More than a nurse

I embraced my patient assignment last Friday morning with all the gumption I could muster up at the end of a long work week. Conveniently enough, Ali’s box of special crafts and a Lion King itunes playlist also found their way to A ward on Friday morning. Aissa, Lovelace, Akoh, Gloria, and two children I stole from B ward for the festivities set about putting together the most counter-culture tribe of sock puppets I have ever seen. (Marius tried too, but apparently breathing, eating, laughing, and pooping are about the extent of his skill set at this point.) Amidst a production line of sparkles, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, giggling children, and nurses singing Hakuna Matada, I met Ali’s eyes. I can’t remember which one of us actually said the words:

“This is why we pay to work”

I started to feel just a little bit smug. After the emotional rollercoaster of the previous couple of weeks, I couldn’t have been more grateful for a shift like Friday morning’s. I had spent the previous day bent over a little baby in an oversized ICU bed, trying for IV’s, building an oxygen hood out of a coat hanger and plastic bag, attempting to build compatible CPAP tubing out of NG tubes, wishing that we could do so much more, and strangely at the same time, wishing we were doing so much less. O’brien had taken another turn for the worse, and he spent Thursday morning yet again, struggling to breath. After 4 hours of fighting crappy saturations that everyone knew could have probably only been resolved with an ET tube that would have then had little chance of ever being removed, I was - to put it plainly - absolutely spent. By 1:00, my comrade in crime and I finally flopped down into chairs and pronounced that we couldn’t do anymore. Not for now anyways. We decided to give our little man a break and, as so very often is the case, less turned out to be more. He settled a little bit - just enough to allow us to report off to the next nurse who would hopefully have some novel idea about how to help him. Needless to say, when I arrived on Friday morning to realize that I had an assignment in the ward, a small part of me was relieved. As selfish as I felt, I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the one there with him again. I didn’t want to be the one who held O’brien’s mama as she held him in his last hours. And, it actually seemed that things had maybe turned around a little.

But, at shift change on Friday afternoon, we got the call

“O’brien just passed away. His mama wants to be alone right now”

I swallowed the words. I chose to be numb for a moment rather than feel it. I carried on as nurses do….administered my last couple of meds, gave report, put away a couple of lingering boxes of supplies. I left the ward and went to meet the tailor who was meeting me to make adjustments on the skirt I had him make. I made plans for the evening.

Then, I did it. I set my own desires aside and I went back. I walked into the tiny little room where she was sitting. Barely through the door, she cried my name. I fell to my knees to receive her desperate embrace. We stayed like that, crying and rocking, until I couldn’t feel the bottom half of my legs. We cried until I felt it. Not in the therapeutic empathy kind of way that you learn about in nursing school, but in the my heart is breaking not only for you, but also for me kind of way. Other nurses who had played an instrumental role in his life came in and joined in our mourning and kissed his head and commented how peaceful he looked. We talked about how hard he had struggled and how he was now with Jesus. When mama was ready, we started to pray. And we sang.

God will make a way
When there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to his side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way

We held her and cried and prayed and sang because we were her people. We had become O’brien’s people, and for the time being, we had become her people. And, I couldn’t help but think that this was something special and unique that I might not get to be a part of anywhere else. That here, I get to be so much more than a nurse. That this was why I pay to work.