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1983 |
be interesting...even fascinating. But I didn't plan to be a nurse.
And then I started nursing school. Well it wasn't really a nursing school. It was a community college. I have an associates degree in nursing. It was those first few years when it became my passion. When I sat at the side of an elderly lady in the nursing home and she showed me how to quilt. When I watched babies being born. When I stood at the shoulder of the surgeon and watched as he extracted a huge cancer from a man's colon. As I hugged a teenage girl who had just lost her mom to breast cancer. Yes, even when I broke the rules to help a dying man smoke his last cigarette in a world where NO SMOKING now reigned. Nursing became my passion.
This passion led me down a very long road. The road of hospital nursing where so many changes took place that it was hard to stay on top of all of them. The road to long term care where I found my true passion in nursing. The elderly have so much to teach us. All we have to do is listen to them. Give them time. And the attention they deserve.
My nursing career ended with me giving care to the most wonderful patient I have ever had. My own husband. I am glad that I was able to be there, to give back to him all the love and care he had given to me and our sons. I ended my career at an all time high!!
I am grateful to have been a nurse.
And the world was made a better place by your love and dedication.
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying so, Wendy
DeleteIt does take a special person to be a nurse, whether one has the passion at their start of the career or not. I often think the nurses are the "backbone" of the hospital where the doctors are the "kings" that just fly in, give orders, and then disappear until the next time while the nurses diligently take care of the patients under their care. I think I would have done the same for that cancer patient and the cigarette.
ReplyDeleteGod moved you to a career that would be beneficial for being the loving caregiver you were able to be for Richard.
betty
Yes, Betty I do believe you are right!
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