Oh, these influencers, Instagrammers, and selfi-artisans, driven by the ravenous hunger for recognition! In such preoccupied times, a simple story is sometimes useful.
Many decades ago in Boston, a girl was hit by an ice truck. She was 4, maybe 5, and spent months on a pediatric ward with pelvic fractures: face-down in soft restraints on a hospital bed so no weight could fracture her bones further. The ward had no television or radio, she was too young to read, and trays were slid in front of her so she could reach the food without lifting her head.
Staff were afraid to touch her — except for one nurse, whom she remembers as very tall (though of course she herself was very short). After evening rounds, the tall nurse would come to her bed, lean down and ask whether anyone had washed her that day. No one ever had. The nurse would disappear and return with a metal bucket full of warm water. She washed so gently but thoroughly that the mattress’s rubber sheets were often soaked and needed changing.
Weeks went by. Eventually, the tall nurse — who could be a little stern, even a little testy, lest any of us be perfect — moved the girl into a new phase of treatment. Every night, other ward children were served cocoa and cookies. The nurse would free the girl from her face-down position, lift her carefully off the bed, and hoist her onto a hip, in a kind of side-saddle sling.
They would make the rounds together, and it became the girl’s job to offer cookies to the other patients. When she was steady enough, she could ladle out a cup of cocoa. Imagine the elevation into honor: formerly unnoticed, now someone of essential stature.
One evening, a ward doctor ran into the two of them on cookie rounds. He was outraged — the patient required absolute bed rest and immobilization. But the nurse disagreed. She said it was her belief that after so many weeks (and it was possible no one else was keeping track), the pelvic bones had knitted and the girl needed to begin to walk again. She might have said it sternly, maybe even a little testily. But she was right. The patient was given a pair of crutches, and began to practice.
Decades later, the girl became a nurse in Boston. If you ask why, she describes the experience in detail: washed, swaddled, carried hip to hip, and rehabilitated through the grace of another person. She trained in the same Boston hospital where she had been a patient, and looked after patients of her own for over 40 years. Sometimes she told doctors what to do and was right.
This is no surprise. But she will also tell you — surprising even herself — that she never learned her nurse’s name.
Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.
October 09, 2021 at 02:01PM
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/09/opinion/tall-nurse-little-girl/
The tall nurse and the little girl - The Boston Globe
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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