"No Rainbows, No Roses"

After reading "No Rainbows, No Roses" I can truly say that i can relate to the story. I believe that sharing an expression of emotion does make her a better nurse and i don't feel that she is being unprofessional at all. Working in the health care field has been a love of mine for the past ten years now. So i definitely know how she felt.

There was a time when i worked at a nursing home and i found myself in a similar situation. Being young and inexperienced at life all i could think of was coming in to work and getting it over with as quickly as possible. I worked night shift from 11pm to 7:30am. One night as i did my rounds i noticed that there was a priest in the room where i was headed next. I stood at the door, not wanting to disturb his speech as he read from the bible. Afterwards he looked at me and said that she didn't have much longer and asked if i could make her last moments as peaceful as possible. I nodded and went into the darkened room. This woman was not in a good state of health. She very thin and seemed to be in pain. I introduced myself and to my surprise she gathered enough strength to turn her head my way. She looked at me and called me a name i don't remember. I figured maybe it was a family member. I tried to familiarize her that my name was LaToya, but she insisted that i was someone else. I started to undress her so that i could give her a bed bath. This woman was so frail that took twice as long as i normally would, being careful not to inflict any pain upon her.

Afterwards, i emptied the trash from her room and grabbed my cart and headed for the door. I couldn't help but notice that there were sounds of muffled words coming from the other end of the room. I started back toward her to see what was wrong. Now, this woman was in pain, and whether she had any medication to ease it-i don't know, but managed to reach for my hand. I grabbed it and asked would could i do for her. She said simply "Please don't leave me alone, I don't want to die by myself. Since she was the last of my patients that i visited, i stayed a while. Even though her words were shallow and spaced apart, we did talk awhile. For that brief period in time i felt as though i was connecting with her as well as the nurse did in the story. As it seemed that her words were slipping away slower and slower, i felt that i should be letting her get her rest. After she drifted off to sleep, i quietly stepped out of the room.

It was time for me to do rounds again, and by the time i got back to her room, there was a doctor, two nurses and the priest that i ran into earlier. Without having to ask any questions, i knew what happened. As i slowly walked past the room pushing my cart, i started to think about a lot of things. What if this was me and i was in that position and had no family or relatives to spend my last hours with? Would my family allow me to be in such a place where i felt distant from them? This was the first time i experienced death in this way, and felt the pain of someone i hardly knew. Though our time was short, she left a lasting impression on my heart.

So in reading the story, i felt that the nurse did nothing wrong by letting her humanity take over. I don't know anyone who could keep a straight face, while staring at someone who is slipping away from life. From that moment i changed my attitude at work from being somewhat cold-hearted, to being compassionate and wanting to make every moment count for each individual that resided at the nursing home.