My sacred moment is about this time that I was working as AOD, which is an Administrative Officer of the Day, let's be clear. And I had recently gotten this position, transitioning from the Hematology Oncology department at the VA. So the AOD essentially, you're doing everything admin. And one of the responsibilities was talking to grieving families after their loved ones pass. Now remind you, I am in a hospital so this is like immediately after the passing. So, and I was tasked to do the paperwork. This is organ donation. This is funeral homes. This is how to release the body.

It's a difficult conversation and this is not a conversation that I was the most comfortable having, we'll say, this is… I don't know too many people who would be immediately comfortable with this. So I wanna say either I was right out of training, I feel like I was right out of training because I was alone by myself. So I was out of training and I got a call and it was one of these tasks. Among the many, but it was… I got a call that a patient had passed and that their wife was coming down.

I'm going to give you some insider information about myself. I was worried. Like, this is, out of all the tasks. I can do billing, I could do admin, transfers, policy, I could do it all. This was the one thing I was worried about.

When I got the name of the patient, I was in shock because it was a… It was a patient that I had known from Hematology Oncology. So this is a patient that I was actually familiar with.

And I had them come down and took them into a back room so we can have some privacy. Her and I greeted each other. Of course she recognized me as well. And we talked and I expressed my condolences, told what was happening, the paperwork and everything. And sometime during it, you could tell that she kinda checked out during the conversation.

It was it was at that moment that I sat there and just let her talk. Asked her how is she doing? I started saying, yeah, he was, you know, things that I remembered about him. And she, she ended up busting out in tears and was talking about how she'll miss him and everything. And we just had that moment to where she started to wanting to pray and give me a hug and all that. And it was just a great moment where we just kind of sat and comforted each other in this.

I was someone who knew this patient and we got along pretty well when we were in Heme/Onc and now, to be in this moment, which is technically I guess her final moments with him and alive at that capacity. So the emotions are pretty raw for that.

So yeah, that was a touching moment… for my first time, like, to have someone that I was familiar with. I'm glad that they were familiar with me through this moment and it just… I'm glad I was able to be there for them.

We got to the paperwork. That was, you know, like that was very just at the end after the tears have dried and you're able to think again about the business side of it.

So, yeah. I think that was my sacred moment.

Safe Haven

Appamāda