I haven’t posted to Angels in more than three months. Like many of you, I was a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of our coursework and the concept maps due every weekend in our third semester. But now we are truly in the home stretch. With just a little bit more than three months ‘til our final and the boards not too far after that, we’re ordering our pins, getting our references, putting together our resumes—and, if you’re like me—trying to figure out where we’d like to be in the short and long term.
It’s easy to lose sight of why we chose this path in the first place.
I’ve had the opportunity, especially in the last few months, to be reimnded of my own reasons for choosing to be an RN, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that nursing is a gift we give not only our patients, but ourselves, too.
In May of 1980, my dad, then almost 61, was diagnosed with lung cancer. I was just shy of 14 and at the end of eighth grade, suffering from all the insecurities and frustrations most early teen girls struggle with. As a teenager, I imagine I had little sense of my dad’s (and my own) mortality. For me, the ensuing nine months were painful more for the front-row seat I had for my dad’s rapid and inevitable decline. His initial surgery—and my subsequent visit to the ICU following it—was traumatic enough. Going with him to radiation treatments (which, back then, seemed to fit better in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory than in a hospital), watching him suffer with wrenching nausea and vomiting after his cancer metastasized to his liver and he began chemotherapy, and finding him moving furniture up the staircase in the early morning in the midst of a sepsis-induced hallucination—all these things left me feeling incredibly helpless. His final decline was marked by several hospitalizations and discharges. He spent his last week at home, a shadow of his former self, unable to read or write—but died in the hospital when pneumonia and respiratory failure finally claimed him.
My dad’s death left me frightened of hospitals and vowing to avoid them at all costs.
Fast forward to December 2009, as I visited my ex-husband’s father at his home. My 17-year-old once described this man as “The person on earth who’s the most like Jesus,” and he was right. “Dad” was what I called him, long after my relationship with his son dissolved in ruins. And he always introduced me as his daughter, long after the divorce. And, for all intents and purposes, he was my father—much longer than my own dad had had a chance to be. Ironic might not be the right word, but my second Dad was now facing his own mortality after a 3.5-year struggle with glioblastoma, a rare but lethal brain tumor. He fought the good fight, and was granted good quality of life, but by the time I saw him last on December 11, he was tired, struggling to eat, and minimally aware of his surroundings. I was privileged, that night, to be able to participate in Dad’s care in a way I wouldn’t have been able to prior to going to school. Nothing I did was particularly skilled—it was simple ADLs—but I wasn’t scared, and I wasn’t sad. And, as my ex-sister and mother-in-law and I tucked blankets around him, I leaned down and told him I loved him. For a moment, he seemed to be present again, and said, in his characteristic fashion, “Love you, Beth.”
A week later, he was gone, passing away peacefully at home with his wife and daughter by his side. His last words? “Love you.”
I know that if it hadn’t been for nursing school, I would not have been as present as I would have liked to be for Dad. While I didn’t contribute much to his care, I was able to be with him—and, in a way, provide him the things I would have liked to give my own Dad. Truly, a gift for me—one I hope I will be able to share with others.
What has nursing given you?
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