Nurse Heal Thyself

After I wrote the initial article about my decision to have reconstructive surgery 17 years after surviving breast cancer (“Quest for Girls” published on this site) the preliminary work was done. Now it was time to complete the final phase of my project to become whole again and receive my final implants. This experience proved to be much more enlightening than my past surgical experience of initial reconstruction, and I couldn’t imagine how it would change me both physically and emotionally.

Arriving with full knowledge of what the procedure entailed and with promised results being nothing less than glowing, I was experiencing a kind of anxious, queasy feeling that day. After giving health care for over thirty years, anyone would have a slightly “different” reaction to being a patient and quite frankly it is not something most of us old nurses are good at. No one really ever wants to be on this side of the coin but we are grateful to our colleagues when there is a time of need.

Saying “goodbye” to my best friend, who has been my support person through this so called project, I followed my admit nurse back to the surgical suite to wait my turn. After an hour delay, and partially out of boredom, I found myself watching the different OR teams closely. When I graduated from nursing school for the second time and completed an RN program 17 years ago my intent was to become an OR nurse. I watched as they followed through with all the stringent protocols of checking names and confirming allergies and procedures with each individual patient, and an unexpected feeling of envy and sadness came over me. For the past 15 years I had put my heart and soul into long term care management positions and each day given some of myself to each of my “special friends.” I rarely, if ever, had given much thought to what could have been different had life dealt to me a different set of circumstances…quite possibly, had cancer not derailed me, I would have been working in this capacity all these years. This was very much an “in your face” reality check, and at a very un-anticipated time.

When it came my turn things did not progress as smoothly as my nurse anesthetist anticipated. When the shot in my IV failed to give me a nice glow, I quickly mentioned this to her as they were wheeling me down to the OR. I was wide awake and should have been far off in the land of La. A quick assessment revealed that my IV was not patent, so when I arrived in the OR a new one was promptly placed. During this process, a caring special nurse made every effort to make me comfortable, giving me kind words and explaining the basics of what was happening around me as I could hear the team moving about setting up equipment and getting me ready for surgery. I thought, “Wow! I am a nurse and I understand all of these processes. I can’t even imagine how a lay person would feel right now.”

This is a perfect example of why nurses play a special role because no one in that OR team had any idea that I was a colleague. To them I was just another case that they were doing their best to keep safe, secure and bring through a surgical procedure to return home for recovery. Given the emotional ups and down I had experienced that day, this nurse was there to ease me into my experience and was doing a fantastic job. As a fellow nurse, it meant the world to me; as an OR lay person, it meant everything.

A few days into my recovery process my thoughts went back to that surgical team quite often. “What if” is always something that will be in my mind about my success as an OR nurse but in a few weeks I will return to my “special friends” and my real world of nursing. As I look in the mirror I feel whole again and realize that while I will always wonder, the sadness about this “what if” moment has already started to subside and I truly believe that we all have a purpose and find them sometimes by fate, sometimes by force. The right person there to guide us at just the right time can make a world of difference, and one way or another that was my fate. As this thought sets in, the mirror reflects my smile on the inside as well as on the outside.