chapter 11: part 6

continued from chapter 11: part 5

I have a special fondness for day shift nurses. They are allowed to use first names now, though that changes every few years back to formal, and then back to informal. They were busy, terribly busy, but they always found time to be human and leave a feeling behind that they truly cared.

Hal had only two bad experiences. One nurse, one of the weekend night stranger/nurses, was present when he was having agonizing pain, which the doctor thought might be a kinked bowel. He asked for more morphine and she accused him of being addicted to the morphine and dishonest about the pain.
She was gone when I came in the next morning and I couldn't get enough information about her to formally complain. When he told me about it he had tears in his eyes; he was helpless and she made him feel inadequate. She had no right. I hope to god she is out of the profession. She should be.

The second nurse was the most competent person I saw; she knew every piece of machinery and how to keep it working, she knew how to change a bed while causing the least discomfort and she was also the coldest zombie I've ever encountered. She did not smile at patients, only at residents. I came into the room one day when Hal had asked her to help lift him out of the chair. She stood in front of him, motionless. He reached forward and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't put your hands there, you'll hurt my back," she snapped
Then she then brusquely lifted him up and propelled him to the bed and marched out of the room. Not one word about how they should get the job done as a team.

One night, actually at two in the morning, Hal's roommate was sitting up in bed reading because he couldn't sleep and in walked the Zombie. She knew this patient was an economist and using her normal strident voice began a litany of questions about her investments. Hal waited a couple of minutes and then asked for silence and she immediately left the room. The roommate called his thanks over the curtain and said he wasn't in the mood for a discussion either.

It took me a long time to realize she was another member of the medical profession who hates, simply hates, caring for terminally ill patients, and she lets them know of her dislike. There are a lot of them; but bless the ones who understand the dying.

There is generally a nice balance between doctor visits and nursing care, although they may not agree with me. The doctor is not there all the time and I assume maintains his objectivity while the nurse has valuable input if she is allowed to provide it.

Some had an even more special gift and when one of those would enter the room Hal would visibly brighten and say,

"Oh, hi, I didn't realize your time off was over; welcome back."

I found my way into his chart because, for a few mornings I'd arrive and Hal wasn't washed and his teeth hadn't been brushed so I helped him get this done; from then on that was my job. That was okay and I was glad to help, but as he got weaker, I found it tougher to get him on his feet and over to the bathroom, with his intravenous pole trailing behind. And I sure as hell wasn't going to ask the frosty nurse to help me. Between us, we contrived ways to get this done. Bed baths are the pits and we did our best to avoid them. There was one attendant to handle the shaving, and he had a way of appearing when I was struggling to lift Hal onto his feet and he’d gently take over. He was a nice man.

The trick is to separate the doctor from the myth; this person has chosen a field of study that takes time; he saturates himself with the information he needs but he doesn't heal by magic; he follows the rules and often the machinery kick starts back into action on its own.

My favorite back-to-reality manoeuvre was to imagine them walking through the corridors wearing the hospital issue nightshirt, minus ties and the floppy paper slippers. Keep that in your memory and you'll bring the doctor down several pegs so that you're now eye to eye.

Now that I don't have much to do with doctors, because I'm well, I realize I got sucked into the doctor-is-god syndrome. I am convinced that they know their craft and they are nevertheless sometimes stumped, and whatever the outcome rests more with the patient's attitude than anything else.

I will remember with love the surgeon who through happenstance became Hal's major doctor during the last phase of his life along one particular resident and I will always treasure the memory of the open caring and competence of those overworked nurses.

And for my own good, I am back to thinking of doctors as human beings who have a lot in common with plumbers.

continued in chapter 12; part 1