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1971

I am six. I can see myself perfectly. We have traveled from Cleveland hosting asp net NY to visit my Grandparents and the unrelenting belly ache which disallowed any sleep has manifested itself into appendicitis. It is not life threatening. Not ready to burst. Just your basic, vanilla appendicitis. I am a scared, pensive child, nearly albino with buck teeth and severe features; I am bordering on homely but still innocently quick to smile. I have learned stoicism too early in my life and I am scolded each time I cry out during a brisk examination from the asp web hosting practitioner. The realities of my dark childhood unfortunately would not sound foreign to so many of my nursing colleagues. It seems to be a common binding thread and our late night stories of how multitudes of my sisters learned to control their emotions would shock the mainstream. Shiny and beautiful moments were peppered throughout my prepubescent years but, so infrequent, that they are barely perceptible.

There I was, a small crying, frail child in pain, sitting next to the fish tank on the pediatric ward. My surgery was successful. I was out of bed, ambulatory. My parents were nowhere to be found. I had no concept of time. Was it day and they forgot about me? Was it night and they fell asleep (and forgot about me)? The fish swam next to my little face, back and forth, as I cried silently. My incision hurt but my heart was unbearably breaking. Maybe they went back to Cleveland without me?

And then she appeared. I can still smell her: Aqua Net and Juicy Fruit. Her white shoes were scuffed and her uniform pressed but obviously worn and washed until the whiteness faded to the color of early morning winter clouds. Her stockings swished as she knelt down in front of me and gave me a tissue. I wish I could see her face or remember her name in my memories, but she was a magical, soft, faceless angel. She touched my face, picked me up, put me on her lap and rocked me. Her voice was sing-songy and sad. She reassured me and let me believe my parents were coming right back. She mercifully lied, explaining how she herself had sent them home and she was going to stay with me all night long. And she did. Endless popsicles, ice-cream, ginger ale complete with bendy straws that looked like they belonged in a circus act. She smiled, and sang, and hush-a-byed me to sleep. I had never felt so loved or so safe. She nursed me for only one shift but for years when I was afraid of the dark, I imagined her kind, simple hands reaching out for me and tucking a pillow behind my back.

It is well known a Nurse's touch can inspire more dramatic healing

1984.

Puberty has been kind to me. I have grown into a beautiful and bright college student with a promising future in Cultural Anthropology and in need of cash for books. I scan the newspaper. The Ad draws my attention (Nursing Assistants:All Shifts) ... Hmmm. Somehow I got the job.

Nursing home patients in the early 1980's were frequently tied to their chairs and their beds without any state monitoring of the boundary of abuse....it is now monitored closely by Federal and State protective dignity laws

It was my first experience with night shift and my first experience taking out the trash (vomited). My first experience changing an adult diaper (vomited). My first experience emptying a foley (ewww!). My first experience holding the hand of a cold and lonely elderly woman. I was mesmerized by these helpless non-adults who we would regularly tie down to keep them from wandering into the stairwells. I scanned their family photos of the 1920s and 1930s with their pin curls and proud Zoot-suit wedding poses to possibly match an eye color or a twist of their smile to bind the past with this helpless being in the bed. Their photos were the last remnants to their existence and their only possessions. It did not take long for me to begin visiting them during my free time in between classes and bonding with the few still left with a sharp mind. Every night became a new adventure... until I sat by the bedside of a woman in Congestive Heart Failure and watched her take her last breath. I could not stop crying. I had never experienced death so intimately. The other nursing assistants laughed at me and told me I would get used to it.

I had no interest in getting used to it.

I put in my two weeks notice.

My last night was long. A demented woman at the end of the hall was screaming and keeping everyone awake. A painful UTI was the apparent diagnosis but my nurse forbid me to toilet her again and she headed down the hall to her room. I sneaked after her, hoping to help. I was shocked to witness my charge LPN scolding her harshly and telling her she could not have the bedpan again for the rest of the night. It was only 2am and the nurse made good on her threat. I met with my Director Of Nursing the next day to report the incident. I was unprepared for her lecture. The phrase "personality conflict" stuck inside my self esteem like a bad virus but it did not curb my determination.

I was stronger than her lack of insight and I possessed the righteous anger reserved exclusively for 19 year olds. I left her office and drove to St .Elizabeth School of Nursing and never looked back.

Nursing Schools in the 1980's were dominated by 3 year diploma programs consisting of grueling clinical schedules

I was inspired beyond measure by all of those nurses: My life profoundly effected, but more importantly, that chain of events helped me to save hundreds of lives, cradle countless crying babies, support multiple collapsing mothers as they viewed the lifeless and bloody body of their only son, massaged a heart back to life, hugged a beautiful and bruised rape victim. I have held the hand of a distraught husband whose wife has agreed to the final morphine drip, pounded on the chest of a teenage football hero after an overdose of steroids and cocaine, delivered the devastating news to a newly orphaned twin, escorted motherless children to the Operating Room and told my own lies of comfort. I have spoken up against unethical practice, placed myself in harms way to shield a fellow nurse from unnecessary judgments. I have been called headstrong, a cowboy, unrelenting and unrealistic. I have been a loyal follower and an insecure leader, offering phrases of encouragement and hope to the hopeless and lost. I have managed an Emergency Department, challenged Unions, Directed a Rehabilitation Facility, confronted harsh co-workers, and cried with and gave strength to families in crisis when I had no strength for myself. I have pushed my body, my heart, and my mind to the breaking point and still had enough love left over at the end of the shift to return home, to my patiently waiting family, and rock my own babies to sleep.

I have received very few thank you notes throughout my twenty year career and even fewer letters of praise. I have held my head high when I watched a family tearfully thank an Electrologist for saving their daughter when I just spent four licensure threatening hours, eight pages through the answering service, and six argumentative phone conversations begging him to come in and take care of his unstable patient. I have taken professional liberties to save a life and have defended nurses working for me when they have been forced to do the same.

So the words I have for myself today are the words I share with all of you brave enough to answer to the calling of a Nurse;

Strong, soft, gentle, wonderful, caring, tenacious, tolerant, enduring, classic, courageous, heroic, valiant, peaceful, INSPIRING!

"I am a nurse. I am the nameless. I am the faceless. But I know somewhere, someone is remembering my voice, my gentle touch, and thanking me for the impact on their life. "

Amy Park Loughren, RN

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