Additional Needs
Age Appropriate
by Jodi Shenal
on 26th April, 2024
Nurse - Holder of the Sacred Spaces
Dear Nurse,
I see you. I watch you buzz around the room administering meds and treatments, answering my endless questions, and not blinking an eye at yet another mess to clean up. I watch the way you so tenderly touch and speak to my child, slowing down and spending seconds you don’t have simply to dote on my little one, make sure she is comfortable, and pretend to interact with her favourite stuffed animal.
The needs from your many patients are intense and endless, yet you never leave the room without asking if there is anything I need or anything you can do for me.
You listen with compassion to my concerns and take immediate action to join me in my advocacy
By no fault of your own, you are stuck on the receiving end of my frustration. This is at the hands of doctors who drop balls, are slow to meet urgent needs, or set themselves against me in the fight for my child’s best. You listen with compassion to my concerns and take immediate action to join me in my advocacy. Taking time to ask about pieces of my story and to speak support and encouragement to me.
You remind me that I am doing a good job, my child is blessed to have me, and I am enough. You withhold judgement and choose to be a source of calm in our chaos.
Above your warm smile, I see exhaustion mingling with the kindness in your eyes. I imagine the dozens of hours you have already put in this week. I picture you returning home after a night shift this morning, dropping your keys on the counter as an exhausted sigh finally rises from your chest. Perhaps you slipped into pyjamas, soaked in the wonder of having arrived at your needed time of rest, only to hear the ring of your phone, followed by a pleading request for you to cover a dropped shift later in the day. Regardless of how you came to be here, you are present. You sacrifice. You show up.
While for my family, hospital days are often unexpected and may find us amid life’s lowest valleys. It could just be another day on the job for you. You could cluster your patients and their families into one general category of boxes needing checked in a day and nothing else. The raw reality is that many medical staff do operate this way. But, sweet nurse, you don’t.
You choose to treat our story as unique
As once in a lifetime. You chose a career that allows you to stand beside us in the sacred space of heartache. A place where doors for miracles and moments, that will define our family in one way or another for the rest of time are found. The hours spent in these hospital rooms matter. They form core memories and experiences for families laced with terror and glimpses of hope. Entering into these moments in time you tenderly cradle the weight of these experiences. You are alongside us as we beg for miracles to show themselves woven within the horror story.
Kind nurse, are beauty in our ashes. You are our breath of fresh air. Even when we deal with arrogant doctors and standoffish nurses, apart from you; your compassion is enough to remind us that we are seen, loved, and cared for.
You are changing the world
Whether you are placing an IV, cleaning up another round of bodily fluids, or simply listening to the heartache of a mama watching her baby suffer. You are changing the world.
You are appreciated and loved more than you know.
Sincerely, A Mama Bear of Medically Fragile Cubs
