I'm here at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, WA, recovering from having my bladder, prostate, and lymph nodes removed. A Stoma has been installed also requiring a Urostomy appliance and all of this is due to being diagnosed with High Grade Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer just a few months ago by the Spokane Veterans Affairs Medical Center. As a 52 year old, extremely active, combat veteran with PTSD who rides a motorcycle, works construction, and serves as a national officer in a 501c3 non-profit organization; I hope you can imagine the level of self-reliance and independence that a person like me is accustomed to in life.

The recovery needed from such a procedure is extensive ... to say the least! It has left me weak and incapable of the simplest tasks that I have taken for granted my entire life. Even though the nursing community may be used to the tasks required to assist a patient in recovery after a procedure of this nature, I assure you that I and others like me are definitely not!

I find it difficult to ask for help. Not being able to independently accomplish things such as remove myself from the toilet, clean myself after surgery, or even control my own bowel muscles, resulting in occasions of soiling myself in my sleep, is something I found to be demeaning, humiliating, shameful, and embarrassing! If you combine this with my military history and my military service-connected disability of PTSD from my Desert Storm combat service, then you might start to get an impression of my mental health during this time and my feelings of personal hopelessness and despair while having to allow someone else to help me with these issues. It's enough to break a man psychologically!

Then, to make it just a little bit harder, it felt, walks in a young female nurse who surely is going to clearly see all these things I fear, and yet .....not one hint of judgement came from this professional nurse's eyes. I didn't feel any sense of disgust as surely someone with this job would have in this situation. This person, although surely burdened with many important tasks left to get to, wasn't acting in any way like I was a burden or a chore and seemed to not even be in a rush! I BECAME DISTRACTED FROM MY INTERNAL TORMENT SOMEHOW! How could this nurse be this way? I looked at her name..... It was Heather. Heather, RN.

I began to have the courage to look up. There was a simple smile there. There seemed to be a kind voice asking me an unalarming question. Somehow ... my personal, internal devastation allowed me to answer. I shamefully tried to apologize for my lack of personal strength and failure of muscle control, yet quickly, softly, professionally, and believably, I heard, as a response, from this nurse, "Oh, no. This is nothing, so don't you worry. Besides, we're done, so let's get you comfortable." These responses may not be exact, but it's what my mind remembers.

I don't know that I understand how or exactly what this wonderful nurse did, but I can tell you for certain, is that after an entire day of this particular nurse caring for me, I got through that day feeling as though I still had some dignity left! I no longer felt so helpless. My sense of despair was taking a back seat to some personal focus on what I needed to do to get closer to my next step in recovery. I felt as though my shame may possibly be misplaced. I felt that my nurse had kindness, compassion, and understanding of my personal situation and maybe even an understanding of some of my personal internal fears. Those feelings started to lessen, which then allowed me to see that these unnecessary feelings were standing in the way of me progressing further and more completely through this recovery.

This one nurse's ability to do her job with kindness and compassion started a cascade of small successes that have rolled through from day to day to right this very second, and I believe it is somehow magically responsible for my personal struggle in recovery, NOT crippling me from the beginning!

This "Nurse Heather" has become a secret hero to me. If nothing else in this world happens, then, God willing, you'll at least convey my sincerest thanks to this woman ... this kind human being ... this "Hero Nurse"! She was a blessing to me!