But the six-year-old in bed three breathes easier tonight because I titrated her oxygen just right.
That has to be enough.
Most days it is.
Thanksgiving 2023. I requested the day off 6 weeks in advance. Submitted the form October 10th. Waited. November 1st, the schedule posted. I was on 7:00 p.m. to 7 a.m. Thanksgiving night into Friday morning.
I called my supervisor. “I requested off. I haven’t had Thanksgiving with my family in 3 years.”
“I know, Jenny. I’m sorry. Sarah called out. Her daughter’s sick. You’re the only one with PICU experience who can cover. What about—”
“Everyone else is new. I need someone who can handle it if things go bad.”
So, I worked.
That night, we had a triple admission. Car accident on I-94. Family of four. Two kids came to us. Seven-year-old boy, head trauma, possible skull fracture. Four-year-old girl, internal bleeding, emergency surgery.
The parents stood in the hallway covered in blood. The father kept saying, “We were just going to my sister’s house. Just dinner. Just dinner.”
I stayed with those kids all night. The boy stabilized around midnight. The girl made it through surgery. Came back to us at 2:00 a.m. I monitored her every 15 minutes.
At 11 p.m., my phone buzzed. Group text, family photos from Thanksgiving dinner, everyone around the table, smiling, turkey, stuffing, pies, my mother’s text: missing Jenny. But we understand work comes first for her.
The subtext screamed, Ashley would never miss Thanksgiving. Ashley knows what matters. Ashley has priorities.
I was standing at a bedside adjusting a ventilator. A 4-year-old was alive because I was there instead of eating pie.
At 11:04, I ate a vending machine turkey sandwich. Ninety-nine cents. Dry bread, processed meat. It stuck in my throat.
At 2:37 a.m., the girl’s mother hugged me, crying. “You saved her. You saved my baby.”
I went home at 7:03 a.m. Sam had saved me a plate: cold turkey, mashed potatoes. He’d worked his shift, too. We ate together in silence.
My mother called 3 days later, talked for 40 minutes. 38 of those minutes were about Ashley’s new promotion. She asked about my Thanksgiving once.
“Was it busy?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, you’re so dedicated.”
That was it.
I stopped expecting equal treatment somewhere around 2019. I stopped hoping they’d notice around 2021. By the time Sam proposed in 2024, I’d made peace with it. Or I thought I had.
Turns out there’s a difference between accepting that your parents will always love your sister more and watching them choose her wedding over yours.
One is resignation, the other is betrayal.
I met Sam 5 years ago. Apartment fire in Wicker Park. 8-year-old girl, smoke inhalation, respiratory distress. Sam was on the medic unit that brought her in. Engine 78. He stayed with the family while I stabilized her.
At 3:00 a.m., standing outside the PICU, he said, “You’re really good at this.”
