Memoirs of a Seasoned Nurse: "Jennifer"

After three years of med/surg nursing at the local hospital--on night shift--I decided to go to work at a local medical clinic. I worked for a pediatrician, doing the usual childhood exams, immunizations, well-baby checks, etc. Doctor also did pediatric chemotherapy under the auspices of Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles. They developed the protocols, we did the chemo.

One of the “chemo kids” who really stood out for me was Jennifer. She was seven years old when I met her, bubbly and active, and she had the most beautiful, sparkling brown eyes. The only clue that she was suffering from a neuroblastoma was her head: she was as bald as a bowling ball.

Every month, when it was time for her chemo, Jennifer would come in the back door of the clinic with her mom. She always had a cute, “girly” outfit on and never came in without her “barf bucket.” She would sit at my desk; play with the toys in the bottom drawer of my desk and hum, or sing, her current favorite song.

Once a year, near her birthday, we would “surprise” her with a birthday party, complete with streamers, balloons, presents, and cake and ice cream. We could always count on all five pediatricians making time to join the celebration plus the whole office staff and all the nurses.

When it was time to start her IV, and give her chemo, she went go into the exam room and climbed on the table. She would point out to Doctor which vein he was allowed to “poke” and, bless his heart, he always honored her wishes. In return, his only request was that she holds perfectly still while he “poked”.
It was okay for her to cry, or even scream, but she just couldn’t move her hand. She never let him down: she would cry a little but, always, always held her hand rock steady. As the medication began to circulate in her little vein, she would begin to “barf.” As soon as the medication stopped the “barfing” stopped. The smile returned the humming began again.

When I decided to return to hospital nursing, it was partially because of Jennifer and all the other chemo kids: I couldn’t deal with their deaths—and several died during my 5-year tenure with Doctor. Jennifer was still alive when I left, and I could have called Doctor at any time and inquired about her. I didn’t ask the question because I couldn’t handle the answer.

More than a decade later, one hot summer night, I was in a local restaurant with a dear friend, Mary Anne, having dinner. I had just accepted a management position in another area of the hospital and was “catching up” with my friend from my tour of duty in the operating room.

The meal was delicious, the service was excellent, and the conversation was fun. We decided to have a piece of pie and, as she delivered it, our waitress looked at me and asked: “do you know Kathy _______?” I replied: “yes, and I know her daughter, Jennifer.”, Jennifer the Chemo Kid.

“I’m Jennifer” was her amazing reply. I looked up, tears forming in my eyes, to see the most beautiful young woman with sparkling brown eyes, and a full head of thick, shiny blonde hair.

We talked as long as we dared: I didn’t want her to lose her job. She was working at the restaurant for the summer and going to state college to become a nurse! She thanked me for being her nurse, and I thanked her for teaching me so much about bravery.

Once again, the intangible benefits of being a nurse blessed my life and my career.

Planting Seeds…

I had the day off from work yesterday and I went for a ride in the foothills. I took my camera and took lots of pictures. The hillsides are a bright, Kelly green with the first wildflowers sprinkled here and there. It was a beautiful day, with mild temperatures, bright sunshine and the most glorious, wispy clouds in the sky.

Days like that, in February, always make me think of spring. I think I like spring because it is a time of renewal. The earth looks new again, with flowers blooming and leaves reappearing magically on the trees.

I always think of planting a garden, putting seeds in the ground, watering them, and watching a tiny plant sprout through the rich brown dirt.

Spring is a time of new chances, too. Things that I thought about doing last year at this time are possible again. I didn’t plant seeds last year but, the excitement related to planting seeds and watching them grow is back again. Last year is gone, this year is here and my chance is here again, too. I can “seize the day” and realize the dream I had last year, making it a reality after all.

I have tried to plant seeds all my life. Not all of them were planted in the ground. As far as I am concerned, every affirmation, every scintilla of praise, every kind word that I gave to my children was a seed I planted. A little praise, when watered and nurtured, can turn into a healthy sense of self-esteem. I haven’t limited my seed planting to my family, either. More than once, I didn’t even know the seed had germinated until the plant was huge and in full bloom.

Many years ago, there was a young man who worked in the operating room. I was the charge nurse, and he was our orderly. His job was to go get patients and bring them to the operating room to have their surgery. All day long, go get patients, bring them to the operating room. I used to enjoy talking to him about what he was going to do with himself “when he grew up”………he was only about 19.

