INTERSECTIONS

or

"How can you stand to be a nurse?" 

Part 1

 People often acknowledge nurses' good service and compassion. Few, however, understand the education required, the technical skills, the knowledge of human behavior and family systems, the ever-changing technical skills, the knowledge of hospital and insurance systems and politics. They seldom grasp the utter exhaustion, the patience required to work with people in terrible circumstances, the lack of respect by some colleagues.

When I became a nurse at age 40, countless people asked me, "How can you stand to be a nurse?" What these people seldom glimpse are those rare moments when the lives of a vulnerable patient and a truly available and skilled nurse intersect. Sometimes, right in the middle of body fluids, rudeness, bad news, meaningless documentation, and automaton administrators, the bare wires of two souls fall across one another. Caregiver and patient intersect in a deep place. My guess is that few people experience such connection in their work–perhaps the teacher at long last reaching a student or a composer who finally breathes life into his or her symphony for the first time. For nurses, it often happens when someone stands at the edge of life, truly facing mortality. For just that moment, you do not let that person stand there alone. Life on the surface falls away.

Memories of these moments make me want to ask, "How can you stand not being a nurse?" 

I am grateful to patients and their families who let me into their lives, tolerated my shortcomings and moments when I was not fully present, acknowledged my successes, and trusted me with unimaginable generosity.

Now and then, I will write of these intersections, hoping to honor some memorable patients–their heroism, their fight, their grace in not fighting, and the worst life can throw at a person. I will anonymize their identities and circumstances beyond recognition, but share their spirits. I also hope to honor my nurse colleagues who, even while scraping things off their shoes and trying to stay awake through another in-service, know exactly how they can stand to be a nurse.

Nice try, life (or death;) you did not win!