No one ever sat me down and told me about the possible long-term effects of my injuries and, to be honest, I never considered it. I naively thought I would have the affected discs repaired, recuperate for a couple of months, then get on with my life. It wasn’t until the day after my surgery, while I drifted in and out of sleep, that I heard a conversation between my husband,Dan, and my neurosurgeon. Profound nerve damage. Chronic pain with periods of paralysis.
“She’ll never be able to work as a nurse again.”
Even in my semiconscious state, my heart shattered. Me, not be a nurse? I couldn’t fathom the idea. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t find my voice.
Slowly, I started to heal. And as my body began to return to normal, so did my will. I decided not to take the doctor’s prognosis lying down. I would fight for my career.
Physical therapy appointments, insurance negotiations, and depression filled my first few weeks post-op. I stopped eating and lost so much weight the visiting nurse thought I had an eating disorder. The arguments began between the hospital and my doctors as to what kind of work I would physically be able to do. Eventually, the hospital and I parted ways.
I started searching the want ads, but each interview ended in disappointment. No one would hire an inexperienced nurse with my medical history. Some of my friends suggested I keep my back problems a secret, but I couldn’t do that and live with myself.
At twenty-three, I found myself unemployable.
But I refused to give up. Six months and hundreds of résumés later, a research facility offered me a position. For the next six years, I worked in pediatric research, teaching parents how to care for their high-risk infants. I was finally doing the work God had called me to do.
Yet, physically, I wasn’t doing so well. I tried to pretend everything was okay, laughing over the times I’d trip over my numb foot or ignoring the pain running across my hip and down my leg. When I began to fall on a consistent basis, I contacted my doctor.
An alphabet of tests followed—MRIs, EMGs, CAT scans. Weeks later, the doctor had a verdict: stenosis of the spinal column, extensive nerve damage, more ruptured discs. My nursing career was officially over.
My body understood the truth, but my heart rebelled. Nursing defined me as a person, defined the faith I had in God’s plan for my life. If my career was gone, who was I? What was I going to do with the rest of my life?
I was ashamed of my disability, believing it made me less of a person. In my anger, I backed away from my husband, daughters, and friends. I thought I was doing them a favor. After all, why would they want to have anything to do with a twenty-nine-year-old cripple? Our home became a battlefield as I slipped further into depression. One evening, Dan came home to his packed clothes and my demand that he leave.
My world imploded.
“Please get some help,” my parents begged. I agreed to meet with a counselor who helped me face the anger that had been brewing inside of me since the attack. I finally asked the question that had plagued me since the moment my patient had slammed me against the wall. Why had God allowed this to happen to me?
Her answer? “Why not?”
She told me the story of Paul, a man who had seen his life change on the road to Damascus. He too had a disability, a thorn of the flesh that he asked the Lord to take from him. Paul never found relief from his physical suffering but that didn’t stop him from living a worthwhile life.
I had a choice. I could live my life sitting at home, pain and anger my constant companions. Or I could get involved with the world around me, starting with my husband and girls. Would the pain go away? No, but the worthlessness of my existence would cease.
Within a week, I reconciled with Dan. I started slowly, volunteering in my daughter’s classroom.My involvement soon blossomed into teaching mentally disabled children. Our family went back to church, where I found new joy in singing with the choir. The angry wrinkles that slashed my face slowly faded into smile lines. Although the physical pain never went away, I found a life worth living.
Nursing still plays a part in my life. The skills I learned helped me to care for my dying grandfather. And my father swears he is still around because I forced him to recognize the symptoms of a heart attack.
Though nursing no longer defines who I am, as I sorted the mail, I knew I had a choice.
I tossed the envelope aside, unopened. I knew I didn’t need paperwork to do His will. License or no, in my caring heart, I am still a nurse.
Patty Smith Hall
A Nurse’s Touch
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Kahlil Gibran
In my perpetual haste I rushed by the building but failed to notice moisture pooled beneath a rainspout. A transparent film of ice floated on top.
My clumsy fall required a metal plate and screws to line up my broken bones to heal. The doctor called it a “tib fib double reduction.”
I called it excruciating.
He explained that both the tibia and fibula were broken. I literally didn’t have that leg to stand on!
“Aggressive physical therapy will enable you to walk with only a slight limp. But you’ll have to give up those high heels.”
When I tried to stand, I simply fainted. My optimism faded a bit more each time I slumped, and my recuperation required someone to stay nearby.
Friends and family rearranged busy lives. Soon a Maryjo-sitting and meal delivery schedule hung on the refrigerator. Meals came in. Dirty laundry went out. Freshly folded clothes came back. One sweet soul made my floors and oven sparkle.
These activities underscored my incapacity. I was a doer unaccustomed to sitting still. The vulnerability I felt was overwhelming.
I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t even want to read. I lay in a medicated haze of pain and self-pity when Trish entered quietly. She juggled family and her career more deftly than most, but I hadn’t expected to see her here. Not with her shift work and tight schedule.
