Christmas is coming. Half of us will be schlepping the halls.
This time of year always brings back one particular Christmas on duty.
First rounds , I am assessing a patient whose name was Jesus, a Mexican-American patient with a common first name for that culture. His wife was at his bedside. Her name was Mary.
His room mate's name was Joseph.
I realized.. it was Christmas morning and I was in the room with Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
When I worked in ICU years ago when I was younger'n'prettier, our unit was in an old med-surg unit, a long straight hallway, with all the rooms on one side of the hall, wooden doors on every room, and the nursing station in the middle of the floor back to back with the nursing station of the mirror unit on the parallel hallway. There were four single rooms, two four-bed wards, and the rest were all two beds. You entered the unit at one end through another wooden door in a waiting room area we shared with the other unit in the parallel hall.
Every year we decorated all the doors for the month of December-- this was before anybody gave a damn about flammable paper and stuff, and they were fabulous. Some were covered with stockings, one had a big Advent calendar on it, there were teddy bears and presents and Santas and Rudolphs and a menorah and a dreidl, all sorts of great stuff. I drew the entrance door out in the lobby one year and made a big red flannel panel with a huge 3-d holly wreath made out of felt leaves and red berries, a big bow, and the big letters P-E-A-C-E on the top, bound the edges in white satin blanket binding, and hung it up with a lot of stout thumbtacks.
That was forty years ago, good godawmighty, and that banner is hanging on my front door right now. I miss that place sometimes.
Specializes in Cardiac, Home Health, Primary Care.
Little lady in home health. She was actually one of those little halfway crazy ladies in an assisted living facility. Not much family...only a niece was around. She gave me a Christmas card and when I opened it I found a $1 bill. She pointed down the hall to a vending machine and told me to get something I liked.
Wasn't much. But put a little spring in my step the rest of the day.
Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.
In the 80's I worked night charge nurse in 14 bed Respiratory/Telemetry unit in Catholic hospital. As the officially appointed decorating elf, it was my job to decorate the unit, easy to do before today's safety red tape.
Various decorating strategies included:
1. Hanging alternating red and green streamers throughout hallway.
2. Christmas bell door decorations made out of glittered med cups + specimen bottles.
3. Each room door wrapped as a package
4. Songs of Christmas: Christmas song sheet music adorned each decorated room door.
5. Gigantic Christmas stockings with staff members name adorned each room door.
6. Cut out paper snowflakes hung from ceiling and adorned each room doors --inspired by 15ft snowfall blizzard that year.
I usually worked Christmas eve, so got to announce over intercom after AM shift report "Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Christmas" then play radio station Christmas Carols for an hour or so. I helped day shift give to each patient small stocking with hand soap, lip balm, tissues, hair comb,chocolate candy,etc that staff contributed.
One year we successfully weaned off vent on 12/24 a client with End Stage COPD who'd been vented for 6 months. Unfortunatley he was reintubated on 12/26. We discharged him with a home vent following May....learned from Pulmonologist he was finally extubated in September. He did not return to our unit until 5 years later.
Moving to home care, I kept up tradition of giving each of my clients mini stocking with above items and card as most indigent and alone.
Working in home care office the past 15 years, helped to plan Holiday party getting fresh poinsettias from greenhouse just blocks from my home as part of staff drawing. As dept Manager for 13yrs, would buy new decoration for office and would be fully decked out. Last year I needlepointed a mini stocking with unique design for each staff and filled them with allnurses pens.
Moving to a new position and office mid year 2014, I continued my decorating elf ways finding great items at our local dollar store.
Hope this inspires other healthcare workers this holiday season.
Mine is more of a personal story, but still pretty cool.
My daughter was born a 26w5d gestation in 1999. Her birthday is Dec 18. She has an older sister who was 3 1/2 at the time. After I was discharged, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House close to the hospital. Between the chaos of me getting admitted, giving birth, me getting discharged and dealing with a critically ill infant, Christmas shopping fell down pretty low on out list of priorities. My mom and dad had all kinds of gifts for the older child at their house, but they lived an hour away, so "Christmas morning" wasn't going to happen until we got there later on in the day. We had a few gifts (I remember one of them being a rainbow-colored soccer ball) in the back of the car that we were going to wrap and have in our room for the Christmas morning wake-up, but I felt guilty that my daughter wasn't going to have the excitement of waking up and seeing a Christmas tree with presents under it.
