I washed another woman’s blood from my shoes

Dear Delyara, A woman came into the emergency department last night with blood running down one side of her face. Her husband walked beside the stretcher telling everyone she had fallen. She did not look at him. While I was taking her blood pressure, she whispered, “Please don’t let him take me home.” We moved her to a secure room, contacted the social worker, and called the police. I did everything correctly. At the end of my shift, I noticed her blood had dried across the white rubber edge of my shoes. I sat in the staff locker room scrubbing it with a disinfectant wipe. One of my colleagues told me to throw the shoes away. I couldn’t. They are expensive, and my son needs new school shoes next week. So I cleaned them until the stain faded into a pale pink line. On the drive home, I kept thinking about the woman leaving through another exit with a bag of borrowed clothes. Somewhere, her husband was still insisting she had fallen. I know she was brave. I also know bravery should not be the price of surviving your own home.