daily, feeling unprepared.

She’s afraid of making the wrong decision. She’s afraid of not making a decision. She’s afraid one wrong move will cause her to lose a patient.

Maria has been a nurse for almost a decade. She works in the community but recently has been redeployed. Overnight. Her employer tells her it’s because she’s needed in the ICU. But what they don’t tell her is how she will function there.

On her way to her first shift, she pulls over to the side of the road, sick to her stomach. She didn’t sleep much, her body shakes as she drives towards downtown. 

She’s never been in a role like this before. She never considered taking the extra training required to work with the most ill. The patients whose odds aren’t in their favour.

Please don’t let anyone die, she thinks.

They call her an extender. She’s been moved from her regular placement to a new job site. She was told there would be a nurse quarterback, someone who would help her learn the role. A role that takes time, skill and intuition.

She knows her seasoned ICU colleagues want to help her. She sees empathy in their eyes, but she can’t force herself to stop them on their way by, to ask what she should do next. 

And she can’t stop seeing the faces of the family she Zoomed in last night; her dying patient’s family, to say goodbye.

And so for now, she feels safe behind the mask, hiding her pain. But at what cost?

Innercourage.ca  |  2022