In a whispered conversation, so as not to wake others, we got acquainted. As it turned out, all of our lives we had been crisscrossing and missing each other. He lived four houses down from my little cousin for whom I babysat. Time and again I had pushed her stroller past his yard and glanced at the boy playing in the Lone Ranger tent. As teens, he went to West High, I went to East, and we’d been at countless rival school functions simultaneously. I often joined friends after school at the local burger joint where, coincidentally, he was working the back grill. I shopped frequently at the corner store where he was a stock boy, and so it went, on and on.
“Can I call you when I go home?” he asked.
The professional voice in my head said, “No,” but “Yes” came out of my mouth.
A few days later, after relating to my aunt the events of that evening, she asked, “How will you know if he’s the one?”
Terrified of a commitment like marriage, I answered, “He’ll bring me flowers on the first date.” This was a safe declaration, because flowers were a social grace of the past, all but abandoned in the 1970s.
So, guess what he had in his hands when he showed up at the door? Serendipity? I think not! Somewhere around coincidence number 101, a reasonable person must abandon the “accidental” theory in favor of true destiny, kismet.
His version of how we met is a bit more condensed. His story is that I saw his butt and it was love at first sight. Of course, as is sometimes the case with those of his gender, he tends to oversimplify things.
Over the passing of the last twenty-eight years, we’ve still enjoyed late-night, whispered conversations, but they’ve been a bit more intimate. And I can say that my love has deepened as the tables have turned, for he has nursed me through spinal surgeries and cancer, among other medical trials.
And when I have been ill and have felt it was the worst I’ve looked in my life, somehow he hasn’t noticed.
Tori Nichols
Billie
The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare
“It’s time again, Andy, roll over please,” said Billie, a registered nurse in the navy during WWII.
“At least it’s you again. You are the best nurse at giving shots. Even the other guys say so,” said Andy.
“I think I may be beating this malaria and dengue fever. I even walked for an hour this morning.”
“Good for you, Andy. It will be important to get your strength and stamina back once the infection is gone.”
“I can’t wait to go dancing again, and Billie, I’d like to go dancing with you.”
“I’d like that too,” she said coyly. “And it’s a good goal for you.”
Andy began asking Billie about herself and her family whenever she came close to his bed or gave his frequent injections. He learned that Billie had been orphaned at age ten and had a younger brother and sister, but few other relatives. She loved school, did well in her studies, and tutored many children who lived in the houses in which she earned her room and board by cleaning and doing laundry. When she graduated from high school she had planned to become a teacher, until a friend invited her to check out the Mount Carmel Hospital Nursing Program. Billie decided to apply because “You lived at the hospital and meals were free.” After completing her studies, she joined the U.S. Navy as a nurse.
Once Andy was well enough, he and Billie courted on the dance floor as often as possible. Their love grew even as the war and their roles in it became uncertain. Andy enjoyed the way Billie made all the soldiers forget, for a time at least, their severe wounds, or lost limbs or eyesight. She took them out for picnics on the hospital grounds and got them to sing or tell stories. Sometimes she would have them do impromptu skits, even putting makeup on them.
When Andy was considered rehabilitated, the Marine Corps decided to send him to preflight school. Andy knew he didn’t want to lose Billie from his life. They were at the Claremont Hotel dancing as the Russ Morgan band played Together when he asked Billie to marry him.
She replied, “Yes,” in a low whisper.
He gave her a bracelet with his initials on it, made from a piece of metal from a Japanese kamikaze plane, retrieved when he was on an island in the Pacific.
Andy left for flight school and Billie was ordered to the naval hospital at Pearl Harbor in late 1944. By this time she had been promoted to lieutenant and she was proud of that accomplishment. She felt nursing meant more than providing medical services and again worked hard coming up with ways to take the soldiers’ focus off their wounds. She adapted to Hawaii, and made coconut-shell bras and grass skirts for them to wear as they did skits or songs. Going to the local beaches for outings and picnics also helped them forget their pain.
Almost daily letters kept Billie and Andy’s romance alive—until he was critically injured in a car accident. The doctors told his parents he would likely not survive. Of course, he couldn’t write to Billie for months and she began to wonder if he had changed his mind about her.
Fortunately one of Andy’s nieces found out about Billie once he could talk a bit. She sent Billie a letter explaining what had happened. It seemed like the romance was going to continue for sure. Then one day Billie received this letter from Andy:
My condition is quite bad and I know it will take me ages to get back to a somewhat normal mode of living.Of course, I do not know exactly how my condition is, or if it will hamper me in the future. Therefore, I do not want to subject you to a life caring for a “sickly man.” I love you, darling, in fact so much that I would sacrifice anything for you, but I do not want you to be burdened because of me.
Billie answered quickly that her love could not make a burden of her life with him whatever his physical condition.
