A patient who is a priest recently told me that there are two different types of nurses, like priests. There are all priests that know and do priestly things, but there are those rarer types who have the right heart to be a priest. Nurses are like that, he said. There are rare types who really do have the right heart to be a nurse. Haley is of that rare kind. I have had the pleasure to work with her for a year now, and during that time, I have been moved by her tenderness and kindness to her patients.
One night, Haley was taking care of a patient who was going to be the second runner recipient for a small bowel transplant. This was his second time being the second choice. In the years that he waited for a transplant, he lived with an ostomy and multiple tubes and drains and spent multiple days and nights at the hospital. The hopes and stakes were high. During the night, she spent almost all of her free time sitting down with the patient, doing the thing that nurses instinctively know how to do by using their body and presence for therapeutic use.
Unfortunately, later into the night, Haley was notified that the organs will be going to another patient. She came up to the nurses' station, almost in tears, saying, "I don't know how I'm going to go back in his room." But, she did, after collecting herself. Until the wife picked him up to drive him home, she continued to provide him company through this difficult time of being told no again.
That rare kind of nurse, the nurse who truly has the right heart for nursing, will get angry with the patient when the patient feels angry and frustrated at the injustice, the nonsensicalness, the absurdity of being sick. They will be there with you when you want to cry. They will feel your emotions with you, and that is what Haley does.
Recently, on our floor, there was a patient who has basically become immobile after a stroke. Haley, for the several nights that she cared for him, washed him up every early morning. As we nurses guiltily know, washing a patient is a time-consuming task, and we don't often do it unless we have to. Offering it and doing it voluntarily, while knowing that the unit norm is for patients to be washed during the day shift, speaks to her extraordinary devotion to her patients. In fact, during the wash, she found multiple pressure injuries on the patient, began interventions to protect the bony prominences, and advocated to the staff to protect his skin.
Working with Haley has made me think about myself as a nurse. Surely, I have provided care to numerous patients, but have I truly *cared* for a patient? I can say confidently that Haley has. Unwavering vigilance is how I would describe her nursing practice. The buck, truly, stops with this nurse. She is questioning of unsafe practices, and she makes sure that patients are safe and cared for.
A few weeks ago, a patient's perineural catheter pump was beeping for a while. The nurse who had that patient was in another room admitting a patient, the other nurses on that side of the hallway had been ignoring the beeping pump. Haley, who had heard it, after the pump continued to beep, came to me (I had been the charge that night), and asked if we can go change out the perineural bag for the patient because it had been beeping for 45 minutes. Haley's patients were on the far end of the other side of the hallway. Yet, she volunteered to help with a patient who wasn't assigned to her, and who was nowhere near where she was working.
Earlier last year, a patient who was allergic to adhesives and CHG had a PICC line that was secured with only a paper tape. The outgoing nurse passed the patient to Haley, nonchalantly stating that the paper tape was just what we were using. She was not satisfied with the answer and found the situation unsafe. The risk for displacement and the risk of infection were too high. She called the charge, and paged the doctors, inquiring if there was anything else we can do to make it safer. If not CHG, then what else? If not statlock, then what else? I was moved by her relentless questions, her dedication to patient safety.
There is an indescribable energy that exudes from a nurse who has the right heart, who truly cares. Patients can feel it, and other nurses are moved by the extra length that their coworker goes to care for the patient. Haley exudes that radiant energy. You can just tell that the buck stops with this nurse, that the nurse will not accept an unsafe condition or practice and that the nurse will make sure that a patient, where she is assigned to their care or not, receives the care that they deserve.