43) A caring nurse

I lie in the hospital in groans for the pain was real and even worse the psychological battering of a heart surgery. However like all complex thing, what triggered off was a simple fever.

This stubborn fever required a thorough investigation and the best doctors in the land recommended a heart surgery for a constrictive pericardium. Within two months, I was familiar with their jargons of ECG, Echo, angiogram and its likes. And now, I lay in the ICU after surgery in groans and moans.

Being an advertising guy, the aesthetics got me revolted. The catheter, the 6 terminals attached to a computer that kept track of the vital signs, a IV line on the throat and a large bandage running through the sternum indicating the handiwork of the surgeon.
I saw those large drainage tubes; two of which were implanted on either side of the chest with a black thread around and the third inserted into the navel. I vomited at the sight of the black thread that hung out; they were to come in handy later for stitching the hole once the tubes were pulled out.

I saw Sr.Jessica approach to inform me that her team of nurses would pull out these tubes on day three of surgery. As the first one was jerked out, I yelled and almost brought the pillar down as I lay in excruciating pain while the sisters quickly closed the gap with that offending black thread.

As the second one was pulled out, I felt a lot less agitated as the first one had drained me out completely and to expect nothing better.

The body slowly begins to heal and for which I must thank these sisters. It’s a life and death job and they deserve more money than stupid media men or event management rogues.

Sr. Jessica was so polite, cheerful, and service personified as she ran her army of nurses with clinical efficiency.

I asked,” Sister, when did you become a nurse and what’s the motivation?”

She said,” I was studying medicine at Madras Medical College when my father passed away and we were so poor that I had to drop out of medical school. After the loss of the sole bread earner the family needed me to work and that’s when nursing became an option. For one, a year in the MBBS course made me an almost a trained nurse and that’s how I started. That was about 18 years ago”.

I asked,” Don’t you ever regret not being a doctor?”

She laughed as if chiding me,” Initially, I would curse my luck but later I realized that nursing is as important as practicing medicine. Here, I am thrown in the midst of patients so shattered and broken and I can actually help them heal faster”.

I as a patient know only too well that the skill of a surgeon is as important for recovery as the nursing care in the ICU.

Sr. Jessica said,” Now, I train the next generation of nurses and my husband is a doctor and so no complains with life. In fact after marriage, I had a chance to go back to school but by then I was so much in love with nursing that it was no longer an option”.

When I was discharged, I gifted her box of chocolates and another to the surgeon. She was so happy at my discharge that she planted a kiss and wished me health in the future.
“I don’t want to ever see you again,” she chirped.

As for me, it was a date with the angels.
There are people who can uplift you merely by their presence.