“I felt so bad for you when I heard about this. I know how hard it must be for you, being forced to slow down. And the pain from that kind of injury is pretty tough.”
She softly closed the bedroom door, turned down the lights, and began arranging pillows and bedcovers with practiced dexterity.
“This is quite a trauma. Try to be patient. You have to be open to the healing process. Rest. And take the pain medications as directed. Muscling your way through and doing without only makes things worse. You’ll only be on these meds for a short time.”
I had to listen to this longtime friend. I’d watched Trish go back to school when our sons were still quite young, and I’d always admired the tenacity it took to complete her nursing degree.
Still, the truth she spoke I found hard to take, and my protests and resentment popped out despite my efforts to stifle them.
“Look at me. Other people are running Mom’s taxi, doing my wash, cooking meals . . . even cleaning my oven, for heaven’s sake. I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself without blacking out!”
“Feels weird for you to be on the accepting end of things, doesn’t it? You’ll get used to it. Healing doesn’t take forever. Now, accept one more thing,” she said softly.
“Allow me to give you a sponge bath. My patients tell me I’m pretty good at them.”
Trish and I had been friends over a decade. We’d taken care of sick children, shared recipes and outings. But . . . give me a bath? I was feverish and sweaty.Worse, my own perspiration, tinged acrid by medication, smelled foreign and awful.
No way. Embarrassed, I shook my head.
“You’ll feel refreshed, more like yourself.”
She turned and started wetting a cloth in the steaming pan of water I had not seen until that moment. She held up a bottle of baby lotion, the thick pink kind.
“If you use this instead of soap, ther
e’s no need to rinse. It moisturizes your skin and smells fresh.”
She placed the now-saturated cloth beneath my nose. The light aroma was very pleasing. Just the thought of smelling like that made me nod “Okay.”
With gentle strength she positioned each limb so that she did all the work, my modesty intact. All I had to do was relax. She swirled the warm cloth in each crease and crevice, wiping away misery with the dead skin cells. She carefully lifted limb after limb. Fingers and toes received attention, and as she lotioned each digit, encouragement soaked in.
Then she shampooed my hair, firm fingers massaging my crusty scalp. My matted hair curled again. I’ll never know how she did it without sloshing water everywhere.
Trish’s sponge bath gave me so much more than the refreshment of a clean body. She restored my dignity and gave me a calm that saw me through the many tough days of healing ahead.
My dear friend had a nurse’s touch that was the best medicine for my aching soul.
Maryjo Faith Morgan
Finding Christ in a Hospice
Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:3
Hospice is a place where terminally ill patients go, not just to die, but to live out their lives in peace, comfort, and dignity. One wealthy young lady was admitted; she was very beautiful, except the lower half of her jaw was deteriorated by the advance of the cancerous disease. For the first three months, she was very bitter, sarcastic, nasty, and abusive to the staff and all the other residents.
One day, a young LPN took the time to put some makeup on the woman’s eyes and cheeks. Then she wrapped a scarf around the woman’s lower face and led her outside where she could sit on a park bench and enjoy the warm spring sun.
Across the street, some young boys were playing baseball on a makeshift diamond. Sure enough, one of the older boys hit a foul ball and it rolled across the street and stopped at the feet of the lady sitting on the bench. A small boy, about eight years old, sauntered across the street to retrieve the ball. He picked up the ball and tossed it back across the street. Then the boy stopped and looked at the young woman for a long time. Suddenly he climbed up on the bench, hugged her, and kissed her on the forehead. “You are a very beautiful lady,” said the boy. He got down and ran back to the game.
A miraculous thing happened at that moment. All the anger and bitterness seemed to flow out of the young woman. She went back into that hospice and began to help others. With her wealth, she provided makeup and wigs for the other women and even personally helped them improve their appearances as best they could in their last days. She was a source of encouragement and joy to both staff and all the residents—the first one to share a tear, give a hug, or hold those in agony and fear.
All this happened because an LPN and a small boy became Christ to the lady when she needed it the most. This enabled her to become Christ to others.
Father Gent Ullrich as told to John Fagley
Halloween
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
Victor Hugo
It was almost Halloween and I didn’t know what to wear. I had been working at Emanuel Rehabilitation Center for several years and always managed to come up with a clever costume, so now it was expected of me. Last year, I went as a member of the “backup team” and wore my son’s dress clothes backward, with a mask of a handsome man on the back of my head. I got a lot of laughs walking down the hall.
I pondered what costume would again cheer up the quadriplegics I had been caring for.
Tom, a good-looking twenty-four-year-old quad, was constantly yelling, “Jean, come here. Please rub my nose. Jean, scratch my head. Jean, dial the phone for me.”
Then Mary, across the hall, joined him with her demands. They knew they were not supposed to yell “Jean” when they needed help, but were to bump the paddle on either side of their head to turn on the call light. But calling out my name expressed their urgency and got quicker results. So they called and called and called. That’s when I had a great idea: I’d dress up as a call girl!
