Nurses

As I sat at her bedside, a young male nurse hurried into my niece’s hospital room to change her abdominal dressings. I was horrified that he was going to expose her naked body. After all, I was there to protect her modesty! However, the crisis passed when he looked at the patient, asked her permission, and she smiled at him as if to say ‘ignore my Auntie; she’s old and hasn’t a clue.’

Men in nursing! What a surprise. Who knew? Not me, evidently.

I see little news about the care we receive from nurses of all genders, so I choose to tell some stories about these wondrous caregivers. I want to remind us of the kindness, hard work, skills and understanding we find in nurses. They have mattered to me as I’ve taken tumbles and needed attention.

Not long ago I’d had an accident and had to be sedated because I’d fallen and broken some bones. My husband had to decide in a hurry about surgeries. He was at a loss and turned to a nurse, who explained the alternatives and told him what to expect. No one else was there to help, he said, and he trusted the experience of a nurse who seemed to know what to do. He hasn’t forgotten her name.

When a friend of mine waited anxiously in a hospital room after a diagnosis, a nurse suddenly appeared and sat beside her, like an angel. She stayed and told that nervous patient she wasn’t going to die. How wonderful, not to be ignored as we sit alone in fear!

I have a retired nurse friend who seems to know how to comfort me too. When I tell her my complaints, she affirms that I’m not crazy and my discomfort is real. If I must deal with some infirmity, she brings me flowers and large-print books to ease my tired eyes. She has that sense I’ve known in nurses as they witness pain and sadness, to be present and listen.

When I was a high-school teacher I befriended an aimless teen and told her she should pull up her socks and go to college, that she was bright enough to create a rewarding life. She chose nursing and grew to become a hospital administrator, nursing instructor and friend of patients.

I’m proud of that.

I know a nun whose calling was nursing. She held the hands of the suffering poor in Louisiana, worked with nursing students in a university, and became a hero to all her patients. She eventually gave up her religious vocation, and later retired from nursing, but she continues to befriend anyone who enjoys her humor and immense patience.

A friend who lived in England reports that home visits from nurses meant everything as she dealt with her four small children. In the TV show Call the Midwife, the nurses of 1950s Britain ride their bicycles to the homes of people who need care. The nurses roll up their sleeves and tackle any job that needs doing, from wiping the runny noses of toddlers to birthing babies.

I love the idea of ‘district nurses’ who provide help in rural areas where doctors and clinics are not available. They change dressings, give vaccinations, listen to grievances, comfort the dying, advise care-givers, distract worried children. I’ve learned that in some areas they arrive in mobile clinics with needed supplies.

Kristin Hanna's gripping novel The Women is about the women who served as nurses in Vietnam. We read of Frankie, a girl who enlists — over family objections — and is sent to a remote medical outpost: Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets — and becomes one of — the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

My favorite fictional nurse is Nurse Jackie, played by Edie Falco in that TV series. She is irreverent, outspoken, funny, rude and unfaithful. She breaks the rules, insults her superiors, and handles all crises with brilliant intelligence and compassion.

Nurses have been serving since the Revolutionary War, when they were organized by Abigail Adams. During our Civil War a cohort of women answered the cries of the wounded and assisted scarce medical doctors on the battlefields. While they had to confront bias against women serving as nurses to men, they prevailed, and their service evolved into the nursing profession in America. 

I’m glad we have men in nursing. When someone answers the needs of those who are hurting, it’s time to set aside gender bias and welcome kindness.

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