One day, I brought him a book. He was teased frequently because, even though he is of Hispanic origins, he couldn’t speak Spanish. The book? “English and Spanish for Healthcare Personnel” He asked me why I gave it to him, since he was just an orderly. And I told him that yes, he was “just an orderly…..for now.” I planted a seed.

One day, a surgeon called me into the operating room: he was having a difficult time and need “another pair of hands” to hold retractors so the assisting MD and the scrub tech could hand him instruments and help him more. The tech was holding the retractors and the assisting MD was fumbling with the instruments, trying to “hand” them to the surgeon.

I left the room and found the orderly. I asked him if “blood and guts” bothered him. I knew that he frequently pitched in to help us clean the operating rooms between cases. We all pitched in and got the room cleaned and “turned over” for the next case. He said he was okay with blood and guts.

I took him to the scrub sink and talked him through a five-minute surgical scrub, then took him in the operating room and the surgeon stopped working long enough to allow the tech to get the orderly gowned and gloved, with me helping. The case lasted about two more hours and the orderly was there for the whole thing.

When we had another OR Tech Training Class, I lost my orderly: he became a scrub tech!

Last summer, I went to a baby shower and a friend of mine was there. She and I both worked in the operating room together and we were talking “old times.” I asked about the orderly and she told me that he is now a registered nurse, working in the operating room. I was thrilled to hear it!

I asked her what possessed him to go through the ordeal of nursing school and she laughed.
She had asked him the same question, and his answer? “Somebody believed in me.”

I love to plant seeds……

Supper Time…

Somebody asked me once if I am from the Midwest. I was curious why she asked: “because you call the evening meal ‘supper’ instead of dinner.” Okay. Well, that’s what it has always been at my house. Supper.

Unless we had company and/or dessert. Then it magically became “dinner.” We didn’t have dinner very often when I was growing up. Oh, we had company frequently but, we had “potlucks” not dinner. My mother was on a perpetual diet so dessert was not a frequent happening at our house. In fact, I would come home from school and, if my mother was baking, I would ask who was coming over.

When I got married, my mother’s advice to me was simple: always have the supper table set when your husband gets home from work. I did that until the kids were in school; then the table was the epicenter of homework projects and my sewing projects. Invariably, the casserole came out of the oven before the table was cleared off.

Casseroles. Who eats them anymore? My kids loved my enchilada casserole. It was everything that went into enchiladas but, I didn’t have to dunk the tortillas in enchilada sauce, fill them, and roll them up. Everything was layered, then a layer of beans and cheese on top and pop it in the oven. Tastes just as good the next day, too.

We didn’t have much money when the kids were little but we always had enough to eat. One of their favorite meals was hot dogs and pork and beans. I would slice the hot dogs into circles, then fry them in butter in the bottom of the pot, then add the can of pork and beans, some mustard, a little Worcestershire sauce, and some brown sugar. I don’t know how that tastes the second day because there were never any leftovers.

Supper got more complicated when the kids started playing sports. Three kids, playing baseball, at three different schools, at almost exactly the same time and on the same day. Supper was later in the evening frequently. We ate a lot of taco salad back in those days. It was quick and easy to fix. One thing I insisted on was that we ate together, and we sat at the table. If one of the kids had an after school activity, supper waited for them.

One of the joys of eating supper as a family is milk. Now, we all know that milk is good for your bones because it has calcium in it. And milk needs to be enriched with Vitamin D so the calcium can be absorbed by your body. What many people don’t know is that milk is good for your heart, too. Take three teenagers, put a glass of milk in front of each one, and watch the fun begin.

At least at my house. I am not sure how the whole thing got started but, it did. One of the boys would pick up his glass and start to drink his milk. One, or more, of his siblings would start making faces and continue making faces until the first one had spit milk all over the table. Just another endearing, “Norman Rockwell” kind of tradition. It was hard to get mad because the act of “losing one’s milk” always led to gales of laughter.

The supper table was always the location of the best discussions. The day’s activities were mentioned; that questionable slide into third base was rehashed; and the “beans were spilled” about a new crush. If my parents joined us for supper, it was almost a given that the discussion would turn to English literature or history. My kids loved to discuss the classics with my daddy, and they never ceased to be amazed by his wealth of knowledge.

