I guess I should post something...
My best friend texted me a little while ago to tell me that Irene, one of our friends from nursing school, died.
I guess I use the word "friend" loosely. We weren't super tight or anything like that. We got along pretty well, had lots of clinicals together, groups projects, hung out and the like. Lost touch after school and didn't reconnect on FB. I'm not a FB person and by the time nursing school was over, I wanted away from everyone, even my best friend. But that's another story.
I actually saw Irene last year when I rotated through the hospital that has been dubbed "Mecca" by a certain nurse manager. Irene was happy. She'd lost weight, was back in school for her masters, loved her job. And she apparently loved hiking. She died of altitude sickness on one of the world's big peaks.
Neither of us are entirely sure when this happened, but it seems to be very recent. Her family found out yesterday and they are still trying to get her body back from the foreign country she was in. I can't imagine what they are going through right now. How horrific.
I only found out because unlike me, my bestie is friends with all our nursing school chums on FB. She saw people posting memorials for Irene's birthday, which happens to be today, and asked another ex-classmate what happened.
I just, IDK RN. She was about our age (which really isn't as old as we think it is some days) with a good life and all of it is gone. I think it's the senseless part that gets me. Believe me, I know shit happens. I was just reliving my tubal-gone-wrong and other work-related crises. But I think I could truthfully understand surgical complications, illness, car accidents, violence or dang it, even falling off the damn mountain (all of which suck and I wish on nobody) more than death by altitude sickness. I dunno. Maybe if I think of it like drowning. There are just some places on earth you can't go or something. IDK. IDK why I'm trying to rationalize this. I'm not even sure why I feel like I need to. Her life had meaning. She was happy and fulfilled. That's what's important.
RIP Irene. I know you're enjoying the view up there.
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