While flying to Puerto Vallarta a few days ago I got into a conversation with a 40ish woman who was seated next to me, sipping a vodka on the rocks.
It seemed like she had the ideal life. She worked as a captain for the fire department in San Diego, and in seven years she would be able to retire at 50 with 90% of her salary for the rest of her life. She said she loved what she did.
But then as we got further into the conversation it turned out that her job was very stressful. She talked of working a lot of overtime, especially during the California fire season when she had to work day after day in Napa Valley when fires devastated that area. She said that even though she works three days a week and is off for four days, she deals with emotionally taxing events on an almost daily basis when on duty.
She said that right before she came on vacation she performed CPR on a victim for an hour, but was unable to bring him back. She said the vision of his cold blue face is still burned into her memory. She went on to talk of other events: failing to resuscitate a child that had drowned, consoling a family that had lost all their belongings in a fire, helping extract accident victims from a car, and so on. It seemed like she dealt with a spectrum of human tragedy on a regular basis.
When I asked how she dealt with her stress, she told me she goes on vacations where she does nothing but relax for a week at a time. And she also works out and makes an effort to meditate and do yoga. But it seemed like what she was doing to deal with all the pressures upon her wasn't sufficient. Some of the things she dealt with were so traumatic it's difficult to get them out of her memory.
When the flight was over I had a sense of gratitude that I work in the recovery field. While it has its share of stress, it doesn't compare to what this woman deals with.
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