This morning in the PIT, I described my commute home last night from work. For those of you that haven’t heard, I recently moved to Portland, OR, where I work at one of the large hospitals downtown. Because of traffic and scarce parking, I take both the bus and the train into work. Last night, I left work about 15 minutes late. This may not seem significant, but when you’re beholden to a train schedule, leaving even 30 second late can put a major crimp in your commute. I was late leaving work because of the flurry of activity that happened with my patients at the end of my shift. One of my patients had come in with recent neurological changes, and after the work up had been done, at the end of my shift this patient was given a new diagnosis of cancer with a very poor prognosis. The family was sweet and understanding and appreciative; all of the things that make nurses remember why they became a nurse in the first place. I sat at the computer outside my patient’s room to chart, hearing the family cry together. I offered my presence and comfort, but it was clear that they wanted to be alone. At the nurses station, we all spoke in hushed tones about how sad it was, and how the worst diagnoses always seem to happen to the nicest people.

As you can imagine would be the case in Portland, my day had consisted of staff lamenting the election results. There was a litany of “I’m so depressed,” “I cried the whole time I was getting ready this morning,” and “I just can’t believe people would vote for him.” That morning, I over heard a woman tell her friend that Max (the light rail in Portland) had to close temporarily around one o’clock that morning because of protests; however, my commute to work was uneventful. I was anticipating an equally uneventful ride home, but that was not the case. When I got off the bus at Pioneer Square to catch Max, police were out securing crowd control barriers, and I could see an occasional “Trump is NOT my president” sign waving in the air. While running to catch the train that was pulling in, I saw a young hipster woman completely topless with anti-Trump sentiments written across her body. I reached the platform in time, but was informed by the police that the train would not be stopping at Pioneer Square because of the protests; I had to walk up five blocks to the next stop. Now, five blocks might not seem like much, but after a 13 hour day on your feet trying to slay the dragons of disease, it’s a lot. As I walked grumpily past all the 20-somthing homeless and protesters, I became increasingly incensed by the childishness of it all. I wanted to run back to find that young woman exposing herself and yell at her, “Showing everyone your tits won’t make a damn bit of difference or make anyone take you remotely seriously!! Put a damn shirt on and go get a job!” Meanwhile, my sweet patient was probably still crying in her hospital bed, coming to grips with her own impending death.