Home care nurses catalogue memories. Recently, I reminisced about rising early to visit a retired farmer to measure his fasting blood sugar before daylight. My visit recollections also included early-morning calls to administer IV antibiotics or to fix an IV pump or urinary catheter problem that required immediate attention.
Earline was a paraplegic patient whose veins were difficult to stick, or so I thought on my first visit. Ten years later I visited Earline again for routine lab work and was able to easily obtain the sample on the first stick. "You've sure gotten better at sticking veins," she said. "You ought to pay me for all those times I was a guinea pig back when you first started drawing blood."
Poverty and living conditions also provide a home care challenge. I remember one situation when a 20-year-old niece, Priscilla, was caring for her three uncles, each of whom was in his 40s and wheelchair bound having been born handicapped as a result of interfamily marriage. Their care involved bathing, cleaning, cooking, and feeding, all done with respect and tenderness. This amazing young woman also raised her own three children while providing total care for her uncles for over 15 years until all three had died. Then and now, Priscilla's face wears a perpetual smile.
Adult Protective Services wanted to move Gertrude out of her dilapidated, 20' x 20' home in the middle of a sugarcane field. The overgrown yard contained piles of soiled laundry, cooking containers, and broken furniture after concerned neighbors "cleaned" her house. Over twenty cats perched on the front porch and the house reeked of disinfectant and cat excrement. "My toilet is in the yard," she said, pointing to a full, soiled, portable camping commode near the pile of clothes. She had no stove, her refrigerator housed hundreds of insects, and there was no running water.
Gertrude's wounds healed, her house was cleaned, pests were controlled, and the hole in the floor was fixed thanks to helpful neighbors, family, and the care of the visiting nurse. If her home care visit was scheduled during noon she'd often share a plate lunch with me on the front porch, giving part of her lunch to her beloved cats. Her good neighbor still brings water. Family members deliver groceries and medication refills. Gertrude continues to live independently and happily with her cats under the oaks in the sugarcane field.
Megan, an 18-month-old with chronic myelogenous leukemia was referred for care. Her father, a former rodeo rider-now truck driver-had donated his bone marrow to his precious baby daughter. On the initial contact, while asking about my skills, knowledge, and experience, he indicated that at the first hint of incompetence I would be asked to leave. Twelve years later Megan is a healthy high school student and is the youngest diagnosed CML survivor on record.
The terminally ill and their families teach us a great deal about forgiveness. Donald, a dying patient, had been an alcoholic his entire life and had alienated his children. He prepared for death over a period of months, making peace as he could. All seven of his adult children were at home with him, praying at his bedside as Donald took his last breath.
Home care nurses are blessed. We are invited into strangers' homes when they are most vulnerable. Soon we are no longer strangers. We rejoice together when there is good news from lab work or an X-ray. We share coffee like a trusted friend as they share their fears, concerns, and hopes. We also grieve when they are discharged or die.
What great memories from our life's work.
What a sacred calling.
FIGURE