My patient this week was in his 9th decade -a WW II veteran from the Marine Corps who'd been all over the world. I got my first shot at shaving a patient with him, which was scary and also kind of funny. I didn't cut him, thank god, but he looked kind of like a mangy puppy after I finished. He was so happy though, he just kept telling me what a great job I'd done even though he had no idea what he looked like.
I was so surprised at how lucid he was when I met him. I like how he called his hearing aids his "ears", his glasses his "eyes", and his oxygen cannula his "breathers."
Thinking about how he was reaching the end of his life made me a little sad. I don't think he's going to make it too much longer. Even though he's had a long life and a pretty good one judging by his spirit, it's still an end none-the-less. He'll have some time now to look over his life and think about everything he's done and seen, and when he's gone someone will have lost their dad, their husband, their buddy... It's like the end of an era. Makes ya feel a little melancholy...
More than a little... My former roommate, the ER nurse I mentioned below, switched to the ER precisely because she could no longer take getting to know the patients and then losing them.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why you should be a nurse, and will make a wonderful one, because nursing is a courageous profession that requires grace and compassion, both of which you have in spades
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