Things come and go in life. Kids grow up and move out. Loved ones are no longer here to gather around the table with us. Habits change but memories linger…..

I miss supper.

A Hooker, a Dead Dog, and Your Hair

We had a little get-together this morning for one of our home health agency nurses. She is retiring after almost 30 years of nursing, 20 of them in home health. We did all the retirement party stuff: a singing card, cake, banners, and gifts.

As we sat around a large conference table, an impromptu round of story-telling began. The retiree told about her adventures with a particular physician when she worked in the Recovery Room---three of us at the party used to work Recovery Room, so we were talking about other nurses that the group might know who worked there with us……

One of the stories was of the absolutely most naïve, clueless nurse I have ever met, and her “hooker story”. She was working in Sacramento, at a home health agency, and stopped at a Jack-In-the-Box to have some iced tea and do her charting. It got kinda noisy in the restaurant so she went out and sat in her car. She was writing away, charting about her patient, when a young woman knocked on her car window.

The young woman told her that she had been “stranded” there and needed a ride. Her question: “how far?” The young woman told her it was just three blocks, so she let her in the car. As she was pulling out of the parking lot, she noticed that the young woman was wearing “hot pants” and fish-net stockings, and stiletto black suede heels. And, exclaimed: “her shoes matched her purse!”

It seems the three block ride turned into seven blocks but, the ride did finally end. The next day she said, she saw the same young woman the next day, on a street corner and “was wearing the same clothes!” Her sweet face was dominated by her great big brown eyes as she told the story. We laughed until we cried as I had recounted her story!

Not to be outdone, another member of the party reprised a dog story of one of the other nurses she had known. The nurse went to see an elderly man in his home on the south side of Podunk. The little old man and his wife were quite charming. They invited her to sit on the couch, next to their German shepherd. She likes dogs so, she didn’t mind sharing the couch with the dog. As she was asking the necessary questions, it became obvious to her that the dog was not moving. Not moving at all. “Is the dog all right?” she asked. The elderly couple allowed as how the dog had been kinda “quiet” for the past day or two.

Trying hard to go unnoticed, she reached her hand out to pet the dog. He was cold and stiff. She spent the next hour completing the admission review with the sweet little old couple, and arguing with herself, internally: should I tell them the dog is dead? Can they handle that information? Finally, she asked how long they had had the dog. The husband told her that it was actually their son’s dog and he (the son) was asleep in the other room. She suggested that they have their son take a look at the dog.

Dogs are part of our every day experiences in home health. Fortunately, that’s the only one that died. Another nurse is known as our dog hater: she was walking up the front walk to a patient’s home when a pit bull came around the corner, lunged at her, and bit her on the boob. She had to have quite a few stitches as a result. This morning, she referred to herself as the only home health nurse she knows who has ever nursed a pit bull. Another round of laughter!

And then there’s one of the male nurses! It wasn’t his party but we decided to “roast” him anyway. He is the Mr. Blackwell, the fashion guy, of our office. If you’re having a bad hair day, or forgot to put on make-up, or made a bad wardrobe decision, He will cheerfully point it out to you. This morning, we all shared some of the things we have heard him say: “yes, your top is black, and your pants are black but, that doesn’t mean they go together!” Or “didn’t have time to fix our hair this morning?” Or, the ever-popular “WHAT were you thinking?”

Fortunately for him, he delivers his comments with a twinkle in his eye and a big smile, so we haven’t killed him yet. He has a sense of humor that won’t stop. His non-stop one-liners keep the office from becoming too serious. We love him and so do his patients!

As we got back to the business of taking care of patients, we were still smiling and laughing. The retiree was sitting at her desk, making phone calls to patients, and looking quite festive: we had decorated her hair with all the ribbons from her presents. And our Mr. Blackwell didn’t say anything about it!

Moonshadow

Life happens. Some things are a direct result of choices I make. Some things are completely, absolutely and totally out of my control. Those are the things I am talking about. If I make a bad choice, well, at least I got to choose. And maybe, just maybe, the consequences will be good reminders to me to take a little more time and thought before choosing next time.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, nothing and everything, I think. That’s the other thing that I do: I think too much. I have thought about it a lot and I realize that I am going to have to think of a way to stop, thinking so much, that is.

Until I do, I have been thinking. I was listening to a song this morning as I drove around Podunk, visiting patients. You know how it is: you listen to a song about a million times and, on the million and first time you hear it, it suddenly dawns on you what it means.

