Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul (23 page)
Read Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul Online
Authors: Jack Canfield
On the seventh day we bundled little Ty in his brand-new blanket, and took him home, healthy and strong.
We’re still in awe of how that Perfect Plan unfolded. The kids will attest to that as they sum up the events of that day. “You’ll never believe what happened! We got to ride in a fire truck!”
Debbie Lukasiewicz
As told to LeAnn Thieman
G
od does not ask your ability or your inability.
He asks only your availability.
Mary Kay Ash
Edie worked as a nurse at the state psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. Such a job is always challenging. One of the hardest parts was admitting new patients brought in by ambulance. “You’re never sure what state they’ll be in,” Edie says. “There’s often a dangerous point, when they realize they’re going to be hospitalized.”
The Admissions Department at that hospital was in a basement area, somewhat removed from regular hospital activity. Because of this, proper procedure involved two people meeting the ambulance, an admitting nurse accompanied by a male mental-health technician.
One night Edie was helping out in a ward other than her own when she learned that a patient was on his way by ambulance. Because everyone else was busy, Edie volunteered to meet him. She was uneasy because she rarely did admissions and the technician who accompanied her was new and very hesitant. As the two came down the quiet corridor, Edie was relieved to see Dan waiting for them. Dan was a strong and thoroughly reliable tech with whom she had often worked, though never in Admissions. What a nice coincidence that he happened to be there at just the right moment.
Edie greeted the young patient with a smile. “Hi, I’m Edie. I’ll be doing your admission.” His expression began to change and, without warning, the young man lunged at Edie, grabbing for her throat. The other tech barely reacted, but Dan instantly caught the patient in a basket hold and subdued him while Edie summoned additional help.
Her heart was still racing an hour later when she and Dan had a chance to discuss the close call. “I’m so glad you were there,” Edie told him. “Otherwise, I could have been badly injured.”
“It was lucky you phoned,” Dan agreed. “But how did you know I was working overtime, five buildings away from you?”
Edie frowned. “What do you mean, Dan? I didn’t call you.”
“But—,” Dan stared at her, puzzled. “Some woman phoned our medical-room nurse. She said, ‘Send Dan to Admissions. Edie needs help.’”
Some woman. But who? The busy nurse on Edie’s floor hadn’t phoned. They had already sent an escort with Edie, and they weren’t aware Dan was still on duty in a building on the other side of the grounds. The nurse on Dan’s ward didn’t know Edie or anything about the new admission.
Who summoned Dan to the danger zone before Edie had even arrived? No one ever discovered the answer. But Edie knows. “The ninety-first Psalm has always been a favorite of mine,” she says. “. . . No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near you. For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways.”
Joan Wester Anderson
N
othing is or can be accidental with God.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In 1966, during the earliest days of kidney transplantation, I witnessed a series of events where I could clearly see the hand of God touching a man’s life.
I was a member of the transplant team in a very large, busy hospital. The plan was in place for a man named Don to donate a kidney to his younger brother, Ray, on Wednesday the third.
On the morning of Monday the first, Ray was beginning his scheduled kidney dialysis four floors below the surgery suite. Monday was a heavily scheduled day for surgeries. I was assisting a surgeon in one room while another nurse resterilized the transplant equipment used over the weekend.
At the same time, a man in his mid-thirties entered the emergency room in cardiac arrest. The intern, who had just spent the previous month as part of the kidney transplant team, recognized the man as Don. He had worked with this donor just the week before. When his frantic efforts to save Don failed, the intern continued CPR, hoping to save the kidney until his younger brother was located. His staff called our surgery suite and was stunned to learn that not only were there two surgery rooms suddenly available, but the younger brother was in the building undergoing his weekly dialysis.
The responsibility fell on the nurses in the dialysis unit to explain to Ray that his brother had fallen gravely ill at work and was not able to be revived. With the two brothers side by side in adjoining operating rooms, the kidney was removed from Don and successfully implanted into Ray.
In a big-city hospital, only by the grace of God could two surgical suites be empty on a busy Monday morning, the kidney transplant team be in the OR, the kidney recipient be in the hospital, and the intern recognize the donor at the time of his death.
That day each team member felt they were a part of implementing God’s will on this Earth.
Jo Stickley
Reprinted by permission of Benita Epstein.
H
umanity is never so beautiful as when praying
for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.
Jean Paul Richter
The real power of healing is not about curing diseases. This was revealed to me by a male nurse who spent a lot of time with a woman in a nursing home who hadn’t been able to walk for six years. Edward lifted her in and out of her chair or into the bed, depending on her schedule.
