Webster’s Dictionary defines “nurse” as : “one who looks after, fosters, or advises.” That definition doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. A nurse is one that can make you feel like you are the only person that they have to take care of that day; they hold your hand when you are scared; help your child breathe when they stop breathing. These are just a small sample of the tasks in a nurse’s day.
Sometimes, a nurse will go above and beyond what is expected of them. A few weeks ago, Jay Mellon was walking down the hallway in the Emergency Department. He heard someone crying, so he sought out where the cry was coming from. He entered into an elderly woman’s room to see her lying there and crying. He thought that she must be in pain and asked her what was hurting. She said that she wasn’t hurting too badly right then, so he asked her why she was crying. She simply said that she was worried about her dog. You see, she had been involved in a car accident, broke her hip, and her dog was at her house. She had no family or friends that could take care of the dog. Jay asked where she lived and offered to go to her house to pick the dog up and take care of it while she was in the hospital. The elderly lady was so very thankful! Jay went to her house, picked up the dog, and even took the dog to the vet to get some eye drops that it very desperately needed. The patient was discharged from the hospital and sent to a rehab center where she is still currently a patient.
What a selfless display of caring and compassion Jay showed to this worried patient. The tears that were welled up in her eyes that day were not tears of sadness anymore…they were tears of thankfulness for the loving gesture that went above and beyond what she could ever have expected. What a world this would be if we all took the time to be kind.