Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul (13 page)

There is more to our profession than beeps and clicks, procedures and results. We may not have the ability to “fix” everyone, but we definitely have the capability and responsibility to have compassion for them, to make them comfortable, to be their advocate, and to be the person who comes into their room and makes them feel like a human being.

I decided to become a nurse so that I would have the chance to feel the same as I did that day when I saw the life spring back into all those children when some attention was paid to them. A little smile, some small talk or a pat on the hand may be all our patients need to lift their spirits. I may be inexperienced and naive, but I do know that those children lit up when we came into their rooms. I also saw that the nurses who made them laugh, or took a minute to play with them, got the same reaction that we got from giving candy and games.

We need to bear in mind that while our patients need procedures done, they also need a warm touch. They may need tests run, but a soothing voice may be just as important to them.

When I graduate from school next year and enter the white-scrubbed and gloved world of medicine, I vow to remember that as a nurse, I will not only have the ability to give care to my patients, but also to care for them.

Christine Ehlers

In memory of Jason McGraw (1978–1991)

The Hip in 46B

T
he supreme happiness of life is the conviction
that we are loved.

Victor Hugo

As medical caregivers in hospitals and nursing homes, we sometimes become a bit callous in how we identify our patients. I mean, after all, we do see lots of them. And over the years they seem to blur together a bit. How could we remember each name?

I learned how when I was a physical therapist starting a small private practice in a skilled nursing facility. We had minimal equipment, funding, personnel and space, but we were inspired by the rehabilitation possibilities in the elderly.

One day I asked my aide, Bobby, to go and get “the hip in 46B” because he had a repaired hip fracture and needed to walk in the parallel bars. She went off to retrieve him in his wheelchair.

Momentarily, Bobby returned and stated that “the hip in 46B” did not want therapy today. I said, “Well, he has to become weight bearing. We need to work on his balance, and we need him down here in the parallel bars to do that. Please go ask him again.”

A second time she went to convince him. Soon she returned stating, “He says he is not getting out of bed and is not coming to therapy today.”

“Okay, I’ll go down and talk to him,” I said.

I will never forget walking into that lovely gentleman’s room and suddenly seeing the man. The person. Next to him, on his nightstand, was a magazine my father used to receive,
The Nebraska Rancher and Farmer.
A book title read,
Who’s Who in Hotel and Restaurant Management.
I picked it up to see his name honored there. He had been more important in his life than I would probably ever be in mine. And now he was confined to a bed in a room where all his choices had been taken from him: when to go to the bathroom, when and where to go to meals, when to go anywhere— including therapy. He had been stripped not only of his belongings, but also of his independence and self-worth. And now all he wanted to do was assert some sense of control over his own body; make a choice or two on his own time.

I took his hand. “Good morning, Mr. Carlson. What time would you like to go to therapy today?”

Linda McNeil

I Baptize You . . .

B
lessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure
for a child, for there is no saying when and
where it may bloom forth.

Douglas Jerrold

Years ago I attended a Catholic nursing school, but no one in our class was Catholic. This posed a problem with some of the church doctrines. In our first year, the entire class almost missed being “capped” because we refused to do a procedure: baptize a fetus or person after death. Since we were all Baptist or Pentecostal, this was contrary to our religious beliefs.

As president of the class, I took the brunt of the lecture from Sister James Cecilia. “Miss Sanefsky, you knew this was a Catholic school when you applied. You should also have known that you would have to adhere to our teachings.” I wasn’t convinced, but I wanted my cap as much as my twenty-three other classmates did, so we compromised. We agreed to learn it if we could be assured we would never have to take part in this procedure.

Years went by. I married Harley and moved to Ohio where I worked in a small eighty-bed hospital. There were many Catholics employed there, so I never worried about having to perform last rites or baptisms until one stormy night.

The rain came down in buckets and lightning flashed as I worked second shift in the nursery. A woman came in and delivered two months prematurely, giving birth to a baby weighing two pounds and one ounce. We knew this little person had little chance of surviving. Our nursery was primitive. We had no neonatologists; only incubators, oxygen and prayer.

As the tempest raged, we worked to clear this little guy’s lungs. All we knew to do to keep him alive was to keep the incubator at 98 degrees.

I took him to see his mother and her first words were, “I want him baptized.” When I phoned her priest to come, he told me he had no transportation on this stormy night. He would be there first thing in the morning.