With this hope, Andy recovered, and after the war ended and Billie’s enlistment was up, she met him in Laramie, Wyoming, where he was studying to be a geologist. They married ten days later.
Billie started working at the university clinic as a charge nurse. Then she worked as a volunteer school nurse in her children’s school or in a doctor’s office as head nurse until she was sixty-five. Many patients who had regularly scheduled shots would ask if their appointment was on a day Billie was working. “You are the best nurse at giving shots,” they said.
She joined the Retired Nurses Association and volunteered annually at the local health fair. Billie kept her nursing license active until she was seventy-five. The last year she had her license, people were still claiming, “You are the best nurse at giving shots.” During her daily walks, she carried her blood pressure cuff and stethoscope because she monitored many of her neighbors’ blood pressures along the way.
Andy died at a young fifty-eight. Long after, Billie’s engagement bracelet was still seldom off her wrist. It broke just three weeks before she died.
Her two big questions during her final days were, “How do assisted-living staff expect to pass inspection with the way they make the beds?” And, “Kerrie, what’s taking your dad so long to come pick me up for the dance?”
Kerrie G. Weitzel
No Reply
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao-tzu
I took my father, a congestive heart failure patient, to our local hospital emergency room. Wild television shows about ERs pale in comparison to this particular night. Chaos reigned.
Every cubicle was filled, so we were sent to a bed in a corridor, where we waited eight hours. Given the overcrowded situations, we were virtually on top of other patients, separated only by thin fabric curtains. Across from Dad, an elderly man lay apparently comatose. His wife stood beside him, holding his hand, gently stroking his arm. Doctors, nurses, technicians were in and out, asking her the usual litany of questions.
Finally, an authoritative figure in a white coat entered the room and pulled the drapes around the bed. But we could still hear. “Mr. Jones,Mr. Jones. Can you tell me where you are???
?
No reply.
“Can you tell me who the president is?”
Again, no reply.
“What day is this?”
No reply.
“What year is this?”
No reply.
“Do you know what happened to you?”
No reply.
“Are you feeling pain?”
No reply.
“Can you hear me?”
No reply.
“Can you see my hand in front of your face?”
No reply.
Finally I heard the nurse gently ask, “What is the name of the woman you love?”
Softly, quiveringly, came a response from the throat of the elderly man. “Anna Marie.”
Marlene Caroselli
4
CHALLENGES
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds, your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
Indian Philosopher Patanjali
Mirachelle
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Joel and Holly held hands as they always did . . . some of the very best medicine. I gently inserted the fine needle and began his chemotherapy treatment. Their baby was due soon. Joel was quiet, but Holly shared their hopes for the future. Now that Joel was completing treatments, we hoped he’d be in remission and have quality time with the new baby. He was discharged that day, with plans to attend a Lamaze class that night.
A few months later, on a warm spring day, Joel and Holly’s baby was on the way. We oncology nurses were invited to labor and delivery.
We grieved to see Joel in a wheelchair, now on a morphine drip. His frail voice barely spoke. He took Holly’s hand and smiled like any expectant father. Warm tears filled my eyes. We oncology nurses stayed to care for Joel as the L&D nurses cared for Holly. How blessed we were to be able to bring brief joy to this couple.
As labor progressed, both Holly and Joel napped. The sound of the clicking from the infusion pump relieving Joel’s pain comforted me too. When the delivery was near, we moved Joel onto a stretcher, with all the clumsy equipment needed for him, and aligned it next to the delivery table.
Holly pushed with the strength of the warrior she was, and when their baby girl arrived, she was placed on Joel’s chest. We all cried as the new mom and dad smiled.
“She’s our beautiful baby girl,” Joel said hoarsely.
“Her name is Mirachelle. A combination of Michelle and miracle,” Holly explained. “We hadn’t planned this baby . . . she is our miracle.”
Their baby spent many days on the hospital bed with her father, which gave her mother the strength to cope.
Too soon Joel’s battle was over.
Though this story happened many years ago, the memory of this meaningful event has not faded with time. Today’s health care changes of short staffs and short stays make it improbable that it could ever happen again.
I truly hope I am wrong.
Ruth Bredbenner
Mother and Nurse
Enjoy what you can; endure what you must.
Goethe
On a sunny mid-December day, my two children, Hunter and Caitlin, and I were broadsided at an intersection known for accidents, even fatalities. An elderly woman ran a stop sign, crashing into our car on the passenger side, where the children were seat-belted in. We spun twice in the road. The horn blared. The airbags deployed. Our lives changed in seconds.
Hunter, in the front seat, looked at me with panic in his eyes. Blood from cuts trickled down his face and arms. I moaned, “It’s okay, sweetie,” then looked in the backseat at Caitlin. My world crumbled. Blood poured from her chin and mouth; her beautiful strawberry blond head sagged motionless against the backseat.
