How did they become our care givers? How did they seem to always have the right words when the days were the most difficult? When you needed a hand squeezed or an arm around your shoulder or even a hug, they always seemed to be there, didn’t they?
These folks were strangers until we heard the words “You have cancer.” Odds are, we never would have crossed paths with them, but now, they are in our hearts forever. They were there for us at the most important times in the journey.
They took our vitals just by looking at us. They didn’t need a machine to tell them when our blood pressure was high with anxiety. They just knew when our temperature was rising because cancer had turned-up the heat.
We had their phone numbers and their emails and at the slightest sign of trouble, we would alert them and they would have an answer. They cleared an appointment for us when our doctor was booked solid for the day.
They were our lifeline when life was threatened.
This week is Nurse’s Appreciation Week. Isn’t every week?
May 11, 2017 @ 9:08 am
I believe that it is a noble profession. A nursing career probably didn’t start that way. It was probably a job, a good job, a stable job. But over time, it evolved into a noble profession one nurse at a time and one circumstance at a time. I remember them fondly as I received treatments and surgeries. They were there when needed and gave me hope.
I especially remember the nurse, don’t know her name, who quietly, peacefully and with great care and compassion unhooked my wife’s body from the many machines, and kindly removed the numerous tubes and wires and cleaned the blood from her so that we could look at her without the reminders of her struggle. We sat quietly consumed in our own thoughts and grief until she finished. I was struck at that moment that for this nurse and at this time of great sadness and sorrow for us she embodied her noble profession.
My grand daughter will be a college sophomore this September pursuing a nursing degree. I hope she stays the course and becomes a nurse…her goal is to be a neo-natal ICU nurse.
May 10, 2017 @ 9:17 pm
We had so many wonderful nurses during Jim’s fight. They are the most incredible people and I do not know how they do it. They made the worst days bearable and more than one cried with me at the end. God bless them all!