My nursing career has taken me a few different places over the last four years since leaving the unit I was on for 14 years, and so have my “school shoes,” as I have always fondly called them – something I’d never anticipated. The stories in hospice and those in oncology are much different than those I’d brought home from my years in the ICU. But what hasn’t changed is that I still wish I could call my Dad on the way home from work. He’s been gone 20 years now, and I still get a good fun story now and then, and want nothing more than to pick up the phone and hear him laugh. And that is exactly what happened a few weeks ago.
I love the meaningful, deep conversations about hard stuff. I really, really do. My friend and I call these “protein-packed conversations.” But now and then, it’s just good and healthy, perhaps even therapeutic and healing, to just laugh so hard you can hardly breathe.
You’re about to do that.
I want to know how my patients are doing, how they are handling their chemotherapy – not only how food tastes, if they are getting enough fluids, whether or not they have nausea or vomiting, or difficulty going to the bathroom. So I like to engage them in some light conversation and see where it goes, and when I’m done asking questions, I usually ask, “Is there anything you’d like to share that I haven’t asked you?” Most times they say no, but every now and then they surprise me, which is exactly what happened a few weeks ago.
Are you ready for a good laugh?
My patient was Polish; English was her second language. Her friend accompanied her, who spoke a little bit better English than she did. When I asked my usual, “Is there anything else going on I have not mentioned, that you’d like to share with me?” She answered, “Yes!”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh! I have terrible itchy rash from Chinese rubber!” she said.
“WHAT?!” I said, and she repeated, “I have terrible itchy rash from Chinese rubber!”
I looked at her friend and asked for a little help translating, and she looked me square in the face and said, “You know – EVERYTHING that comes from China is SO CHEAP! Even rubbers!”
At this point when I’m at almost a complete lack of words (unusual for me), she tells her friend (my patient), “Stand up! Show her rash from Chinese rubber!”
I’m like…… PLEASE! NOOOOOO!
But she does anyways. My patient stands up, pulls up her shirt, pulls her pants down just a wee bit, and shows me a rash all around her belly because the elastic on her pants is too tight, and her friend points and says, “See?! Chinese rubber makes rash on her skin!”
A vocabulary lesson promptly took place as I introduced these sweet women to the word “elastic,” and we carried on with our day of treatment.
It wasn’t a “school shoes” moment, but it was definitely a much-needed laugh shared between the three of us that day. When I told them what I was thinking, (and what you were thinking), I’m pretty sure we shared a laugh together than none of us will soon forget. And since laughter is the best medicine, I think that’s perfectly okay, don’t you?
I wanted to call you, Dad. I knew you would have enjoyed that laugh with me. I miss you.
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