This gave us cause to panic. We knew this baby had a slim chance of surviving the night. I went back to the mother and let her know what the priest had said. She was devastated as she repeated the doctor’s prediction that her baby may not be alive in the morning. Desperately, she begged me to baptize him. I paged my Catholic supervisor. She was off. I called all over the hospital. Not one single Catholic was on duty. It was falling back on me. I prayed, “Oh no, God, you know how I feel about this. I can’t do it.”

After talking to the mother once more and seeing her desperation, I conceded. I would baptize him “conditionally” as I was taught years before. I explained that I was not Catholic and how my faith viewed infant baptism. I told her I would do it if she really wanted me to, or we could pray that the baby live until the priest came in the morning. Adamantly, she insisted she wanted it done right then. So I proceeded to the nursery and the task I felt unprepared to do.

I prayed as I got a sterile medicine cup, sterile water and sterile cotton balls. Gently, I lifted this precious baby’s head in the palm of my hand. With my other hand, I poured the sterile water over his head. “Joseph Sanchez, I baptize you, conditionally, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” With tears running down my face, I wiped this angelic little head with the sterile cotton, changed the wet towel beneath him and took him back to his mother.

Overwhelmed, she cradled this tiny gift of God in her arms. I knew then I had done the right thing. I brought peace to this young mother so she could give him back to God, if that was in the scheme of things.

The story doesn’t end there. Over the months that followed, this baby became “Little Joe” to us in the nursery. Each day we prayed he would live through our shift, then we gave the responsibility to the next.

One afternoon, I was met in our staffing room with, “Little Joe had a bad day, and he may not live through the night.” I prayed, “Please Lord, don’t take him on my watch.” I made rounds on all the babies in the nursery and came to the incubator. The temperature gauge read 80 degrees. The temperature had to be at a constant 98 degrees or he would die! I went around to the back of the incubator, and I found the electrical plug lying on the floor. I quickly plugged it back in, called the doctor and then my pastor. I asked him to pray. We worked frantically to bring Joey’s temperature back up, placing warm towels on his body. Prayers went up to heaven for him. He lived through the night.

I was off for three days. When I came back, he was gone. He had reached five pounds and was sent home at three months of age. After having cared for him all those months, I was crushed I didn’t get to say good-bye.

The Bible says, “Some plant, some water and then some harvest.” I prayed that this little boy would grow and be nurtured in the love of God for he was indeed a miracle baby.

But the story doesn’t end there, either. Years went by and then one night, my husband, Harley, came home from a men’s church dinner. “Wait ’til you see what I have for you.” In his hand was a picture of a young boy. On the back was this message:

Dear Ms. Houseman,

My name is Joseph Sanchez. I am fourteen years old
and weigh 140 pounds. Thank you for taking care of me
when I was born.

Little Joe.

God puts us in places to do special things, and we may not always agree, but we better be obedient.

Beverly Houseman

“Sorry about the mix-up, Mr. Bixford.
We’ll be moving you to a semi-private room shortly.”

CLOSE TO HOME
© John McPherson. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS
SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.

A Visit from an Angel

A patient came into my office this week to have a physical exam and to get a refill on high-blood-pressure medicine. My heart filled with great pity as she undressed, revealing a frail, stooped body. Every joint was deformed from years of arthritis. Her thinning hair was gray and lifeless; her brown eyes were clouded by cataracts.

As I asked her the usual questions, every answer she gave surprised me.

“No, I don’t hurt much.”

“Yes, I still cook and clean my little house.”

“No, I don’t sleep much, but that gives me more time to read my Bible.”

I proceeded to talk to her about getting her cataracts removed and to accept a referral to an arthritis specialist. I pleaded with her to join the senior citizens group for companionship. As I knelt down to help her tie her worn, frayed shoes, I stressed how concerned I was about her living alone in the shape she was in. She took my hand in her crippled grasp.

“My little nurse,” she said, “don’t you believe in God?”

“Oh yes, Ma’am, I do.”

“Well, believe in him a little harder and you won’t worry about me so.”

She limped out of my office with her paper sack for a purse, and for a moment I thought I saw angel wings on her back.

Sarah Webb Johnson

New Job

I
f you think about what you ought to do for
other people, your character will take care of
itself.

Woodrow Wilson

Finding a new job when I moved to another state proved to be more daunting than I’d anticipated. At the hospital closest to my home, there were no immediate openings. The nurse recruiter suggested I try the new adjoining continuing care facility. “They’re always hard up for nurses,” she mumbled under her breath as I left the office.