Well, not so with Puff the Magic Dragon…..I’m still figuring that one out.

But I have figured out Moonshadow. I know what it means:

I’m being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow.

Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow.

That’s the fun part I always remember about the song. Today, I heard the message:

Did it take long to find me, I asked the Fates polite.

Did it take long to find me, and are you gonna stay the night?

That’s the message. Fate found me. Fate made choices for me. And now I have to live with that fate. I can do a “woe is me” routine or, like the song, I can make the best of what Fate handed me.

If I ever lose my legs, I won’t moan, and I won’t beg

If I ever lose my legs, I won’t have to walk no more……

Before you scratch your head, I’m just into acceptance, that’s all. I’m not an idiot:

I will still look both ways before I cross the street.

I will lock my doors at night.

I will pay my taxes, pay my bills, pay my rent.

But I will also stop waiting for tomorrow and live today as if it is all that I have.

If I ever lose my eyes, If my colors all run dry

If I ever lose my eyes, I won’t have to cry no more…..

Big Ass Glasses

Sometimes, you just have to wear your big ass glasses……

Sitting in a little café, eating breakfast, we looked out the window and saw three women walking to their car. They were all wearing big ass glasses; my friend looked at me and said: “After breakfast, we’re going to the Dollar Store.”

And we did.

Hats, water bottles and big ass glasses: all carefully chosen to NOT coordinate with our clothes. My friend got a “wig” and lei, too. I got a scarf.

We looked “cute” for a couple of old folks….

We decided to go back to the local lighthouse. After all, we paid $7.00 for a three-day pass; might as well use it, huh?

Our big ass glasses got one of two responses: either people smiled at us and laughed, or they looked away as quickly as they could. I didn’t care! Every time I looked at my friend, I HAD to smile and I HAD to laugh! We acted as normal as we are capable of acting but, we looked so damn silly it just felt good!

He did better than I did: he smoked a cigarette and was just “all cool” but, me? I couldn’t quit giggling! I have never done anything quite that stupid before and I hope I get to do it again!

I think some of the visitors at the lighthouse Visitors’ Center thought we were “part of the show” and expected us to make animals out of those big long balloons, or something. The lady who was in the bathroom when I went in was mortified. Good thing I’m a nurse, I could do CPR if it was just too much for her, huh?

After wandering around and taking about a zillion pictures, we left. We drove back into town and cruised the main drag. There seemed to be a lot going on, including a Farmer’s Market. We rolled the windows down, opened the moon roof, and cranked up the stereo. Got a lot of smiles and waves, and a honk or two…….

Funny, little kids know instinctively when something is funny. Adults? Sometimes. Old people? Well, they’ve all forgotten how to laugh! Oh wait! My friend and I are “old people” and we laughed so hard that we cried!

Life gets so complicated and serious. Problems arise and attack us when we least expect it. We can’t watch the news without hearing about another tragedy. The stock market crashes. The politics gets more and more complex. Healthcare costs are rising. Life is not much fun, at times.

Sometimes, you just have to wear your big ass glasses……

Numbers.....

I tried to “find” a patient today. Actually, I had two patients to find but, one of them made it a lot easier than the other one did. The patient’s son is the only one who speaks English, so he was on the phone with me, giving me directions to his apartment:

Take the road that comes off the highway, just before it curves to the south. Okay.

Go over both sets of railroad tracks, and past Art’s Custom Cabinets and the Day and Nite Mart. Okay.

Then the “golf course” on the left and the rest home. Okay, got it.

When you get to the soccer field, look for the gray apartments right next to them. Uh, huh.

Then, call me and I’ll come out and meet you out front! Sounds good to me.

And he did meet me out front, and we found our way around apartment after apartment, broken swamp coolers with rusty screwdrivers inside their carcasses, a lawnmower with no wheels, and clotheslines……naked and forlorn.

The patient was very pleasant. The whole family was pleasant. Their apartment was very meagerly furnished but clean and tidy. The daughter-in-law wants to become a nurse: I was teaching her to do the wound care. The son was telling me all about his new job: he works in sales for the car dealership where I bought my car. He tried very hard to sell me a new car.

