Sunrise from the hospital

After 24 hours in the ICU, your body no longer knows whether it's day or night. The constant beeping of the monitors, the alarms that wake you from a five-minute nap in your chair, the whispered conversations with distraught families, the decisions that weigh heavily on your chest... Everything merges into a non-stop marathon. You've stabilized, you've lost, you've tried again. You've seen life hanging by a thread and you've pulled on it with everything you've got.

And then, when the clock marks the end of the shift—that moment that seems like it will never come—you go out onto the balcony or to the window in the upper hallway. The outside world welcomes you with a gift you didn't ask for, but desperately need: a spectacular sunrise.

The sky opens up in an explosion of color. The sun rises slowly, almost shyly, behind the horizon, bathing everything in golden tones, intense oranges, and soft pinks. The clouds are stained as if someone had painted them with liquid fire, elongated and dramatic, floating over the awakening landscape. Below, the hospital buildings, the quiet fields, a lonely road... all bathed in that new light that erases the shadows of the night.

In that moment, exhaustion is transformed. You feel the fresh air filling your lungs, the sun warming your tired face. It's as if nature is saying to you, "You did it. You survived another shift. And life goes on." A silent reminder that after the deepest darkness of the ICU—where every hour counts—the light always comes. A new day, a new opportunity to keep fighting.

I stay a few more minutes, breathing deeply, letting that sunrise recharge my soul before I go home. Because in intensive care, 24-hour shifts are brutal... but these sunrises make them bearable, even beautiful.
If you've experienced this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Those moments keep us going.