Nurse Appreciation

 

NURSE APPRECIATION

by the very patient patient David L Lewis

At height of Covid-19 Pandemic a nurse was interviewed who had volunteered to travel to area where epidemic was rampant and medical help lacking. When asked why she was going into such a dangerous situation she replied, “I’m a Nurse.”

According to the American Nurses Association, “National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6th and ends on May 12th, Florence Nightingale's birthday”. I have a lot of appreciation to express.

Some years back Kay worked as a Nurses Aid. She would tell me so many ‘horror stories’ that I promised myself I’d treat all hospital personnel with respect and do what I was asked to do. This has been my rule as I spent (sleepless) nights in at least a dozen hospitals, and met more nurses that even God lost track of the number. However, after a while you get to where it takes only a few minutes to know which ones you can really talk to and which to just be polite.

Doctors don’t remember, they’ve got a lot to do. You have to trust the nurse. It is the nurses who rescue us from the doctors! All you can ask of nurses is that they make you feel you are their only patient, that they are listening, and that they care what happens to you. It is fair to say I have survived a lot of bad ‘stuff’ because most of my nurses have been all I could ask of them to be.

Once in a while I am remembered (I am, after all, memorable) by a nurse who treated me before. The good and the bad is that you rarely see the same person again. Here I must mention the one nurse who, because of her care, I remember most clearly. She is probably the only nurse whose name I know two years later, Mallory Cooper, RN. She talked me through self-imposed crises and stayed half-hour after her shift ended to be sure I was all-right.

Through all my experiences there have only been two ‘bad’ ones. The first could simply be ‘put up with’ for one shift. Another, admittedly encountered under very traumatic circumstances, was only time I demanded different nurse. Interestingly my new nurse was a really good nurse. A ‘straight-laced’, by-the-book nurse whom I knew immediately could not be taken lightly. But, she could certainly be trusted. It took two shifts in ICU, but I got her to smile.

Then there is my favorite red-headed niece and nurse, Jen. At first of this year she heard how things were going with the favorite uncle and aunt. She got into her car and drove, twice, from Missouri to help. Since then she e-mails regular to ‘check-in’ and I write her about every problem. Like many of the many nurses who’ve cared for me, Jen is a nurse you really have to do what she tells you to do because she cares and she listens. After all the doctors and all the hospitals and all the nurses, doing what a nurse tells you to do is only way to get well and stay all-right.