Gulp

I can: 

Break open glass ampoules without shredding my thumb (now someone has shown me which way to hold them). 

Squirt medication into cheeks and tubes (and unmentionables). 

Assess which medication might be best to give first, tweak a cocktail of meds to make a child more comfortable, draw up morphine whilst holding a discussion with another child about Peppa Pig and recorders. 

I can reposition aching limbs, bind up pressure sores, hook up non invasive ventilators, Hoover secretions out of airways, and cobble together broken wheelchairs. 

I can tube feed whilst nagging a child to drink. I can lose my temper and apologise for it. I can watch scoliosis ravage a spine, whilst planning a second op to fix another child's spine. 

I can bake strawberry cakes whilst giving nebs, cuddle children who either don't bend or bend in the wrong way, and play 20 questions to work out what a child would like for her upcoming birthday. 

But it turns out, I can't listen to a child singing along to the Downing Family's "When I Wake Up To Sleep No More." Not when that child then starts crying, and 20 questions reveals she is sad because she feels so poorly. 

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,7672954-21087395,00.html

"Glory to God I'll have a new body/changed in the twinkling of an eye/When I wake up to sleep no more. With the redeemed of all the ages/praising the one whom I adore/When I wake up to sleep no more."

Not without crying too, anyway. 

Tia