Today was one INTENSE, hellish Monday. Of course, everything that needed to get done DID, and I felt powerful and phenomenal at my job, but there were moments I could cry while simultaneously bludgeon someone to DEATH. That someone being a nurse.
My most notable act of the day was transferring a late-80s giant redwood of an old man to a nursing home. His wife has alzheimer's and is in a dementia unit, and his only reliable son lives in rural Alaska. We were talking about all the normal stuff regarding his discharge, when he would get overwhelmed, or couldn't move his arm, or couldn't find a word, and he would get teary. A large, wet tear tracked down his cheek, and I reached out to hold his hand tightly. I just kept saying, "It's okay. You're going to be fine." He would just nod and close his eyes as more tears would slowly roll down his cheeks on his weathered face that had seen his wife grow up from the time she was 7 and he was 9 to not remembering his name, 40 Alaskan winters, only eating the fish he caught with Inuits for many of those years, two of his three sons failing in life and blaming his harsh hand for it. I looked down at my hand in his, hoping my own tears wouldn't come, that I could act as his surrogate daughter in the absence of his children, and he squeezed my hand tight.
"You're a good girl. If I had a daughter, she'd of been like you."
I smiled, my eyes definitely glistening at this point, and told him thank you. Told him I was moving home myself because my papa was sick and I wanted to be there for him, and he grinned really big. "I called it. You're a good girl to a T."
I did everything I could for him to make his life easier. Got him a solo room at the nursing home with an ocean view, etc, and when I later spoke to his daughter-in-law, she thanked me so profusely that I could hear her own tears of gratitude. "I don't know what it is about that community, but you all sure look out for your own. Everyone at his assisted living and now you at this hospital; I can't imagine anyone could take better care of Dad. Thank God for you."
And that's a profound moment, you know? When someone says that they are thanking God for YOU, for the work YOU do, for the effort you put out without expecting any thanks at all, is a big thing. And I'm blessed. People tell me they thank God for me pretty often, which makes me want to work all the harder for them.
Later, a nurse complained that a female patient was so "whiny and demanding" while thumbing through a magazine at the nurses station. I looked at her and asked for confirmation: was it the young lady who just had a bilateral mastectomy because of her stage 4 breast cancer and was going home on hospice to die? She looked up, irritated that I gave her patient a name, a history, a valid reason to complain, and sneered a yes. Everyone else at the station then looked away with their eyebrows raised, embarrassed that this nurse, a "shining star" of the floor, could say such a thing about that poor woman. AND THEY SHOULD BE. They should be horrified and disgusted that someone who should be devoted to her care and empathetic to her situation could only complain that she actually warranted this nurse's time. I was so angry I could spit. And she knew it.
When did that get lost? When did treating a patient as a person, with a story and a heart and a soul, and not just a room number fade from healthcare? Why is it me, clinical support staff, that is sitting and listening to someone for 20 minutes? Almost everyone I spend significant time with tells me I'm the first person to listen to them, the first person to validate their fears and try to find resolutions for them, and I am ONLY ACTIVE AT THEIR DISCHARGE. It's so frustrating, and I know my hospital is one of the better facilities in regards to this.
It's times like this that I feel like it would be slapping the Universe in the face if I didn't go in to healthcare. My friend posted this on a photo I shared today, and it's PERFECT because of the last part, which is exactly what I believe. "I
am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do
something. And what I can do, I ought to do, and by the grace of God I
will do it." If I am capable of being strong for my patients, and empathetic to them, and seeing them as a soul and not just a body, then if I DIDN'T become a nurse, I would feel like I was throwing away the best abilities I have.
Because I see you. And I know you're a soul, and not just a body. And I'll listen. And I'll hold your hand. And I'll love you like you were a member of my own family, because in the grand scheme of things, you are.
"You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." -C.S. Lewis
