How many legacies are you creating today?

You need to know this as a nurse: you’re not treating one patient at one particular moment in time. You’re leaving a legacy. Your actions are woven into the patient’s lifelong health tapestry.

As a lifelong patient, trust me on this one. Forty years of close care by the medical community has given me insight not commonly gained.

I marvel at your dedication, day in and day out, through cranky coworkers and perturbed patients.

Many times over, I’ve seen you at your best. Many times over, you’ve seen me at my worst. And still you treat me with kindness and respect.

My story began forty years ago at age seven, when I was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital. It was my first time away from home on my own. I was terrified. My diagnosis-finding stay extended out to three months, smack over the entire holiday season, November through January.

Either Mom or Becky, our good friend and neighbor, was at my side on a daily basis. As each evening fell, though, of course, my visitors needed to leave.

At 3 am, it was the nurses who kept me company. It was nurses who offered me a cool, life-giving sip of water (I’ve not tasted anything as refreshing since then), nurses who soothed my burning forehead, who checked on me when sleep wouldn’t come, and from whom I tried to hide my tear-soaked pillow in the enveloping darkness.

Each morning, nurses were the first people my mom looked to for reassurance about her little girl. Read more…