I ran into someone from another department of Charleston Newspapers recently, and she mentioned that she was working on a special section for National Nurses Week - May 6-12.
Then she added, with a look of helpless wonder: "The letters . . . "
They were amazing, she said. All of them. When people nominated a nurse for recognition, they really put their hearts into it. The stories just knocked her out.
The section will appear in tomorrow's Sunday Gazette-Mail. You will see what she means.
The encounter shamed me. I should have been one of those letter-writers, not once but many, many times.
If no one dear to you has ever hit big trouble, as was the case for me for many decades, you live in blissful ignorance. But people who have dealt with a serious injury or illness in the family learn quickly how amazing nurses are.
About 10 years ago, as first one parent and then the other encountered the cruelties of age, I entered the world of M.D.s, L.P.N.s, R.N.s, C.N.A.s, P.A.s, E.M.T.s, E.R.s and ICUs.
Around and around we went through these interlocking worlds - doctors' offices, the General Division of Charleston Area Medical Center, the Memorial Division, St. Francis Hospital, Thomas Hospital, Arthur B. Hodges, Oak Ridge, Charleston Gardens.
All of these professionals, all of these places and all of our families depend on nurses. The whole health care system would collapse without them.
As any T.D. - town daughter - could tell you, nurses are the problem solvers, the patient soothers, the family liaisons. They are the organization, the voice of experience, and the comfort and the laughter in hard times.
How do you thank someone who, when a parent wakes up disoriented in a strange place, gets that person into a wheelchair and reassures them with a cheese sandwich and a cigarette in the middle of the night?
Thank you, Teresa, wherever you are.
How could I ever thank all the wonderful nurses who saw me and mine through Dr. John Lewis's office time after time - smiling, laughing, comforting, renewing the same prescription dozens of times, sorting out snafus?
Thank you, Summer and Co.
I ran into someone from another department of Charleston Newspapers recently, and she mentioned that she was working on a special section for National Nurses Week - May 6-12.
Then she added, with a look of helpless wonder: "The letters . . . "
They were amazing, she said. All of them. When people nominated a nurse for recognition, they really put their hearts into it. The stories just knocked her out.
The section will appear in tomorrow's Sunday Gazette-Mail. You will see what she means.
The encounter shamed me. I should have been one of those letter-writers, not once but many, many times.
If no one dear to you has ever hit big trouble, as was the case for me for many decades, you live in blissful ignorance. But people who have dealt with a serious injury or illness in the family learn quickly how amazing nurses are.
About 10 years ago, as first one parent and then the other encountered the cruelties of age, I entered the world of M.D.s, L.P.N.s, R.N.s, C.N.A.s, P.A.s, E.M.T.s, E.R.s and ICUs.
Around and around we went through these interlocking worlds - doctors' offices, the General Division of Charleston Area Medical Center, the Memorial Division, St. Francis Hospital, Thomas Hospital, Arthur B. Hodges, Oak Ridge, Charleston Gardens.
All of these professionals, all of these places and all of our families depend on nurses. The whole health care system would collapse without them.
As any T.D. - town daughter - could tell you, nurses are the problem solvers, the patient soothers, the family liaisons. They are the organization, the voice of experience, and the comfort and the laughter in hard times.
How do you thank someone who, when a parent wakes up disoriented in a strange place, gets that person into a wheelchair and reassures them with a cheese sandwich and a cigarette in the middle of the night?
Thank you, Teresa, wherever you are.
How could I ever thank all the wonderful nurses who saw me and mine through Dr. John Lewis's office time after time - smiling, laughing, comforting, renewing the same prescription dozens of times, sorting out snafus?
Thank you, Summer and Co.
How could I thank the nurses from a nursing home, a doctor's office and an assisted living place who worked together after 4 p.m. on a Friday to make sure that a controlled substance that could not be sent with the patient from the nursing home would be there for her a few hours later at the assisted living facility?
How could I ever thank the young nurse whose husband and toddler were waiting at home, but who stayed so the retinal specialist and the retinal cameraman could run a test that revealed big trouble?
How could I ever thank the many emergency room nurses I met who sorted out things at high speed and acted unbothered by bedlam?
Or all the wonderful, compassionate, organized floor nurses who were looking forward to finishing their shifts when we showed up and had to be checked in?
Or the nurses and aides who looked out for my father and took care of me at the Arthur B. Hodges nursing home? Or the wonderful crew who took care of my mother and me at Charleston Gardens?
Or the hospice nurses who shared the end with us?
Nurses come up with a level of intelligence, organization, efficiency, insight and human goodness that has to be seen to be believed. It's a privilege to see them operate.
I gush, unashamedly.
I do so from the vantage point of experiences I will not forget - of kindness and competence that rescued a patient, saved sight, relieved agonizing pain, supplied dignity where it was absent, and turned around one day after another after another.
And not just for the patient.
Nurses deserve their week.
Dig deep, like they do, and make it a good one.
Maurice is editorial page editor of the Daily Mail. She may be reached at 348-4802 or ha...@dailymail.com.
