An Important Week

I read the other day that this week is Nurses Week. I got a story…

A long time ago, in a lifetime that seems far, far away, there was a young lad. He was strikingly handsome for his age with his blonde hair and movie star smile, and wise beyond his years. Huh? Cool! A Brad Pitt story! Not quite, Sancho... During the school year when the weather was nice, he would lead his entourage of 7- and 8-year-olds from the neighborhood at one end of town to the elementary school at the other. Along the way, while trading the occasional baseball card or just yapping about whatever it is that second- and third-graders yap about, they would pass a large imposing building. It was the largest building in that part of town and always seemed to evoke a combination of fear and foreboding in most of the kids.

Ah, but not for our fearless leader. For even though it was the hospital…and you never wanted to go to the hospital…it was something of a sanctuary for our boy, whom we will call, oh, what the hell…Peter. You see, Mom worked there. She was a nurse. In fact, as far as I was concerned, she ran the place. And a couple of times a week I’d duck in on my way home from school, leaving the gang to their afternoons while I entered this amazing other world that had the revolving doors and the elevator that went up to the third floor.

Upon leaving that elevator, this other world that was called the Coronary Care Unit, had ancient computers (circa 1967) and display screens of green and brown with flashing lights and grids. These lights and grids were accompanied by various beeps and tones that if you listened long enough, became background music that the nurses and the occasional doctor moved to. It was an orchestra and dance, of healing. And then there were the beds. The beds had these display screens and grids and sounds hovering over each of them – 4 beds in all. They were connected to the huge desk in the middle of this large room. The screens were larger at this desk and they kept an eye on all the beds, as well as those unfortunate ones who occupied these beds.

Ah, the unfortunate ones... The nurses took care of these unfortunate ones, as their predecessors had done for centuries. At times it was quiet, almost normal in this room of illness and dread. The nurses talked to the patients and the patients talked back. Medicine was given; monitors were read and recorded; and charts were filled out. There were some patients, however, who didn’t talk back. They lay silent and entombed as though they had succumbed to their ticket to the next life. The physical trauma that befell them was too great. And there were even times when they stopped talking forever, right in front of me. It was then that I began my life-long journey to Hamlet's great unknown.

I learned at an early age that nurses are a combination of things. I mean, it took a little while to come to grips with the idea that my mother who played the organ in church, and cooked dinner, and made me brush my teeth was also this person who read these weird computer things, stuck needles in old people’s arms and chests, and yelled at the top of her lungs for the doctor. Well, I knew Mom yelled, but it never occurred to me that anyone listened!!

You see, this combination of things – technician, psychiatrist, medical savant, and hand holder – is a rare gift. The depths of empathy and caring are immeasurable. I know, because I’ve seen it, not only in my mother, but my grandmother and my niece, as well. Three generations of practicing nurses. Nursing is somewhat of a family business. An honourable profession; dare I say art form, that doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves.

A coda: My childhood years were spent in a home with a nurse and a preacher (more about the preacher in a bit). I was in the front row of spiritual and physical healing. And not until years later when I was older and wise enough, did I think about which of these philosophies is better; to preach and yet not know if your preaching and attempt at spiritual healing had paid off…because, well, how would you know? Or would it be better to be in the business of physical healing, and know immediately if your efforts and sweat had paid off…or not?

It was so many years ago, and I might be remembering it wrong, but I’ll finish with this story in the hopes of answering the above question...or not. One day in the coronary care unit, that was run by my Mom in the building where I would sometimes stop on my way home from school; I was sitting at that large desk in the middle of the room, staring in awe at those people in their white uniforms and all the flashing lights, and listening to the beeps in the background. All of a sudden there was a different sound…a loud, scary, ear-piercing sound. All hell broke loose. Mom yelled, “Get out, now!” And for a change, I listened and ran to the elevator, out to the revolving doors and up Wilson Avenue to the security of home.

A few hours later, the nurse walked through the door. She looked tired, and there was blood on her uniform (like there would be many days after this one). “Is the man okay?” I asked. “He’s going to be fine,” she replied. 

He was fine because of the nurse…my Mom.

It’s Nurses Week. Say “Thank You".