Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My surreal life

My job sometimes has these incredible surreal moments. Things that feel like they are out of body experiences or just plan so strange that they must have been dreamed up by a Hollywood writer, but no they really happen.

Today, I was having a meeting with a mom whose baby is dying. We were talking about how there is nothing more that we can do for her and about starting to limit some of our treatments. The poor mom is devastated and alone because her husband is driving back from out of state where they live. Then all of a sudden the ground starts shaking, and only gets stronger. The poor woman grabs me with this look of horror in her eyes. "What else could happen today she asks" What else indeed...

There is no happy ending to this story except that the dad made it and didn't feel the Earthquake, and everyone else is OK. Another earthquake day in LA. I miss my school days when Earthquakes usually meant we got to go home early.

2 comments:

JaxMom said...

Thanks for your post. My tragedy for last week was that the phone company completely screwed up our phone and internet move. I needed a "no babies died today" reminder.

Love,
Suz

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa, I remember , with regret, the last big earthwake, when you were still in High School. I had already gone to work, and when I called you I told you to go to school. Big mistake! I spent the rest of the afternoon checking kids it didn't know out of the school, and bringing them home with us. It all turned out well in spite of me.