Beth Sheeran

Sonnet 43

I begged them for the tools to move in with you

I promised to tear down the shack called medicine falling down on you

I wanted my hands to blister and age and wrinkle putting up new walls to cover you

I wanted to bring you wildflowers in the morning to enjoy with your coffee and greet you with a smile

I put on my Sunday best and knocked at your door

You welcomed me in

“Take a seat you” stated boldly

“Pull up a chair and take notes, study me”

So I pulled out a stool, sat with paper and pen

And then I held your hand while you bled to death asking, “Why aren’t you helping me?”

I lied to you not wanting the last words you heard to be “I can’t find the right equipment to stop the bleeding”

I cleaned your body afterwards, hoping to hide the horror of your death from your family who wanted to see you

You asked me for help because you were in pain, the doctor refused my request and your last moments were agony

You were 12 and I stood at your bedside collecting sperm off your body after your mom’s boyfriend assaulted you

You asked me if the little pill would hurt the baby

You were just a baby yourself

I held you starving in my arms when a nurse was generous enough to take you in but not generous enough to feed you the formula you needed to keep you alive

I named you after my grandfather and you died weeks later

I sat beside you as you gasped for air, promising to get you help but unable to write for a pill that would bring you relief because my company had a policy that I couldn’t change

I watched you walk out of a clinic in gasping for air because there was no albuterol in the village

Your milk dried up after a septicemia, I knew your death would to be a death sentence to the baby at your breast because there was no supply of formula

I saw the edema in your legs and knew the end was near

I gathered what I could knowing it would only postpone the inevitable

I bought shoes for your feet because they were rotting from leprosy and your government had decided they couldn’t treat you long-term

I knew you deserved more

I listened to you cry all night, you were three and had been burned in a fire I knew there was morphine but nobody was giving it to you

I swabbed your finger for gunpowder residue so the system could prosecute you knowing full well he had abused you in the past, I didn’t know what to say to you

I fumbled my words so badly you asked me if I was ok

I wasn’t, but neither were you

I turned you away from care because we didn’t have a bed large enough for you

I wrote orders for isolation because we didn’t have any other way to keep people safe and you sat there in that room for days crying and hallucinating when you had covid

I tried to sit with you when I had time so you weren’t alone in the terror

I was overpowered by the walls falling down on you,

I crumbled, I wept for your soul and for mine

I realized the house I wanted to build was nothing but a wet dream of power I would never have

A hurricane of grief rose up inside of me and I could bear it no more, turning to leave out the door

But something changed

You glanced my direction and communicated silently

And I remembered

I remembered how you held your head high walking into the room after he raped you

How you told me you weren’t afraid of dying when your jaw cancer overtook you at nine because you were born in the wrong damn country

I remembered your courage, I remember your strength

I couldn’t fix the damn shack, the crumbling foundation, the walls falling in

I stood back up summoning every ounce of strength from the example you had set

To have the courage to not abandon you and continue to walk beside of you

And I said, “I promise, I promise

To continue learn from your strength and courage

To walk the fields gathering flowers to bring to you in the mornings to enjoy with your coffee

To let my hands blister, age and wrinkle in that small task because it is the only thing I know I can do”

“Is that so?”  you replied, nodded thoughtfully and continued,

“Sit back down, buckle up, and for Christ’s sake pick back up your notes, paper and pen,”

“I’m just now setting out to make you a much better man”

Sonnet 43 is a synopsis of the cumulative trauma of having formerly been a patient, then working as a clinician in an attempt to make a difference in healthcare. I have been given a front row seat to unimaginable suffering as well as seeing the best aspects of humanity. I have been overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness to create the change I want to see, primarily because I have seen so many different angles of injustice. There have been times I didn’t know if I could continue. This is a love poem to the people I have watched go through horrific experiences and have taught me courage and fortitude.  The title is intended to allude to the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning “How do I love thee”. I have come to realize that the most powerful thing I can do isn’t to throw my weight and anger against the injustice I see, but rather to walk with humility and affection towards every patient who requests my assistance. I still have hopes of creating big changes, but over the course of my career I have learned to focus more on the small interactions that give people a sense of dignity and autonomy when I am attending to their medical needs.  

The journal that was gifted to me! It is filled with writing from when I was at my worst from a psychiatric standpoint and a reminder of how a small act of kindness can be life changing.

I was raised in the middle of a civil war on a mission compound in Central America where I experienced sexual abuse at a young age. In my teens, the trauma started to manifest in suicidality, and it wasn’t until I had an encounter with Christ that I found hope. I was hospitalized in my early twenties with catatonia stemming from the stress of studying for a test and being diagnosed with bipolar/schizoaffective type. I was placed on disability as the doctors taking care of me assumed I would never be able to hold down a job due to the severity of my illness. During one of my hospitalizations, a nurse reached out to me in an act of kindness by giving me a journal to write in. She encouraged me to put something positive on the page about myself.  From that point forward I determined in my heart to become a medical professional so I could encourage others the way she encouraged me. I still have that pink journal on my bookshelf as a reminder of her empathy. Years later as I progressed in my education, my DSHS disability counselor advised me not to pursue a career in medicine, assuming that the stress would be too much for me. She suggested that I go into dog grooming instead as it was a lower stress environment and she knew I was an avid animal lover. She later became my patient in the ER where we both shed a few tears in a brief moment of joy. My career has largely been focused in the emergency medicine and also in psychiatric facilities. I have tried to bring redemption and meaning to the experiences I had as a patient as well as the trauma I went through as a child.  I became the first pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner in my hospital and worked to ensure nurses in this field had the ability to collaborate, have appropriate training, and have the emotional support needed to do the job. I am currently a Nurse Practitioner in a mobile urgent care where the majority of patients we see are home-bound, impoverished, and have multiple barriers to accessing care. I am a horse and dog mom, and love to bring a sense of levity into interactions. There is nothing I love more than to be able to create laughter in an exam room.