Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul (12 page)

“No, no, Mama, please don’t go, please don’t leave me!” I begged. She just smiled slightly and told me she’d be back tomorrow, to be a good girl and do what the nurses told me.

As I listened to her footsteps fade away, I turned over in my bed and curled up in a tight little ball, facing away from the door. I tried to think of something happy. I tried to think of songs I liked to sing. I tried to remember the faces of all my stuffed animals at home. I thought hard, but my thoughts were interrupted by another nurse who said firmly, “Time for bed.”

I sat up then, and she removed my robe and pajamas and dressed me in a hospital gown. I lay back down and curled up tighter than ever and wept. The lights were turned out then, and I lay awake in the dark.

Much later, I heard someone enter the room, where I still whimpered in my bed. “You’re not asleep yet?” a pleasant, quiet voice asked.

“I can’t sleep,” I said, trembling.

“Sit up a minute and talk to me,” the voice coaxed. I sat up then, and in the dim light I could see it was a nurse, but not one I had seen before.

“I want to go home,” I said, sobbing again. The nurse reached forward and held me as I cried. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I moaned, and my stomach began to heave.

She held a basin in front of me and wiped my face gently with a damp washcloth. She cradled me then as I calmed down, and I lay limp against her shoulder as she rocked me back and forth.

After what seemed like a very long time, she looked down at me and said, “I have some work to do now, so I can’t stay with you.” Seeing my dejected look, she added, “But maybe you could come and be with me. Let’s see.”

In the hallway there were low wooden wagons with mattresses and pillows that the nurses used to take some of the children outside for some fresh air. She brought one of these to my bedside and beckoned for me to get in. As she lifted me down to the wagon, I looked at her shiny name pin and read “Miss White.”

Miss White wheeled me out to the nurses’ station and parked the wagon by the desk. I watched as she sat and wrote, and every once in awhile she’d look over at me and smile. “Want something to drink now?” she asked. I nodded and sipped the apple juice she brought, and soon I drifted off to sleep. Early in the morning she rolled me back to my bed, and I was so tired that I hardly noticed when she told me good-bye.

My mother did come to see me later that day, and the next night was not quite as hard to bear. I had to stay in the hospital for only a few days before my brief ordeal was over. But I never forgot how terrified I felt, and I never forgot Miss White’s kindness to a desperately lonely and scared little girl.

This incident ran quickly through my mind, and I thought for a moment before I answered the dean’s question. Why did I want to be a nurse? I straightened up in my chair and lifted my chin and said, “Being a patient in a hospital is a frightening thing, for anyone. Some people conceal it better than others, but all patients are afraid. I remember being a frightened child in a hospital when I was only six, and there was a nurse there who was very kind to me. She was the one who made my stay bearable.”

The room was quiet as I went on. “I have always remembered her, and I want to be the kind of nurse she was. I want to be the one who cheers up a frightened child, holds the hand of a lonely older person, soothes the anxiety of a nervous patient.”

I was accepted to the nursing program and worked hard to learn the skills and techniques necessary to provide the best care for my patients. On graduation night as I stepped up to the stage to accept my diploma, I thought of Miss White and smiled. She would never know what a profound influence she’d had on me. She taught me the most important lessons in nursing. She taught me the significance of empathy for the patient and his or her plight, of compassion in easing the difficulty of another. What she gave to me was now my own to give, the gentle touch of kindness that makes the difference to our patients and to our world.

Tricia Caliguire

THE FAMILY CIRCUS

By Bill Keane

“I can’t sleep in here very good ’cause I can’t hear Daddy watchin’ TV or Mommy doing the dishes or Barfy barking or PJ crying . . .”

Reprinted with permission from Bil Keane.

A Part of the Team

A
teacher affects eternity; he can never tell
where his influences stop.

Henry Adams

In the summer of 1945, my father directed a camp for inner-city children and teens. He hired two young women to be the nurses for that camping season. They allowed me to be their shadow, and I watched everything they did and listened to everything they said. I sat quietly in a corner of the infirmary each morning as campers came through for treatment of sore throats, cuts and bruises, poison ivy, mosquito bites and homesickness. Some days they even let me help clean up the infirmary after sick call. If I was really good, they took me with them on cabin visits to check on the sick campers.

My father was alone one morning when he drove a truckload of garbage to burn at the dump. When the trash was emptied from the truck, he lit a match and threw it onto the pile of rubble. He stepped back, expecting the garbage to slowly burn. He waited. No flame; nothing was burning. Dad bent over and lit another match.