Well, we woke up Christmas morning and opened the door to our room. There was a HUGE box filled with presents sitting outside our door. There was something for everyone, presents for older daughter, daughter in the NICU, my (now ex) husband, and I. It was totally unexpected and I remember my hormonal self sitting on the bed and crying while we were opening these presents.
We stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for 70-ish days and they became a second family to us. I will never forget the kindness and generosity of the staff and volunteers at the RMH.
Mine is more of a personal story, but still pretty cool.
My daughter was born a 26w5d gestation in 1999. Her birthday is Dec 18. She has an older sister who was 3 1/2 at the time. After I was discharged, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House close to the hospital. Between the chaos of me getting admitted, giving birth, me getting discharged and dealing with a critically ill infant, Christmas shopping fell down pretty low on out list of priorities. My mom and dad had all kinds of gifts for the older child at their house, but they lived an hour away, so "Christmas morning" wasn't going to happen until we got there later on in the day. We had a few gifts (I remember one of them being a rainbow-colored soccer ball) in the back of the car that we were going to wrap and have in our room for the Christmas morning wake-up, but I felt guilty that my daughter wasn't going to have the excitement of waking up and seeing a Christmas tree with presents under it.
Well, we woke up Christmas morning and opened the door to our room. There was a HUGE box filled with presents sitting outside our door. There was something for everyone, presents for older daughter, daughter in the NICU, my (now ex) husband, and I. It was totally unexpected and I remember my hormonal self sitting on the bed and crying while we were opening these presents.
We stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for 70-ish days and they became a second family to us. I will never forget the kindness and generosity of the staff and volunteers at the RMH.
Last night at work I was orienting a new nurse. We had a very small, fragile patient who was hooked up to all kinds of equipment. The parents were exhausted and grieving. They had just received the very worst news earlier that day after weeks of testing. We encouraged them to take a break. The patient's vital signs were showing distress and we had tried medication, repositioning, and music, but nothing was really working. At around 4 AM, we were caught up with all our tasks, and I was able to sit in a rocker and hold this little one for about 90 minutes. I sang lullabies and rocked this precious baby in my arms. I watched the vital signs, including heart rate and temperature, return to normal for the first time all shift and the baby closed its eyes and relaxed. As I sat there enjoying the feeling of this little one in my arms, I realized it was 4AM on Christmas Eve. I was sitting there in the dark holding a precious angel who probably only had a few weeks left on this Earth.
I am often not happy with my job. I feel that administration does not always care about our needs or feelings when they make decisions. It's stressful. I come home with sore muscles and a tired mind. I often think fondly of my boring desk job I used to have before I was a nurse, which served only to make a company earn more money. But today at 4AM I felt it was an honor and privilege to be a nurse. I felt lucky to be able to hold this little baby and give it a few moments of peace and security. This is what it's all about.
nurseprnRN, BSN, RN
1 Article; 5,116 Posts
When I worked in ICU years ago when I was younger'n'prettier, our unit was in an old med-surg unit, a long straight hallway, with all the rooms on one side of the hall, wooden doors on every room, and the nursing station in the middle of the floor back to back with the nursing station of the mirror unit on the parallel hallway. There were four single rooms, two four-bed wards, and the rest were all two beds. You entered the unit at one end through another wooden door in a waiting room area we shared with the other unit in the parallel hall.
Every year we decorated all the doors for the month of December-- this was before anybody gave a damn about flammable paper and stuff, and they were fabulous. Some were covered with stockings, one had a big Advent calendar on it, there were teddy bears and presents and Santas and Rudolphs and a menorah and a dreidl, all sorts of great stuff. I drew the entrance door out in the lobby one year and made a big red flannel panel with a huge 3-d holly wreath made out of felt leaves and red berries, a big bow, and the big letters P-E-A-C-E on the top, bound the edges in white satin blanket binding, and hung it up with a lot of stout thumbtacks.
That was forty years ago, good godawmighty, and that banner is hanging on my front door right now. I miss that place sometimes.
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