Bedpans just part of my grand life adventure
I’ve renewed my RN license every year for over 43 years. When the renewal notice arrived this year, though, it was time to check the box that said, “Retired.” Looking back, it has been a remarkable four decades.
I remember the words of a pre-major counselor at the University of Minnesota when I said I thought I wanted to go into nursing. “You want to empty bedpans?” Well, over the years, I have emptied my share and, in the process, learned not only the skill of nursing and the rewards of providing care but also the adventure. As a wise nurse once said, “Expect the unexpected.”
I worked nights on a medical surgical floor. I never got enough sleep and after seven straight nights, I once stopped at a stop sign on the way home and waited for it to change.
I wore a white uniform and a cap that constantly caught in traction equipment and IV tubing. I made $6.50 an hour. My husband, a janitor at the time, made more.
I worked evenings on a locked adult psychiatric unit. I recall the night of a full moon when an elderly patient walked naked down the hall as a young man in the next room handed me the faucet to his bathroom sink and said, “I don’t know where this came from.” Later, as I made my rounds, the patient at the end of the hall greeted me with her sheets tied in a noose.
I wondered who needed the tranquilizers more, the patients or me.
As a public health nurse in a small, hardscrabble rural county, I once was chased by a turkey. I’ll never forget how he waited for me, hiding around the side of the house and how he kept up with the car as I escaped down the bumpy driveway.
I visited teenage moms isolated in trailers in the countryside because it was the only housing they could afford. (The county commissioners in their white male wisdom had cut the funding and closed the only family planning clinic in the area. We had the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the state after that.)
I once sank up to my bumper in mud on a dirt road after the spring rains while trying to visit one of those moms. I had to hike back to a farm where the farmer happily pulled me out with his tractor for $15 cash. (He didn’t give me a receipt so I never got my money back from the county.)
I found through the years that I was drawn to caring for people at the end of life. When a hospice position came open, the application required a resume. I didn’t know how to write one, so I muddled through it listing children, marital status and hobbies. My manager later admitted she was so desperate that she hired me even though it was the worst resume she’d ever seen. I am forever grateful for her desperation.
I remember the first patient who died while I was with her. As her breathing changed and finally stopped, I took time to sit quietly with her. It was at that moment that I truly understood the art of nursing. Sometimes the “being” is far more important than the “doing.”
Over the years I’ve organized statewide commissions on improving end-of-life care, improving mental health services in rural areas and addressing healthy aging. I’ve written books for nurses on caring for people who are dying and a book for baby boomers on how to talk with their parents about end-of-life choices.
With all of that, I still go back to the pre-major counselor and his remark about bedpans. What I know now, which I didn’t know then, was that nursing is an art and a science and so is the skill of emptying bedpans. It involves “doing” for the person who is sick, but also “being” there, guarding and acknowledging the patient’s dignity and humanity during a very vulnerable time.
So I checked “retired” on my renewal form. But I know, as any nurse can tell you, I will never really will be.
Linda Norlander of Tacoma is one of six News Tribune reader columnists who write for this page. Reach her by email at lindanorlander@comcast.net.
This story was originally published August 6, 2017 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Bedpans just part of my grand life adventure."