Nurse Appreciation Week

Mile Marker 7377:

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.

--Hippocrates

I don't remember the first week after my accident.  

It took place in a clear glass cubicle on the Critical Care Unit of Jefferson Hospital.  My body was puffy with fluid and hooked up to a web-like tangle of tubes.  Beyond the glass door sat a nurses' station where my vitals splashed across a digital screen.

I was on a ventilator.  My left leg was amputated.  My abdomen was left open for the swelling to go down. 

My family flocked in from around the country, taking over the 4th floor waiting area.  We were in full crisis mode.  It would've been easy for comfort to get lost in the shuffle.

But my mom tells this story -- about a nurse who washed my hair.  

"She didn't use one of those dry shampoos," my mom says.  "She brought a tub of water over to the bed."

My mom describes how this nurse wet my hair, lathered it with shampoo, and rinsed it clean.  How -- with bandages taped everywhere and tubes poking out in all directions -- this nurse gently scrubbed the dust and gravel of Washington Avenue out of my long hair.

"She made it seem like she had nothing more important to do," my mom says, still incredulous.  "But she works in Critical Care!"

That's Cathy and her team!

Eight and a half years later, my mom is still telling this story.  We're still talking about this one gesture.  It meant THAT MUCH.

It's Nurse Appreciation Week.  

But if you've ever been a hospital patient, you know that EVERY week should be Nurse Appreciation Week!

Nurses played a major role in my journey.  Although I didn't realize it at the time, it started with these two when I arrived in the Trauma Bay...

Margaret and Aileen
(We met again 1,747 miles later!)

And it went on from there.  Through 15 trips to the operating room, nurses reassured me and reminded me to breathe.  My biggest fear was waking up alone, and they made sure I never did.

And afterward, through every bandage change, they hung an IV bag to counteract the pain.  I clenched my eyes tight as the gauze was tugged from my skin, but the nurses squeezed my hand and joked with the doctors to try to make me smile.

Hand-holding is the language of comfort.  It means YOU MATTER.

Even in the ER!

On one of my toughest days, a calm, organized nurse made all the difference.  "Give me 20 minutes," she said.  "I'll have the answers you need."  And she did.  I exhaled chaos and inhaled comfort and safety.

Thank goodness for Lucy!

The nights were long and lonely, but the nurses knew I couldn't sleep.  When they saw the glow of my DVD screen, they'd stop in to talk about the latest episode of Glee.  They left my door open so the hallway light could seep into my room.  It protected me from the flashbacks I saw whenever I closed my eyes.  

At midnight, when Mark got off from work, they didn't lecture him about visiting hours or turn him away.  They simply stuck their head in my doorway and whispered... 

"Rebecca, your brother's on his way up!"

One day they even let my niece Riley sneak in.  She was slightly under-age.

She couldn't quite pass for 13 :)

As fall became winter, the nurses hung jingle bells on my door.  When all I could see from my window was the hazy hospital atrium, they described the snow outside.

They gave Dad endless cups of ice for my Gatorade, and they pretended not to see the unopened cans of Boost lined up along the windowsill. 

An army of antibiotics made my food taste like rusty metal, but nurses taught me the secrets of the hospital menu.  Did you know that PB & J and pizza are always available?  (Shhh... Don't tell!)

When bowel obstructions were resolved,
we celebrated with "clears."

When I finally learned to hop with a walker, it took 3 nurses to make it happen.  One carried the Wound Vac machine, one pushed the IV pole, and one trailed behind me with the huge armchair from my room -- just in case I needed to sit down.

After that, they raced to the pediatric unit to get me child-sized gowns.  They didn't want me tripping over the long ones!  

I was hospitalized 7 times over the course of 2 years, but each time I returned, my team of nurses welcomed me with empathy and compassion.  They made it feel, as much as they could, like coming home.

For a long time, 7 Center WAS my home!

By the 15th surgery, an abdominal one, my prosthetic leg stood next to the bed.  I'd been walking for a year already, but now, with a stomach full of staples, I couldn't bend over to put it on.  

"Just tell me what to do," my nurse said.  She listened patiently while I explained how the socket worked.  Then she got down on her knees and helped me put on my leg.

That was Mile 632!

That evening, I peered into the hallway as she got me a pack of hospital-issue socks.  "Yellow or gray?" she asked.

"There's gray??"  I said.  In all my time as a patient, I'd never been offered gray socks before!  I always got yellow.

"Yellow is for fall risks," she said.  "But the way you've been rockin' that leg, I think you've graduated from those!"

My heart soared.  Sometimes the littlest comforts make the biggest difference.

I could write a thousand blog posts, and it wouldn't be enough to thank my nurses.  They treated me like a person, not just a problem.  They supported my family.  They helped me through fear.  They gave me my independence, even when it caused more work for them.  And in the end, they walked with me too.  (In fact, they led the way for Mile 160!)

Click to see the video!

Small steps add up to miles.  Small comforts build resilience.

Where would we be without nurses?

This week and every week, 

to my nurses and nurses everywhere... 

Thank you for making a difference!