And the baby: 11 months old. A beautiful little girl with huge, shiny, bright brown eyes. Her hair is short and dark brown. A little bit of hair on the top of her head was pulled into a rubber band and looked just like an exclamation point on top of her head! She was fascinated by me: she hadn’t seen that many “foreigners” in her life; a blue-eyed blonde would definitely be foreign to her. I did manage to get her to smile at me, though.

After almost 2 hours, I was off to see the next patient. The son walked me to my car: I wasn’t sure I would find it again, walking through the maze of apartments, but with his help, I did.

The next patient was not so easy to find. In fact, I didn’t find him. But I tried:

Hello, Pablo? This is the home health nurse again. Which one of these apartments is Jose’s?

Where am I? I’m in the alley, behind the gas station, just like you told me.

Yeah, I see a white Jeep. A “torn-down” bicycle? No, I don’t see that. Let me get out of the car and look.

Yeah, I found the bike; it’s next to the second apartment in from the alley, is that the right one?
Okay, Pablo thanks!

Although I stood there, at the front door, and knocked on it for five minutes, no one answered the door. I felt plenty of eyes staring at me but, no one came outside to tell me where Jose might be. If he was home, he wasn’t receiving guests. Pablo assured me that he had gone over and told Jose that I was coming to see him. I guess Jose thought of something else to do. Something better than visiting with me.

As I walked back to my car, a light bulb went on in my head! I know what I am doing wrong! I have a stack of bills to pay tomorrow and now I know why! Out in front of my house, prominently displayed on my carport, are my house numbers! Duh!

People can find me because I make it easy. Bills can find me because I make it easy. Life can find me because I make it easy.

I would take the numbers down but they were too darn much work to put up there in the first place!

Maybe I just won’t answer the door.

Unless I need a home health nurse.

Here’s To All the Men I’ve Known

I think it is interesting to read the comments in some of my groups. There is always at least one woman who starts ragging on men for what they aren’t, or what they can’t do, or what they have done to someone. They’re almost always negative comments, too.

Maybe because my daddy was so good to me, and so influential in my life, I do not have a negative opinion of men. Not even my ex-husbands, and that’s saying a lot. I have learned some very important life lessons from some very important men in my life.

Terry: on my first day of kindergarten, after moving to Podunk in December, Terry was painting on the other side of the easel I was working at. He kept staring at me. I didn’t like it so I whapped him on the forehead with a brush-full of red paint.

Lesson learned: boys are going to stare at you, get used to it. If you hit them with a paint brush, you are going to get in trouble. Period.

Frank: the toughest guy in the eighth grade, no doubt. All the girls and most of the guys were afraid of him. On the last day of school, I accidentally left my Yearbook in my last class and the door was locked. I was upset. Frank walked up to me and asked me what my problem was. My girlfriends backed up about 50 feet, leaving me standing there, alone, with the scariest guy in school. I told him what happened and he went off in search of the custodian. Within 5 minutes, the classroom door was unlocked, and I had my yearbook back. Before I could thank him, Frank was gone. He was killed, knifed to death, in a fight outside a bar, right after high school graduation.

Lesson learned: even the meanest, “baddest” guy in school has a soft spot.

Jamie: oh my gosh! I still get giddy thinking about him! He was my first boyfriend, good-looking blond guy, with beautiful blue-green eyes and a smile that wouldn’t quit. We met at church; we both sang in the choir. I got to sit in church, every Sunday, and look at his gorgeous face! He said the same thing about me. When he got his drivers’ license, we would go to the movies: he would open the car door for me and help me out. He never let me carry anything; he was always there taking care of me.

Lesson learned: a man who has been raised right will make you feel special.

Phil: I met him in one of my college classes. We used to make sure we got to sit next to each other because we always had smart aleck comments to make about the class, the instructor, and anything else we could think of. I truly believe that, if I hadn’t already had a boyfriend, Phil and I would have gotten together. He hugged me on the last day of the class and said “goodbye”: he had enlisted and was going to Vietnam. He never came home.

Lesson learned: guys can be nice to girls even when they aren’t going to “score.” And they can be funny and fun to be around, too.

Mike: Another college boyfriend; a true BMOC at the four-year college an hour’s drive north of Podunk. He and I were going steady. I saw him nearly every other week, when he would drive down to spend the weekend. He bunked with my brothers; he was practically family. Because he told my mom he wanted to be a lawyer, she was ready to marry me off to him. On the weekends he wasn’t visiting me? He had 2 or 3 girlfriends on campus…..

