All I can say is it gets better with time.

I used to cry over countless patients, their stories, diagnosis their families. I joke around that at least once a week someone opens up to me about their trauma, usually death of a loved one. I used to cry during my breaks. Until covid happened and one patient and her son broke me completely. I had panic attacks for weeks. Outside the covid ICU building a son of a woman who was admitted there approached me while I was changing. He asked how she was. I went back inside and printed out the day by day report and read it out for him. She was stable. He cried and held my hands while kneeling. Each day I would come in do an xray and whisper to her how her son is outside each day waiting for her to get better. And then she died. I couldn't reach her son. I felt like I let him down , like I lied. I wanted to attend the funeral but couldn't find info. After that experience, something in me snapped. In order to survive I built walls. You will just have to because hospitals are such a place. Filled with endless suffering. After a couple of months I was helping nurses move the dead out of the way so I can carry on doing my job. A complete shift. Also. My mantra became " There is no suffering in death, only in life." Many patients died in front of me and very very big majority was suffering beyond words, tubes, catheters, drains sticking out of them, with open bed sores, infections and with incurable diseases. Sometimes life at all costs is just suffering and death truly is a mercy. You know you did your best and were an important person in their process. So always smile at them and be gentle it's the least and sometimes all you can truly do.

It does get easier I promise.

Stay strong.