Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul (4 page)

His public put-down to nurses was a punch in the stomach. I was incensed. My adrenaline kicked in, and I abruptly elbowed my way through the crowd, past the insulting conductor and back on the train.

Three men were standing like statues staring at a young man crumpled over in the seat. His face was the color of a ripe plum. Fortunately, the ABCs of cardiopulmonary resuscitation clicked into my brain. The man was obviously obstructing his own airway. I was relieved to find a pulse.

“He had a seizure,” one man offered.

“Help me sit him up,” I instructed the bystanders, as I loosened his collar and tie. We hoisted him to an upright position, and I quickly did a jaw thrust and tilted his head to the side. Mucous and blood oozed out. With a wadded tissue from my pocket I cleared more thick mucous from his mouth and throat. A thump on the shoulder caused him to take in a big breath of air. Within seconds, his color changed to pink and his eyes opened. His tongue was bruised and cut from biting it, but he was breathing well.

I heard the ambulance siren in the background.

Shaking now, I returned to my husband, praying the man didn’t have AIDS and searching for something to wipe my sticky hands on.

“Hey, you did a good job,” one of the men who had been a bystander called to me.

“Thanks,” I replied with a pleased smile, as I stared directly at the conductor who still clutched his walkie-talkie and looked surprised. He stammered, “I guess a
nurse
is what I needed after all.”

Triumphantly, I marched off, hoping at least one person had a new insight into the capabilities of the nursing profession. Because, at that moment, I was especially proud to be a nurse.

Barbara A. Brady

“Do you want to speak to the man in charge—or the nurse who knows what’s going on?”

Reprinted by permission of Chris S. Patterson.

Nellie

C
hildren are God’s apostles sent forth day by
day to preach of love, hope and peace.

J. R. Lowell

Nellie was only two years old, the only child of a single mother whose boyfriend walked out when he found out she was pregnant. Not an unusual story in an inner city— but Nellie was unusual. She wrapped your heart around her little finger the moment you met her. Her eyes, huge ovals and black as shiny metal, looked out of a pale, round face. I was told her hair was once dark and curly, but when we met she was bald from chemotherapy.

Nellie had leukemia. During her six months in the hospital, doctors had tried one chemotherapy regimen after another, trying to save her life. I was Nellie’s primary nurse at a time when primary nursing was not the norm. We all felt Nellie needed someone constant in her life. Her mother, unable to cope with Nellie’s devastating illness, rarely visited. Whenever a care conference was scheduled to discuss the next mode of treatment, Nellie’s mother came to be included in decisions. She wanted to make sure everything possible was being done for her daughter. But she just couldn’t visit. I always thought she had already said good-bye.

When I first met Nellie she had just started the fifth round of chemotherapy. Her face and body were swollen from steroids. She had a Broviac line in her chest for medications and IV fluids; she had severe stomatitis and was unable to take anything orally; her perirectal area was red and raw from constant diarrhea. Yet she had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen, reaching all the way to her eyes. I wondered when she had decided that pain was just a part of everyday life and decided to smile anyway.

Two things made Nellie happy: being rocked while I sang soft lullabies, and going bye-bye in the red wagon. With a fireman’s cap on her head, a face mask on to protect her from anyone else’s germs, and the red light flashing on the wagon’s front end, we walked around and around the unit saying “hi” to all the “’ick babies.” Nellie had a problem with her S’s.

And she had a faith in God only a child could have. “Unless you become as little children . . . “ Nellie bowed her head each time she said his name. She called him “’oly God.” H’s were a problem, too. When I would finish doing her morning bath and dressing her in a soft fuzzy sleeper, she would snuggle into my lap and ask me about “’oly God.”

“Is his ’ouse big?” she would ask with wonder in her voice. “How big is it?” Then, “Tell me again about the ’treets of gold.” She remembered all the children’s Bible stories her mother had read to her.

One morning she surprised me with the simplicity of her trust. “Pretty soon I go to ’oly God’s house.”

“Everyone will go to Holy God’s house someday,” I replied, trying to deny the truth that she had already accepted.

“I know that,” she said with all the assurance of a two-year-old who understands the mysteries of the universe, “but I’m going firstest.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, choking back tears.

“’Oly God. He told me,” she said matter-of-factly. When the fifth series of chemotherapy drugs failed to have the desired effect, the doctors coordinated a care conference. Nellie’s mother was coming and the plan was to get permission to try a new set of experimental drugs, not yet approved for use in pediatric patients. I was surprised at my angry response. “When are we going to say that’s enough? It’s time to let Nellie go.” I couldn’t believe this was me speaking. I never thought there would come a time when I would think it was not only okay, but the only right thing to do, to stop treatment on a child. I was more pro-life than the Pope, yet in the deepest part of my spirit I knew someone needed to fight for Nellie’s right to die.

