I have spent several weeks at the Adult Behavioral Unit (1North) of Borgess Medical Center. Right now, I'm here again to try a medicine change.
Over the years, I've been blessed by having nurse Aaron as my nurse. Yesterday was one of those times. Aaron takes a genuine interest in each of his patients and tries to spend time with them one-on-one. Yesterday, either I was in a group, or he was busy with another patient, so he saw me at the end of his day. In fact, he went and punched out, then came back to talk to me. I was having a difficult time with depression and very angry that it keeps coming back, despite my efforts to stay mentally healthy.
Aaron is an excellent listener and looked me right in the eye as I talked. I didn't meet his eyes much while I described my day, but Aaron listened anyway without comment until I was done. Then, he asked if I knew the story of Joseph from the Bible. I told him what I knew and he helped by filling in the blanks. He talked about it then and asked if I could draw any parallels from the story to make some sense to my own suffering. I cried and his eyes got misty as we talked.
He also shared about a difficult time in his own life, when he didn't know what his purpose in life was going to be. It was really special to hear his story. It was very similar to what I was going through, and with his gentle coaxing, I found that I just might understand him a bit better, which helped me with my problem. I believe it took a lot of courage for him to tell that story and to compare it to what I was going through.
Aaron really puts his patients first, and it was so helpful for me to think about my depression a little differently because of this unselfish conversation with me, even though it was time for him to go home.
When Aaron is working, I feel like that shift will go well for the rest of us, even if he is not able to take quite so many extra minutes with me.
I like when Aaron talks about his family. It makes him seem 'safer' to talk about my troubles and frustration with him. He likes to share his observations of his three daughters and how they are growing. When he does that, it feels like an invitation for me to talk about my own family, which is pretty much my brother's wife and two kids who all live in Alabama.
However, last year Aaron stopped me in the hall. He wanted to go out west and was hoping for some information from me. I gladly gave him the things I knew about and he and his family took that trip West earlier this year. I am so glad that he's been back and now we can both talk about some things we each saw while out there.
I really think Aaron is a deep thinker and his experiences are similar to mine in a lot of ways. He is very humble, which make him feel important to me, and he shows me there is a lot out there still to learn.