From the drawerful of my daughter’s discarded dance costumes, I retrieved some sheer burgundy tights and covered them with black fishnet stockings. I donned a slinky burgundy top, then, over that went a pink, loosely crocheted dress that came to midthigh, covered by a short, pink, see-through, sheer skirt. My husband, Al, thought I looked quite authentic and gorgeous with my reddish-brown wig and fake leopard jacket. Across my chest, I fastened a big sign: YOU CALLED?
“This ought to make even Grumpy Bob chuckle,” I said, imagining the old quadriplegic man who had been so depressed. I inspected my reflection in front of my full-length bedroom mirror. “Hmm, not bad,” I teased my husband. “Maybe I shouldn’t have become a nurse. If only I were thirty-some years younger . . . ” I shimmied around in front of the mirror, my dangling earrings bouncing and the sheer skirt swishing.
When I arrived at work at 3:00 PM the Halloween party was in progress. Everyone howled with laughter when I arrived. The wheelchair salesman greeted me with open arms.
The social worker said, “This wouldn’t be so funny if you weren’t so out of character.”
“I’m glad you said that,” I said. “This reception is more than I was mentally prepared for.”
“Jean! Jean!” I heard Tom’s familiar call.
“Jean!” Mary echoed.
With a sigh and a smile I slithered into Tom’s room first, smacking my gum. “You called?”
He burst out laughing.
“You gave me the idea to be a call girl since you know you’re always calling my name,” I said.
He laughed harder than I had ever heard him laugh, probably harder than he had since his accident. “I can’t believe I have a call girl for my nurse!”
Patients laughed all evening as I went around answering lights and doing care. An old male stroke patient who couldn’t talk flashed a crooked smile and I noted a glint in his twinkling eyes. Even Grumpy Bob laughed each time I saw him. “Jean, you’re really something!” Seeing him so jovial made the whole thing worthwhile.
Every Halloween after that, someone would beg me to wear that costume again, but once was enough.
When I retired in 1994, one nurse said, “Jean, don’t you still want to work ‘on call’?”
Jean Kirnak
Reprinted by permission of Jonny Hawkins. © 2006 Jonny Hawkins.
Miss Benjamin
Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
Italian Proverb
My sleep was fitful, punctuated with the hospital sounds of muffled conversations and carts squeaking down the hall. It was almost morning. In my drowsiness, the unwelcome thoughts returned again . . . I don’t want to die! I’m only sixteen! I long for proms, and boyfriends, and . . . life!
A week before my doctor had discovered another large tumor in my head. I was snatched by my parents and driven to specialists at a university hospital in Michigan, over a thousand miles from my home in Florida. The experts ordered medical tests to help them determine how to save my life. Could they?
I didn’t hear the door to my hospital room open, but in the darkness I sensed a presence at my bedside. When she spoke, her voice was as sweet as slow, dark molasses.
“Sorry to wake you so early, sugar, but I need to take your temperature,” she announced, as she stuck a cold thermometer under my tongue. Then, with a touch as smooth as black velvet, she found the pulse in my pale wrist. When I peered up at her, the white nurse’s uniform was a stark contrast to the dark skin of the pretty woman standing next to my bed.
“What’s your name?” I asked sleepily.
“Miss Benjamin.”
It was the early 1960s and I lived in the South. I didn’t know many African Americans, but I instantly bonded with Miss Benjamin.
My parents rented a room from a family across the street from the hospital and befriended them. They had
a son in his late teens named Don. He and his friend Tommy, worked at the hospital. Many early mornings they came before visiting hours to see me. Miss Benjamin cooperated with their illegal intrusions and allowed them to stay and lift my spirits.
After the doctors conferred, the news was grim. The massive tumor between my brain and my eyes would be removed immediately, but the risky operation could leave me blind. I felt there was little hope.
“The good Lord is going to take care of you,” Miss Benjamin assured me the morning of my surgery. Then her soft voice promised, “I’m scheduled to have the afternoon off, but I’m going to stay on duty and look after you.” Knowing she would be there eased my fear.
I survived the surgery and was relieved to see Miss Benjamin when I woke up. Yes, I could see her!
But the days of recovery were brutal. My face was wrapped in a beehive of gauze. The pain was intense when Miss Benjamin carefully changed the bandages. I felt scarred and ugly. I didn’t want the boys to see me. “Tell them not to come in,” I cried.
Early one morning I thought I heard pebbles hit my window.
“What’s that noise?” Miss Benjamin asked as she breezed through the door with a thermometer in her hand. Then she walked to the window, golden with dawn.
“Lord have mercy! I think you have visitors! Let me help you walk over here!”
I could see two heads poking over the edge of the roof a few feet above my window. Don and Tommy found a way to visit me, without making me self-conscious about my bandages. We talked, between the rooftop and the open window, that day and many more.