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To the Overwhelmed Healthcare Providers, From One of Your Patients

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This letter was inspired by a conversation with a friend of mine who is an OT in training and was feeling a little drained after a tough week of an oncology and hospice placement.

To all those overwhelmed healthcare providers out there,

I’m not just talking to doctors and nurses. I’m talking to all of you: PTs, OTs, SLPs, dietitians, social workers, child life specialists, pharmacists, techs, paramedics, counselors and all the other professions that I can’t think of off the top of my head. A lot of this is probably relevant to teachers, too.

Maybe you’re relatively new to this and it’s still a shock to your system. You haven’t yet become desensitized to all of the pain, struggle and loss your patients are facing. Or maybe you’ve been doing this a long time and have become used to it. Maybe you feel like your job is hopeless or maybe you feel like it’s full of hope. Perhaps your experience even changes day to day, week to week.

I’m not one of you, so I can’t really understand where you’re at or how you’re feeling.

I am, however, one of your patients, and there are a few things I want you to know.

We patients talk a lot about our “teams” of health care providers. I don’t think I know any patient with a serious illness or disability who hasn’t mentioned their team. You are part of this team, but since you’re on the front lines with us, you don’t really get to hear the way we talk about all of you, our teams, to other people. Oh, but I wish you did! Sure, there are always a few bad eggs, but for the most part we talk about all of you with respect and admiration. We talk about how much we trust you, how you changed our lives for the better and how we’re just so grateful you gave us the gift of your time. We appreciate you, and everyone who appreciates and loves us, in turn appreciates you.

Even when our interactions are fleeting, even if you don’t have a permanent spot on the team, you still play a part. For every uncomfortable or frightening situation we face, we talk about the people who made it a little easier. That was a really painful procedure… but the nurses were so gentle and reassuring. They woke me up at 5:30 a.m. to take blood… but the lab tech was really funny and made me laugh. I’m really scared in the ER and they don’t know what’s wrong with me yet… but they’re taking really good care of me. You are the “they.” Even if we never see you again, we still appreciate you.

When we are facing unimaginable situations and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, that is our reality whether you are our healthcare provider or not. But here’s the cool part — you have the ability to change that for us. You have the power to make a terrible situation a little bit less terrible. We don’t want you to become all consumed with our problems; we just want you to do what you reasonably can to help us through them.

You becoming weighed down helps no one. Becoming desensitized is not necessarily a bad thing; it can make you better at your job. It’s in the best interest of you and your patients for you to be able to leave work at work. Please, don’t ever feel guilty that you get to go home and take a break from your job while we don’t, because we want you to go home.

Actually, we need you to go home, so you can come back and care for us again. Clear your mind, enjoy your evening, see your family, watch your favorite show, do whatever you do. Live your life. That’s what makes you able to show up at work the next day as the best version of yourself, able to do your job in the best way you know how. Taking care of yourself is actually one of the best ways you can take care of us, your patients; sometimes putting yourself first and putting your patients first is synonymous. We want you to advocate for your own health and well-being because we need your help advocating for our own.

One of our greatest wishes is for you to recognize that we are people as well as patients. We have diagnoses, prognoses and medical histories, sure, but that is just part of who we are. We are whole people still, and even if we don’t always remember so, we know you are whole people, too. You are not only doctors, nurses, OTs, PTs… the list goes on and on. That is one part of you, and it’s a wonderful part of you, but it’s not your entire person. And that’s not a bad thing.

So as one of your patients, thank you for everything you do. Thank you for making taking care of me part of who you are.

Now go take care of yourself, too! Patient’s orders.

Follow this journey on Finding My Miracle.

The Mighty is asking its readers the following: Write a thank you letter to someone you realize you don’t thank enough. If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to community@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio. Check out our Share Your Story page for more about our submission guidelines.

Originally published: November 28, 2015
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