Nursing stories, and the like.

So this last week I began my OB rotation. My first week, my first assignment, I got to help deliver a baby, by way of C-Section. I got to be in the Operating Room and assist slightly. There were 5 of us in the room, and then suddenly; 6. I will not attempt to describe what that was like to be apart of, I will say this: it changes you. The operating room is like a dance; very skilled and precise and I loved it. It is the ballet of medicine, the piano of medicine, if you will. And I will. I could see myself pursuing it as a specialty. In the end, though, surgery is barbarism. You are opening up some one's body, it is not slight soft movements, the body is wrenched open in a very primitive way. And then, ever so delicately they sew you back up. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

The day after, my next assignment was following the wound care team at UMC. They have a world renowned burn/wound unit. The juxtaposition between the 2 days was enough to break my heart. I watched this innocence enter the world, and then the next day witnessed some of the most horrific and painful deviations in life you could imagine. I will never forget the first patient I helped with at the wound care clinic. He was a man in his 40's, a diabetic who's foot was slowly becoming necrotic and rotting off, daily he came into the clinic to have his bandages changed. The smell of a wound like that is what I will remember the most. I asked him if I was hurting him as I slowly removed the last layers of gauze. He smiled and said, "Honey, I don't mind the pain, it reminds me I'm alive. I guess I will be more upset when my foot is gone and I don't feel anything at all." I stopped what I was doing and looked right at him and said, "I know what you mean, sir." He said, "Yes, you seem like you would."

What I think is the most amazing thing about nursing is the fact that my aim is not always to "make someone better" Often, nursing is about helping a dying man die better, if that makes sense. It is more the role of comforter than healer. We cannot always prevent death or pain or sadness though we will always try, but we can sit with someone as it happens.

And a quote I read today, that I loved.
"I had a lover's quarrel with the world" -Frost