I jumped from the car, screaming, “Caitlin, Caitlin!” No response. I ran to her side of the car and leaned over the crumpled door, through the broken glass. She was unconscious and not breathing. I begged God not to take her and to put my nursing knowledge and skills into action. Holding her neck, I started rescue breathing for what seemed like an eternity. Her blood filled my mouth with each breath. I kept praying and breathing, praying and breathing. I repositioned her jaw, and she started to cough and gag just as the EMS arrived on the scene.
“I tried . . . I breathed,” I cried to them. “I tried . . . ”
“You saved her life,” they said, guiding me away from the car.
I watched them work, sitting there on the ground, crying, praying, pleading with God. It was as if I were watching a movie, but the scene was real. A bystander called my husband at work to tell him the news. I can only imagine how he felt hearing the words, “Come. Now.”
We were all taken away in different ambulances to the same hospital. I kept begging them, “Just take Caitlin in a helicopter to a trauma center.”
“We need to stabilize her first in a closer hospital,” they repeated. Finally, later, she was airlifted, in very bad shape, with multiple severe, life-threatening injuries.
I was soon discharged, but not before an ED nurse gave me paperwork, a prescription for pain . . . and one of Caitlin’s front teeth.
We started for the hospital to be with Caitlin, but I felt like I had to go by our house to get a picture for the surgeons, and I had to change my clothes, stained with our daughter’s blood.
The floor was strewn with Christmas wrapping paper, bows, and tape. We left the house, and the ride seemed to take forever. My heart as a mother was broken, my poor baby was near death. My nurse’s head and heart kept hearing, apneic at the scene, unconscious, closed head injury.
Every mother’s worst nightmare was made even more traumatic since I was an OR nurse. Would I be able to give consent for organ donation? Would my husband agree? Could I bear to bury her in her little cheerleading uniform?
Thank God, we would never have to make those heart-wrenching decisions.
Caitlin remained in the pediatric ICU until January 3, giving us many scares throughout her stay there. She was transferred to the floor for another week, then to children’s rehab for an intensive, three-week therapy regimen. On February 5, she was discharged home for her brother’s thirteenth birthday . . . and Christmas.
I thank God that she’s the feisty, stoic, strong-willed, walking, talking, thirteen-year-old strawberry blond teenager that she is today. I’m also thankful to Him for fortifying me to perform as a nurse that fateful day.
A mother never thinks that after giving life to her child once through childbirth, there may come a time that she has a chance to do it again.
Mary Pennington
The Other Side of the Bed
My friends are my estate.
Emily Dickinson
It was the scariest day of my life. I sat next to the bed listening to the “beeps” of my newborn son’s heartbeat. The ultrasound tech kept very quiet, but I had seen enough echocardiograms as a thoracic ICU nurse to know. I looked away from the screen and gasped back a sigh and a cry. The results were confirmed when the pediatrician stepped in and said that our son, Carson, had been born with four heart defects. I felt all the strength in my own heart slip away.
As I called my husband with the results, I realized that my place as a critical care nurse was about to change: I was moving to the other side of the bed.
I was used to being the one in control, the nurse who fixed things, who could rally in an emergency, who could do something. I couldn’t do anything now but wait for six months until Carson had gained enough weight, or deteriorated enough, for the surgery to be performed.
So we waited. As Carson’s skin
color slowly became blue, I controlled everything I could. We researched and handpicked the surgeon, anesthesiologist, perfusionist, and hospital. We were ready, or so I thought.
On a Friday when three of my best friends and their children were at my home, the phone call came. Carson’s most recent results showed he was declining more rapidly than we thought and the surgery needed to be moved up, fast.
“Oh, one more thing,” the nurse added. “We need O positive, CMV negative blood donated for him.”
What? How did I miss this key element? My husband and I had planned that one of us would donate blood for him. But we were different blood types. I hung up the phone and my friends’ faces mirrored mine. I shared the news and two friends smiled and declared, “We have O positive blood!”
Jan and Denise drove off to donate blood, while Melinda and I took care of four babies under the age of six months and their four older siblings. We changed dirty diapers, wiped runny noses, and at one point Melinda breast-fed Denise’s baby while I bottle-fed Jan’s youngest. We laughed at the sharing of care between moms, so another mother could provide blood for my son.
Denise and Jan returned in a couple of hours with the news: Denise was CMV negative and her blood would be ideal for Carson!
The day of surgery was emotionally exhausting. My husband and I handed Carson over to the anesthesiologist and tears welled in our eyes, while knots knitted in our guts. Knowing too much can be a blessing and a curse. As I watched the clock, I knew when they would stop his heart, put him on bypass, make the repairs, restart his heart, and close his chest. Several excruciating hours later, the surgeon came out and announced that Carson’s surgery had gone perfectly!