Satisfaction

I'm currently at Methodist Hospital for clinic in the ICU. Today was a rather depressing day. One of my patients is over 400 pounds (down 200) and has been in ICU on a ventilator since November. My other patient was a gun-shot wound that came in last night. When I was getting report on him I thought it might be some exciting story, but nope, it was self-inflicted. He was with it today so it was hard seeing his kids come in and him mouth 'I'm so sorry' to them.
My third patient was an older woman who had been in Hawaii for the last few months and was starting to feel short of breath. So when she got back to Indiana, she went to the hospital and it turns out she had pneumonia. Long story short, she had to be intubated and this morning I was able to extubate her...yay! She did great all day, weak, but she did an awesome job. Her husband was there and we chatted a lot. Poor guy has been sitting next to her bed for a couple of weeks in an ICU where there's no one to talk to. When I was getting done, he asked if I'd be back tomorrow and I told him no, I'm back on Thursday but she'll be in a regular unit by then (God-willing). He walked over, gave me a hug, and thanked me. He said, "Thank you for the care you've shown with my wife and I today". It's sentences like that which make the extra student loans worth it.