Nurse is an Angel

Published May 27, 2010

2,600 Posts

Specializes in School Nursing.

This may get a little long but I wanted to share this story with y'all about an experience my family had/has with a very special nurse.

In the early 90s my father fell ill with leukemia and spent the last five months of his life in the hospital on the oncology floor. I have to say they must of hand picked the nurses for that unit because they were all amazing and really made his last months as good as they could be under the circumstances. My dad had a favorite nurse, she was a young a darling nurse with a quiet disposition but wonderful bedside manner. We all loved her.

The night my dad passed away my mom was a floor down from his recovering from a whipple (sp?) surgery that confirmed she had pancreatic cancer. On and off for the next two years she was hospitalized and received the same care from this wonderful nurse. It was a blessing to have the comfort of great nurses while we were worried about/mourning our parents.

About a year and a half after my mom died my brother and his wife had the family's first baby. My sister and I were going to go visit the nurses upstairs after we met our new niece.. next thing we see is the nurse that took care of our parents bringing the baby from the OR to the window for us all to see. She had switched units and was now a L&D nurse and helped deliver my niece. We'd come full circle with her and now instead of being a nurse taking care of our dying parents she was now helping us welcome a new life into the family. She said to us, "It's nice to see y'all for something happy".

We thought it was special that this nurse had been there to touch our lives during the worst, and happiest time in our lives. It was all at the same hospital so not extremely out of the ordinary, at that time.

Fast forward 10 years- my sister-in-law went into preterm labor at 30 weeks and delivered at 33 weeks gestation. She gave birth at a woman's hospital in the medical center which consists of a LOT of hospitals about 30 miles away from the hospital my parents were in and my niece was born. My nephew was premature and was in the NICU for several months. The NICU was locked down and you needed to be on a list with ID to visit any of the babies. I left my purse in the car not thinking about the ID and when the nurse let me in and asked for my ID I heard someone behind me say, "I know who she is, she's here for my patient." I turned around and there she was again, my preemie nephew's NICU nurse. Yet again in a different specialty and now at a completely different hospital. I was so surprised. She hadn't aged a day in the past 10 years. She still had that quiet confidence about her.

It may sound silly but I believe this nurse is an angel sent look over our family. I believe nursing is a calling in that sense, and that as nurses, you touch peoples lives in a way you may never know.

I just thought I'd share a good story about a true angel.