Thank You Nurses

May 6-12 is apparently Nurse Appreciation Week for 20071, and for someone who loves the written word, it has taken me quite some time to come up with the right words for the nurses in my life and to explain why nurses in general are so important. I have been incredibly unlucky when it has come to my health but I won’t the mega jackpot when it comes to my medical team especially the nurses.

No one WANTS to be recognized by nearly every nurse in a hospital. It’s definitive and loud proof that you’ve been sick far too long and at the hospital far too many times. I used to be terrified of ever having to spend a night in the hospital. Little did I know that I’d spend oh so many nights in the hospital as a young adult. At this point, I’m recognized and fought over as far as who is going to be my nurse in pre-op and while I’m never with it enough to notice, apparently a similar thing happens in the recovery room in regards to me and regardless of who wins the “Meg’s My Patient” lottery, every nurse who knows me and knows I’m there tries to stop and see me. There’s an upside to this. Several years ago I was under the care of Stephanie, a recovery room nurse who I’d known for years, when she knew immediately something was wrong because I wasn’t my normal self at all. She’s the reason my first case of sepsis landed me in the ICU and treated before it could do permanent damage.

Another post-op recovery room nurse, Blaze, was the nurse on duty a day in September after an infection chest port was removed and in pre-op I took a rapid downhill turn. My BP plummeted, my pulse skyrocketed, I was freezing cold with a fever of 106.2, and seizing. He was with me the whole way, rarely ever leaving my side. When talk of the ICU came, I completely lost my mind. I struggle with PTSD resulting from my health especially the ICU both for my own experiences there but because less than a full year prior, I’d been forced to see my oldest sister in ICU after her fatal diagnosis of brain cancer. I started sobbing while my mom filled in the rest of post-op and my doctors and Blaze knelt beside me patiently listening to my fear filled sobs about how I COULD NOT go to the ICU. I just couldn’t do it. In the end I was kept in post-op.

The nurses on the orthopedic floor at my hospital are true heroes. They not only attend to the physical issues but the emotional and mental effects as well. Due to my recurrent infections I’ve been in and out of the hospital since 2004 and have cultivated so many friendships amongst the nursing staff. How many nurses come to your 30^th birthday because they’re so glad that you’ve survived another year – another year they weren’t sure I’d get. How many nurses look into your eyes and see the terror you’re hiding with stupid humor and order pizza to have a party in your hospital room? How many spend money of their own to buy you a bagel on their day off purely out of the goodness in their hearts or buy magazines and goodies just for you? (And by the way…they DO NOT get paid nearly enough.) How many nurses send you birthday and holiday cards? How many nurses recognize how important the memorial bracelet you wear to honor a fallen hero that you don’t want to leave it in the room, and volunteer to wear it for you until you’re back from surgery?

When osteomyelitis (a severe infection of the bone) struck my arm there was one late afternoon turned evening when it was just my older sister and I. It’s incredible how fast a 32 (at the time) year old and 36 year old turn into 12 year olds who just “want their mom” when you want something done and it’s taken forever and you KNOW that if mom was there she’d take charge and get things done because nobody messes with your mom. When she speaks they listen. I was still in shock that I now had osteomyelitis in my arm after a 13-year battle with it and other soft tissues infections in my leg leading to the loss of said leg and I. Was. Pissed about it. At one point my sister noticed a nurse we’ve known since nearly the very beginning and whom I have a genuinely amazing relationship with was in the hall and called her into the room,  A few minutes later she told me she needed food and left the room. She KNEW that I needed to talk to someone I trust outside of the family and someone who has been on this wild ride for years with us, again outside of family, to talk to in that moment and I, the girl who can’t stand letting people see her tears, broke down in tears.

Doctors get all of the recognition but it’s the nurses who make medicine what it is and keeps things rolling as fluidly as possible and take on so much of the grunt work. The emotions they circle through during one shift might take the stuffing out of others. What they go through on a daily basis from unruly patients would often cause so many to walk away.

Without the amazing nurses in my life I have no doubt that one way or another I wouldn’t be here anymore both in their care for my physical issues but their care in my emotional and mental health as well. To all of the nurses who’ve been a part of my life, part of my journey, either at the hospital or through home care I simply cannot tell you enough how much you mean to me and that I do not simply rely on my amazing OR teams when things go south for my health – I rely greatly on you.