A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a luncheon for an association of universities and colleges. In a question and answer session, after my presentation, I was asked why I became a nurse. To be honest with
you, no one had ever asked me that and so not quite knowing what to say, I made a joke. “The reason I became a nurse,” I said, “was I was told I was too short to be a Playboy bunny.”
The joke went over well with the audience and
as a result I never really did answer the question. Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about that question and I’m still not sure I know the answer.
In 2014, I’ll have been a nurse for 40 years. Some of you aren’t
even that old. I’ve been a nurse well over two-thirds of my entire life. It’s getting to where I can’t remember not being a nurse. Seriously, I really can’t remember a time when strangers didn’t approach me upon learning
my occupation and show me some body part saying, “What do you think it could be?” (If you’ve been a nurse longer than 10 seconds you know what I mean!)
When I reflect on my lengthy nursing career, well folks, I get plum exhausted. Because
you know, as well as I, that once you become a nurse – you can never ‘unbecome’ a nurse. Oh, you can try. But, trust me, being a nurse is so ingrained into you on such a cellular level that you can’t escape it!
Come on, admit
it! How many of you have stood in some checkout line, observing the other shoppers with that little voice in your head whispering, “COPD, yep, he’s a blue blower. Hmm, with his gait -diabetes neuropathy for sure. Look at those earlobe folds–
that one’s headed for cardiac problems. “
You overhear people saying silly things about the human body in the changing room at a department store and you just have to interrupt and set the record straight. After all, you’re a nurse.
You can’t help yourself. And by golly, why should you? You know the right answers. You are a nurse.
Ok, seriously. You are a nurse. It’s a special club. Not everyone can do what you do or even wants to. But at one time or another, they’ll
all want you. Yes, indeed. Because you are a nurse.
For as far back as I’ll let my memory float over my career, I can see faces looking at me expectantly wanting something…. answers, pain relief, hope, comfort, honesty, cheer,
wisdom, reassurance or perhaps just a smile. In less time than it takes to read this, I’ve established personal relationships that have allowed me, even for a short while, into people’s lives to care for them in the most intimate of ways. I can’t
recall what I had for lunch yesterday, but I’ll never forget how it felt rocking little Moises in my arms as he received his first IV chemo, how I cried when Liz took her first steps after a devastating stroke, how I rejoiced with the parents of baby
James as he emerged into this world or how it felt to close my own father’s eyes at the end of his battle. It is all part of this sacred profession we are so blessed to share – being a nurse.
I still don’t know why I became a nurse.
It was never my intention. I had so many more important things to do. Lucky for me, God had other plans. And it seems, He did for you too. During this year’s Nurses’ Week, I give thanks that He led not only me down this road, but each one
of you as well…my Nurse brothers and sisters. May God bless and keep each of you as close to His heart as I do to mine.