My worry was needless. When I returned to work the next night, Nellie was off all drugs. The plan was to keep her as comfortable as possible. She was my only patient that night. In the past twenty-four hours, her already swollen body had become even more edematous. I’m not sure why, but for the first time, Nellie didn’t want to be held or rocked. I sat alongside her crib and stroked her puffy face. The short stubble of hair on her head was scratchy under my fingers. Nellie laid awake the first part of the night. I never left her side.

Somewhere around three in the morning, she turned and said, “You hold Nellie now. Nellie going bye-bye.”

“The wagons are put away for the night, Nellie,” I said, clinging to my denial.

“You hold Nellie now,” she repeated. “Nellie going bye-bye.”

Gently, I lifted her fragile body from the crib and cradled her in my arms. I held her on my chest with her head resting on my shoulder, her warm breath on my neck. We rocked back and forth, back and forth, as I stroked her and sang, “Jesus loves the little children.”

After several minutes, Nellie lifted her head, using all the strength she had left and said, “He’s here,” then lay her head back down on my shoulder. I could no longer feel her soft breath on my neck. I’m not sure exactly how long I held and rocked her as the tears ran down my cheeks. Finally, I put on the call light to let someone know that Nellie had gone bye-bye with ’oly God.

Joan Filbin

All in a Day’s Work

I
f I can ease one life the
aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

Emergency-room personnel transported him to the cardiac floor. Long hair, unshaven, dirty, dangerously obese and a black motorcycle jacket tossed on the bottom shelf of the stretcher—an outsider to this sterile world of shining terrazzo floors, efficient uniformed professionals and strict infection-control procedures.

Definitely an untouchable!

The nurses at the station looked wide-eyed as this mound of humanity was wheeled by—each glancing nervously at my friend Bonnie, the head nurse. “Let this one not be mine to admit, bathe and tend to . . . ” was the pleading, unspoken message from their inner concern.

One of the true marks of a leader, a consummate professional, is to do the unthinkable. To touch the untouchable. To tackle the impossible. Yes, it was Bonnie who said, “I want this patient myself.” Highly unusual for a head nurse—unconventional—but “the stuff” out of which human spirits thrive, heal and soar. As she donned her latex gloves and proceeded to bathe this huge, filthy man, her heart almost broke. Where was his family? Who was his mother? What was he like as a little boy?

She hummed quietly as she worked to ease the fear and embarrassment she knew he must have been feeling. And then on a whim she said, “We don’t have time for back rubs much in hospitals these days, but I bet one would really feel good. And, it would help you relax your muscles and start to heal. That is what this place is all about—a place to heal.”

All in a day’s work. Touching the untouchable.

His thick, scaly, ruddy skin told a story of an abusive lifestyle. Probably lots of addictive behavior, to food, alcohol and drugs. As Bonnie rubbed the taut muscles, she hummed and prayed. Prayed for the soul of a little boy grown up, rejected by life’s rudeness and striving for acceptance in a hard, hostile world.

The finale—warmed lotion and baby powder. Almost laughable—such a contrast on this huge, rugged surface. As he rolled over onto his back, tears rolled down his cheek. With amazingly beautiful brown eyes, he smiled and said in a quivering voice, “No one has touched me for years.” His chin trembled. “Thank you. I
am
healing.”

In a day when we have increasing concern about the appropriateness of touch, Bonnie taught this hurting world to still dare to touch the untouchable through eye contact, a warm handshake, a concerned voice—or the physical reassurance of warmed lotion and baby powder.

Naomi Rhode

Previously appeared in
Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work

Jack

After working many years in a large metropolitan hospital, with state-of-the-art conveniences, my work as P.M. charge nurse in a small, local convalescent hospital yielded many frustrations. Occasionally, we lacked supplies or equipment, and sometimes the food was less than desirable. The biggest problem was the lack of qualified help. Still, everyone working there genuinely loved the patients and did their best to care for them.

Alice, a tiny, alert, elderly lady with bright blue, twinkling eyes was everyone’s favorite. Her only living relative was her son Jack, a large, tough man. Tattoos covered his arms and a scraggly beard grew haphazardly on his chin. No matter how cold the weather was, he always wore a tank-top shirt so the dragon and snake artwork could be admired by all. He wore faded jeans, so stiff with grime, they could have stood alone. His loud and gruff manner terrified most of the staff.

But this monstrous man loved his tiny mother. Every day, he roared up to the hospital entrance on his old motorcycle, flung open the front door and tromped down the hall to her room, his clacking boot heels loudly announcing his arrival. He visited at unpredictable hours so he could surprise anyone he suspected of not taking proper care of his mother. Yet, his gentleness with her amazed me.

I made friends with Jack, figuring I’d rather be a friend with a man like him, than an enemy. And I, like everyone else, truly loved his mother.

One particularly bad evening, three aides called in sick, the food carts were late and cold, and one of the patients fell and broke his hip. Jack came in at suppertime to help his mother with her meal. He stood gawking at me in the nurses’ station as I busily tried to do the work of three nurses. Overwhelmed and near tears, I avoided his stare.