Lesson learned: a silver tongue may help if you are a lawyer but, it ain’t gonna save you when you two-time your steady girlfriend……..and she finds out!

I could add the two ex-husbands here but why? They’re history. One is remarried and the other one asked me to marry him—again—about three months ago… Let’s not go there, okay?

Tom: a former patient of mine who became a friend. I have blogged about Tom: he is not well. But, when he was, he taught me a very important lesson or two. We used to go out for Happy Hour at the local pub and share the appetizers. We would talk for hours and hours. He gave me some good advice: if you want to meet a guy, stop saying “men are scum” about 50 times an hour! Good advice. He was fun to be around, always laughing and making me laugh. Not that his life was that great.

Lesson learned: men can be wonderful companions!, fun to talk to, fun to be around, and fun to do things with, especially when you don’t tell them that they are “scum.”

Greg and Reese: these are guys I work with, nurses at my home health agency. They are both wonderful men and excellent nurses. Both of them are good for a hug in the morning, too. Especially Reese: I was his mentor when he came to work at the agency and we still have a special bond. I know all his dirty little secrets and he knows all mine……not really, kidding! But the hugs are very much appreciated.

Lesson learned: it is possible to hug married men without breaking up their marriages!

There have been other men, too. Like Don: he is the one who told me “don’t ask the question if you can’t handle the answer!” Good advice!

And Stephen, my doctor: He is always willing to talk when I see him. And he acts as if he has nothing better to do than talk to me. When I leave, he always admonishes me to “get out there and take care of those patients!” He’s a keeper, too!

Women are from Venus
Men are from Mars
Women like fresh flowers
And men like fast cars.

A woman will tell you what she holds dear
A man’s gonna tell you whatever you want to hear.
The woman is looking to clear up some issues
The man is just hoping that no one needs tissues.

Women want to get problems out in the open
Problems will go away, or so men are hopin’.
Expectations are great, for women, I fear
But what they are, to men, is not clear.

A woman and her man, it’s a beautiful sight
To a man, it’s imprisonment and a bit of a fright.
Yet, given the choice of alone or together
Most men will willingly chose the tether.

It’s not a coincidence, for women and men
To pair off, together, again and again.
For men and women are not the same
Complement each other; it’s the name of the game.

Cali

Making Do….

Sometimes, too much is not enough and too little is just right.

When my children were tiny, we didn’t have much money. My husband and I were both committed to having me stay home with the kids. An additional perk for him was that I was available to fix his breakfast, pack his lunch and prepare a dinner that was to his liking. In exchange, he worked hard all day in a physically demanding job and came home to a clean house, food on the table, and clean, shiny kids.

It was a marriage model that we both espoused. The male is the breadwinner and the female is the nurturer. One notable outcome of the arrangement? We were a single income family: the car was several years old, our home was less than a thousand square feet, and our children wore clothes that were purchased at Kmart. Except for the clothes I made for them.

They didn’t have as many toys as their playmates did and what toys they had were kept in old ice cream tubs from Baskin and Robbins. I decorated them with wallpaper scraps and put their names on them in felt letters. We did have a swing set because the grandparents went together and bought it for our daughter for her second birthday.

We didn’t have central air conditioning and, in the summer, the house could get pretty hot with just a swamp cooler. We didn’t have a pool, either. One summer, we bought one of those inflatable pools for our daughter and put it in the backyard. We gathered wooden spoons and plastic cups and “stood” in her pool with her.

Years later, I took care of a patient who had lived behind us when we lived in that little house. I turned beet red as she told me her fondest memory of my husband and me: in our backyard, playing in that little blow-up pool, throwing glasses of cold water at each other! We were soaking wet and laughing! I had no idea the neighbors were watching!

We ate a lot of vegetables that my father-in-law grew. Squash, tomatoes, peppers and, not a vegetable, but the very best watermelons I have ever eaten. I bought potatoes in a 10-pound sack. We would have mashed potatoes one night, and potato pancakes the next night. We ate Spam and Rice-A-Roni, macaroni and cheese, and tacos…….a lot. I made all our cakes and pies, and some of the bread we ate.