An explosion wrapped him in flames.

He rolled alone on the ground to put out the flames, got into the truck and sped back to the campgrounds. He drove up the road toward the dining hall, blasting the horn. People came running from everywhere. Orders were shouted to those around. I watched, frightened and confused, hardly able to believe what was happening around me.

Suddenly, a station wagon came to a screeching halt right behind the garbage truck. The doors flew open and out jumped the two camp nurses. They guided my father into the back seat of the station wagon, got in the car and sat on either side of him, and wrapped his arms in wet towels. The car sped off to the nearest hospital emergency room where he was treated for several days.

When he returned to the camp, he resembled a mummy. His arms, hands, neck and head were covered with large white bandages, with only his mouth and eyes showing. His bed was moved into the living room of the family cottage where the two nurses and my mother cared for him day and night. Each day they removed the large white bandages from his arms and neck, treated the areas and applied fresh dressings to the wounds. Dad groaned with pain but never complained. When they finished this routine, he was always able to rest. That was the only time he could tolerate anyone touching him.

On the day he came home, I stood in the shadows of the room watching as they cared for him. I heard my name. One of the nurses was calling me. She told me they were giving me the responsibility of seeing that he had plenty to drink. I was also to feed him the meals the camp cook sent down to the cottage for him. So each day I sat at his bedside, ready to get whatever he needed. Sometimes he would have me read to him as he rested. Mother and the nurses praised me for being part of the team. Every day they told me my father was getting better because I gave him such “good nursing care.” I felt pride and satisfaction in being able to do something for someone hurting.

Those feelings stayed with me forever. I wonder if those camp nurses knew how they influenced the life of an eight-year-old child. I wonder if they ever imagined the impact they had in molding my forty-year career in nursing—forty years as a member of healing teams.

Viola Ruelke Gommer

THE FAMILY CIRCUS

By Bill Keane

“I wanna be a nurse, Mommy!
So when I grow up, can I go to nursery school?”

Reprinted with permission from Bil Keane.

To Care for Them

K
nowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

It’s funny how the most unexpected circumstances can change our lives forever. In April of 1991, my friend Jason was diagnosed with leukemia; we were in the seventh grade. I went to visit him a few times at the Miami Children’s Hospital, and the first time I went there, I noticed something. Jason’s room was filled with balloons and flowers; cards and pictures were scattered everywhere. People called him and visited him and wrote him letters. Something was always going on in his room; someone was always there for him. We came from a small town in the Florida Keys, and everyone was wonderful when it came to Jason. People who didn’t even know him got together and sent get-well baskets. The town held blood drives in his honor. The support was endless.

Jason’s room was at the end of the hall and visiting him meant walking by all the other rooms where the walls were bare. The televisions were turned off and the children lay quietly in their beds, alone, facing what I’m sure was the most frightening experience of their lives. Not all those children had what Jason had. That’s where my uncle’s idea came from.

When we got home after that visit, the two of us went to work. My uncle called on some people from our community for help, and he phoned the oncology ward of the hospital and got every child’s name who was staying there. The next time the two of us went to visit Jason, we stepped on to that floor pushing a cart of buckets filled with candy, magazines, hats and games. The two of us wore multicolored beanie caps with propellers on them that spun around like the props to a helicopter as we walked.

We said hello to Jason and then made a procession down the hallway, stopping at every child’s room, delivering the gifts that my uncle and the rest of our little community had donated. In each child’s room, we hung a banner with his or her name on it, wishing each child a speedy recovery. The expressions on their faces were priceless.

We walked in, acknowledging the child by name, and at first they had no idea what we were doing in their room wearing those silly hats. When we started decorating their rooms and handing them their buckets of candy and toys, the smiles that spread across their faces were the biggest I’ve ever seen. To have interaction with someone, to know that someone cared about them, to know that they weren’t alone, seemed to really make a difference to those children.

The last patient we planned to visit was in isolation, so my uncle and I were not allowed inside. A caring nurse donned the necessary garb and brought in the gifts we had for the little boy. The boy came to the door, looked out the window of it with a huge smile, and mouthed “thank you.” It was a moment in my life that I will never forget.

My past experiences have led me to the place I currently find myself—finishing my first year as a nursing student. It has been exciting to learn about medicine and machines, how things work, and what to do when they don’t work. Learning how to create a sterile field, change dressings, set up IV lines and administer meds are all so exciting to someone who is just starting off. Only, this is not the reason I decided to become a nurse.