Nurses

Today I am grateful for nurses.  I was all set to write about something else, when I saw the most heartfelt video on Facebook about a male nurse who sings to and touches his patients when he administers pain medication.  I have shared it.  Please watch. I tried to attach it to the blogs but was unable to make it happen.  Sorry.  It's on upworthy.com.

In my opinion nurses are the unsung heroes of hospitals, doctor’s offices and nursing homes, even though the heroes in both extend way beyond the nurses.  Much like I felt that I was also a “teacher” when I was a secretary in an elementary school, I believe all who work with the sick and especially elderly are “nurses”, administering way more than drugs can provide.

The nurse I’d like to honor today is from long, long ago.  It was January, 1978.  I was 28 years-old (go ahead and do the math, you know you want to), in my first marriage, working as a hairdresser, with two small boys at home who had just had the flu.  Of course, I got it, too.  But it wouldn’t go away.  The fever and cramping returned every other day, with numerous trips to the doctor, who declared I had the flu.  Duh!  For several weekends the Emergency Room was our date-night. . . until one day when they admitted me.

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” the doctor said.  “It’s taking too long to diagnose and is presenting in an unusual way.”  That first night in the hospital, I have to admit, it felt sort of good to not have the responsibility of a busy house with two rambunctious toddlers.  Being honest here.  A surgeon was called in to consult.  Crap. He put me through a series of tests, asking me to lift my legs one at a time, then both, etc..  I passed with flying colors.  Now he was stumped, too.  I still had a back ache and fluctuating fever.

Very early the next morning when he came in to see me I felt great!  Almost euphoric.  The pain in my back was gone!  I told him he was a genius.  He explained that my instant “cure” doesn’t happen unless something is wrong.  “We need to do exploratory surgery and get to the bottom of this.”  With a waiting room full of patients in his office, he scheduled exploratory surgery for that morning, so if you were waiting for him, grousing about how he was late, I was his emergency and the reason he wasn’t there!  I called my husband, but he couldn’t get there that soon because of the kids.  My mom worked in the hospital in admitting so she came up to talk me off the wall.  I had already had two C sections and wasn’t anxious to be cut again.  I was prepped and whisked away before I could protest too much.

My appendix had ruptured, which was why I felt temporarily better.  No more pressure.  I was put in a private room, which was declared “dirty”, meaning ripe for infection or something awful like that.  Swell. I had suction machines and IV’s and more tubes than our old TV.  Improvement was slow, and then stopped.  The fever came back.  The concern was peritonitis. This was pre-computers, pre-google, pre-smart phones telling you every scary thing you don’t want to know.  I had to assess their faces and it wasn’t good.

At night an aide came in to fill my water.  I asked her what would happen if the fever didn’t break?  She said, “If it’s not better by morning, they might have to go back in.”  More surgery?  No, please, dear God, no!  I held it together until she left, and then turned away from the door which wasn’t easy, so no one walking past would see me  bawl. 

There had been a huge “lake effect” blizzard causing nurses to pull double and triple shifts, so all of them were stretched thin with exhaustion and patience.  It was unsafe for anyone to visit because of the roads, so I was in a full-blown pity party. The room grew as dark as a hospital room gets and I was still whoofting and sniveling and sobbing an hour later when the nurse came in for rounds. 

Still turned away from the door, I didn’t even try to face her when she gently asked what was wrong.  I told her what the aide had said.  She let out a deep sign and reached for a bottle of lotion.  She pulled the sheet aside, leaving my bare back exposed through the “Christian Dior”, half-tied hospital gown.  “What if my fever doesn’t break and they have to operate again?!”   I was a mess.

“It’s going to.  You just wait and see.”  She poured lotion into her hands. I can still smell the vanilla, so it was probably Jergens, and rubbed her hands together to warm it.  Starting at the small of my back with two strong hands she rubbed and rubbed my feverish skin, with long, soothing strokes.  Her touch was magical.  It was Heaven.  She was an angel.  Almost instantly I began to stop bawling, unclench and relax.  She didn’t say much.  She just touched me.  She quietly muttered in a soft, low tone, “. . . that’s enough now.  No more fever.  No more surgery.”  It went on for ten minutes.  No more, maybe less.  Then she pulled the sheet back over me, tucked me in and was gone. I was asleep before she got to the door.

I woke up the next morning drenched in the tsunami-sweat that only happens after a fever breaks.  Doctors were amazed.  Day nurses were shocked.  The aide couldn’t believe it.  I asked who was on shift the night before.  Schedules were so jumbled and they were so short-staffed that no one had time to research.

I never saw the nurse who saved me.  I don’t know if she was black, white, Hispanic, Asian, or something else.  I don’t know if she was married, divorced, single, gay, had kids or not.  I don’t know if she was fat or thin, tall or short.  I don’t know if she was young or old or rich or poor.  I only know that her instincts, her unselfish kindness, at exactly the right time, made a believer out of me.  She wasn’t working alone.  God blesses nurses to do a job I couldn’t. 

Next time you see a nurse, thank them. . .even if you are frustrated or upset or not exactly sure if they’ve found their calling based on their present actions.  Someplace down deep there was a reason they chose nursing.  So thank them anyway.  Help them remember.  You never know when they will have their moment and you will be forever grateful.  Like my nurse on that frosty night in January, 1978.