The car was several years old. My husband was a mechanic and had a rolling box full of tools. He could fix anything that could break on the car. We usually bought used station wagons: they held more stuff, including cute little kids, dressed in their pajamas, holding their teddy bears, at the drive in movie. We got in for $2 for the whole carload. The ice chest was full of lemonade and cookies. After the movie, we drove home with sleepy little kids, carrying them inside the house and to bed, one by one.

And our furniture was old. Most of what we had was our parents cast-offs. Nothing matched, or even went together. But it all worked. And our television? A 12-inch black and white TV. The pictures on the wall were made of burlap with felt shapes glued on them. I don’t think they were particularly pretty but no one ever complained. How could they? I made them.

Clothes for us were an issue, too. Most of the clothing budget was spent on my husband. He wore jeans, chambray shirts, and work boots to work. I had a couple of decent outfits but I saved them for church or social activities. Mostly, I wore my husband’s old jeans and a tee shirt and button front shirt of his……

Those were “hip” years for me, meaning that I spent most of my waking hours with a small child sitting on my hip. I could fold clothes, iron, and vacuum with only one arm and hand because the other was busy, hanging on to the kid on my hip.

My parents and my in-laws loved me. My children thought I was the most wonderful mommy in the world, and my husband called me MLMLME…..My Love, My Life, My Everything. We didn’t have any money but we had each other. We were “that cute little family” to others who lived on our street.

We were getting by. We were making do. And we were very, very happy….

Difficult........

I turned the CD player off and made the phone call: “I’m here”

A minute later, I saw him walking toward the locked gate. Tall, burly, an imposing figure, he smiled at me as he unlocked the gate and rolled it open. I drove through slowly and pulled up in the driveway, parking behind a pickup loaded with hay bales.

Normally assigned to patients in Podunk, here I was, 25 minutes east of the city limits, in a semi-densely populated area near Lemon Cove. The narrow roadway cut a path through small acreages populated by “weekend ranchers,” and wannabe farmers. Paddocks and a riding arena on the right, a few head of cattle on the left.

So, what am I doing out here? There is an elderly couple living out here, in an apartment next to their son’s home; both are on service with our home health agency. Two other nurses have been out here to take care of the patients. Both were “fired” by the son, the man who just opened the gate.

Lucky me.

I spoke to the son this morning. We set a time for my visit. I am puzzled: this is a man with a bad reputation, “difficult to deal with”, “time-consuming”, “argumentative”…….and I have just had another conversation with him. One of many. Always polite, always says “please” and “thank you” and always seems reasonable to deal with.

As I get out of the car and grab my nursing bag, he starts talking. His father is doing better; he is eating more; his wound looks “good” and his bowels and bladder are working fine. Sounds good to me. The son uses many terms that most lay people don’t know. His parents have been in and out of the hospital enough that he has picked up on the terminology. Considering the fact that he quit school in the seventh grade to help his father on their dairy farm, that is quite remarkable.

We go inside his parent’s apartment. It is attached to his home and it is immaculate. During the course of the visit, I have the son demonstrate the wound care for me. It has to be done every day and we already know that I know how to do it; I need to know that the son can do it.

His hands are huge and strong. He is in his mid-forties and he has been working, hard, for most of his life. He has a long ponytail and a salt and pepper beard. His arms are covered with tattoos. The kind “bikers” have. He used to be a “biker” and he used drugs and abused alcohol. He still rides a Harley.

And he treats me with great deference. He appreciates that I don’t care what he looks like, or what he does, as long as he does the wound care right. He is talking as he removes the old bandage. He is telling me what he is doing and why. And he is getting it all right. He definitely knows what he is doing and why. It is amazing, to me, to watch a man with such big hands be so gentle as he takes care of his father.

When he completed the wound care, he looked at me for approval: “you did it perfectly, good job!” He grinned at me. He was pleased with himself, too.

He cleaned up the old bandages and washed his hands thoroughly. When he came back, he had several questions to ask. I answered all of them except one: I did not have the answer for that one, so I wrote it down on a piece of paper and promised that I would get back to him with the answer.

And I did.


After I was finished with my visit, he walked me to my car. He has been telling me about what happened when his dad was in the hospital. He has some real horror stories. I listen.

We agree on the day and time for my visit next week and I am in the car and ready to leave. Reversing our routine at the beginning of the visit, he unlocks the gate and rolls it open so I can leave. As I drive off, he gives me a smile and a big wave.

Yup, he’s a difficult one!