I hesitated whether or not to ever blog this. But you know me and my “late night ponderings…” I’ve told this story to a couple of close friends over the past month, and was finally convinced that it was worth putting out there – even if it’s the shortest blog I ever write. Maybe that means I’m jotting, instead of blogging. I dunno. Anywhoozywhatsit……
I’ve been a nurse a long time. I’ve traveled with my patients hundreds of times to diagnostic tests, procedures, scans, or x-rays, where I’ve had to convince them to trust myself and a team of other healthcare providers to move them from the safety and comfort of their bed, to a cold, hard, sometimes very narrow – metal table. They’ve had to trust that we would on the count of three – 1, 2, 3 – get them from one surface to another surface seamlessly, painlessly, and most of all – safely, and back again.
I was never worried about us dropping a patient. (I was, however, always very tedious and borderline persnickety about not getting all of my tubes and IV lines and drains tangled up or caught on something and accidentally pulled out, because it happened to me ONCE, on January 1, 2010, I still remember my patient’s name, and I NEVER let it happen again!).
Never. Not once did I ever transfer a patient or turn a patient and think that one day someone would have to turn or reposition me. Kind of like when I took my childbirth classes, and the instructor looked over the room and said “One in 10 of you will have a C-section,” and I thought to myself, “I wonder which one of YOU it will be!”
Guess who the 1 out of 10 was. Yup. You guessed it. Yours Truly here.
Exactly 50 days ago today I had a procedure done at the hospital, and I can honestly tell you I did not have one ounce of fear in me prior to the procedure. Well, the anesthesiologist gave me some Versed to relax me just prior to the procedure, and I began to get a little bit loopy – or at least a little bit loopier than my baseline, anyways.
The staff took me into the OR, and a team of people surrounded me. The next thing I knew, I was being told not to move while they rolled me over on a very narrow surface. When I was rolled over onto my right side, I remember in all of my loopiness laughing inside because my face landed in the chest of some nurse, and she said, “We’ve got you honey.” But I knew that even thought it FELT like I could have rolled right off, I was surrounded by Registered Nurses who did, in fact, “have me.” And I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’ve DONE this before. I AM safe. They DO have me. I’m OKAY.” That’s the last thing I remember. (Thank you, Jesus!)
When I woke up and remembered that, I also recalled many years ago caring for a long-time co-worker who was dying of cancer. I had to take her for a test and when we pulled her over and the people in the OR realized who she was, they stopped and reassured her that they “had her” too, and Janice gave them the most peaceful, genuinely grateful smile – one of her lasts, and I felt privileged to witness it.
I don’t know why I wrote this blog except to say how proud I am to be a nurse, and to be part of a family of men and women with the highest integrity – some of the most incredible people I’ve ever known, in the #1 most trusted profession there is – worth every ache and pain in my back, and knees, and shoulders, and everything in between.
And if I had to do any of it all over again – I’d do it all over again.
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