She always wanted to talk about God and forgiveness. Because Edward had had a near-death experience, he felt comfortable doing this.
One night it was so late that Edward slipped out without being the one to put her to bed. He was heading for his car in the parking lot when he heard her call, “Edward!” He snuck back inside and into her room.
“Are you sure God forgives us for everything?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m sure, from my own experience,” he said. “You know the gospel song that tells us, ‘He knows every lie that you and I have told, and though it makes him very sad to see the way we live, he’ll always say “I forgive.”’”
She sighed. “When I was a young woman I stole my parents’ silver and sold it so I would have enough money to get married. I’ve never told anyone and no one ever found out. Will God forgive me?”
“Yes,” Edward reassured her. “God will forgive you.
Good night.”
When Edward arrived back at work the next morning, he was told to see the administrator who asked what he had told the woman the night before.
“As usual,” Edward explained, “we talked about God and forgiveness. Why?”
“At 3:00 A.M. the woman came out of her room and, with no help, walked the entire length of the nursing home, put her Bible and teeth on the nurse’s desk and said, ‘I don’t need these any more.’ Then she turned and walked back to her room, laid down and died.”
This is what the soul of nursing is all about, the reason God created a world where we can all be nurses by showing our compassion and empathy for the wounded.
Bernie Siegel
D
eath is not a failure of medical science but
the last act of life.
Patch Adams, M.D.
Death came to call most often in the early morning hours. Sometimes peacefully, taking my patient as he dreamed. Sometimes violently, with a rattle deep in the throat. Sometimes Death came like a refreshing breeze and carried away my long-suffering patient like a buoyant kite cut loose in the wind, leaving her pain behind. Sometimes it was only after much pumping and pounding and fluids and medications and electrical shocking that we allowed Death to come. But, for whatever rationale, it was my personal observation that Death came to call most frequently in the early morning hours, and for that solitary reason I came to dread the night shift.
Until Olga.
Olga was a terminal-cancer patient whose family could no longer endure the hardship of caring for her at home. It was the family decision, with this strong matriarch leading the family, to place her in one of the beds our tiny hospital designated for long-term, palliative care. Olga firmly insisted they pay only for thirty days because she had chosen the fourth of July to be her “freedom day”— her chosen day to die. Her doctor, on the other hand, stated his expectations. Although she was terminal, she would probably live three to six months, and her demise would be a slow and probably very painful process. He gave orders to provide comfort measures and allow complete freedom for family visitation.
The family came faithfully every day, often staying for hours talking or just sitting with Olga and listening to the radio perpetually playing the Christian music she loved. When the song “I Give You Love” would play, Olga smiled broadly and announced, “That’s my favorite song. That’s the last song I want to hear when I die.”
On the night of July third, I came on duty as charge nurse for the night shift. According to report, Olga’s family had been in to see her that evening and left instructions for the nurses not to call them if “it happened,” as they had all said their good-byes. “Please allow Reverend Steve to sit with her,” they said. “He wants to accompany her in her passage.” With the warped humor only nurses understand, the evening shift joked, “Olga’s vital signs are stable and there’s nothing physiologically to indicate her death is imminent. Lucky you. You’re going to have to deal with Olga in the morning, and boy is she going to be mad that she’s still here!”
But, things are different at night. Night is when we are closer to ourselves, and closer to our cardinal truths and ideas. I checked on Olga and, pulling her covers up around her shoulders, whispered, “Good night, beautiful lady.”
Olga smiled and whispered back, “Good night and good-bye. You know, tomorrow is my freedom day.” A warm sense of calm settled about my shoulders—a strong but strangely comforting awareness that she might be right, even though it went against logic, reason and educated predications. Though her vital signs were unchanged, I left the room feeling Olga was very much in control of her destiny.
Throughout the night, Mary, the other nurse on duty, and I turned Olga and provided care. Reverend Steve sat holding her hand, and together they listened as the radio softly played one song after another. When we returned to her room mid-shift, Olga did not arouse as we gently repositioned her.
At 6:00
A.M
., just as the sun cast a warm rosy glow through the windows, Mary and I returned to her room. Reverend Steve requested we wait just a few minutes as he felt Olga was “almost through her passage.” As I stood at the foot of her bed watching this young minister accompanying Olga to her journey’s door, I was filled with awe and a sense of envy of the mastery this strong and beautiful woman had over her life. Out of habit, I checked my watch and began counting her respirations, one—two—three. At that moment, a song began on the radio and a smile spread over Olga’s sleeping face. “I Give You Love”—four—five—six. . . .