Heart Joy

I should follow up that last post with another. (Kaylene, this was origionally a comment in response to yours, but it got long enough I decided to post instead. Thanks for commenting.) I usually have new patients on different floors every day, but I really hoped and prayed I could have him again. The next morning, I was woken up by a phone call saying that I was to go to Methodist Hospital again. And...I had the same patient and his wife again! The wife was gone for the morning and had just come back when I was about to leave to spend my last four hours on the medical ICU. I gave report to the next nurse and I was leaving at 3 o'clock, when the charge nurse stopped me to say that I was staying for the next four hours after all. I think it was God, because the patient's wife and I had such wonderful talks during those last four hours! We talked about why I wanted to be a nurse, that I am a Christian, the kind of nursing I dream of in foreign countries, the fact that she was accepted into nursing school and would have started 3 weeks ago if it were not for her husband's illness, her boys, my family, culture, Ramadan... We laughed; we shared. I was able to stop giving her husband as much sedation, and he became more alert, though the breathing tube still prevented him from speaking and his condition is no less critical. He smiled, gave a thumbs up, and was otherwise much more responsive. The wife gave me a bottle of mango juice, a delicious pastry filled with spicy meat, and a great, big hug as I left. Oh, the day before, she told me, "I love you!" as I left. I walked home so happy. What a joy these things are! How many other people receive these kinds of blessings at work?

Heart Ache

I'm sitting here in Methodist Hospital listening to the Koran being read to my patient with prayers being sung in the background on a cassette tape and an Arabic channel playing on the TV. The patient's wife is lying on the foot of the bed; his restrained hand rests on her foot. She has cried a lot today. He may not live. Her brother is here. He is the one reading the Koran. She has three children at home trying to go to school. Other than that, she is alone in the United States. Her oldest son is depressed because of his dad's condition. He is not doing his school work. She talked to his teacher today. What can she do? She has no one, she says, other than her husband, whom she loves very much. He loves her and has always treated her well. There is no one else from her country that lives in her town. My heart aches for her.