As you all know, since I got chronic kidney disease 8 years ago and had to quit working as a hospital chaplain, I've been a full time community college nursing instructor teaching the care of terminal patients.  Weekends, though, all those years I've also been a part time minister at 2 little churches in my area, something I really enjoy.

As I wrote here earlier this week, this past Monday one of those church members who I'll call L  died of chronic kidney disease, the same disease I have.  L was under my pastoral care, meaning she and those caring for her as she died were relying on me for visits and support.  

I just got back from L's memorial service that we had at the church for her today, and it was great.  The church was packed with L's family and friends who came from as far away as both coasts.  One of L's friends spoke in her memory and made the most moving memorial speech I think I've ever heard at any funeral anywhere.

I'm writing here to confess something, though.  After the memorial service, the folks from church who took care of L to the end asked if I'd go out for dinner with them to debrief and give them some support.  I'm honored to and I will, but I'm really glad I have this space here at DS PTSD where I can admit something I can't easily say at church.  

That is that the memorial service shook me up a little.  In the printed program handed out to everybody, it detailed a summary of her struggle with chronic kidney disease and the details were just like mine.  I mean, it thanked her kidney doctor, who happens to be the same one I have who diagnosed me when I collapsed in front of my boss with chronic kidney disease in 2011.  I collapsed at work from it at work again in 2018 and wound up having to be taken to the hospital for it by ambulance.  It mentioned the hospital where she died, which happens also to be the same one I go to, the same one where I'm going for my next 6 month chronic kidney disease checkup this coming Thursday.

It was all a little too close for comfort, if you know what I mean.  If you changed L's name for mine, you might well have been reading my own future memorial service program.  Yikes.  I've never had that experience at a funeral before, and I've presided over a few.

I swallowed my fear during the service by promising myself I'd confess to being shaken up a bit here so I wouldn't go on to having a PTSD anxiety attack later on tonight.  I will go out for dinner tonight with the church folks who cared for L until the end, and tomorrow I will go to church and see them there, too.  The same kidney doctor diagnosed us, and later in the week, Thursday, I will go to the same hospital where L just died, too.

I'm a little spooked by it all, is what I'm saying.  I know I can handle my role as a minister tonight and at church tomorrow, I just also wanted to say something as a person with PTSD here, though, too, so support would be welcome from you all.  As much as I can be supportive as to folks, I also want to recognize as a human being with PTSD that I need support like others folks do, too.  Thankfully, when I ask for it here you all give it, so I'm asking again, gratefully, because I have to admit that I am just a little shaken up.