Today my boss took me to another facility to work. It's over an hour drive one way and it makes a long day. But I got to see a patient I hadn't seen in three years and he told every one he ran into that day how I saved his life.
Back on December 5, 2013, without going into too many details, I discovered an abnormal heart rhythm on this guy. He'd been having symptoms off and on for two years and couldn't get anyone to listen to him. I did some tests and told him he wasn't going to work the next day. This patient remembers every detail, everything I said to him,
everything I explained to him, every single thing that we went through
that night, he remembers it all. He said, "I was making $10.58 an hour and you said, 'Not tomorrow you aren't' and you wouldn't let me go to work."
I wrote him a pass to be off work that next day and told him that I wanted him back at 7AM to see the provider when he came in. He said, "You told me you weren't leaving in the morning until I got back down here and the doctor came in." and it's true, I wasn't going to leave.
Sure enough, when the Dr came in that day, we sent the guy to the ER.
You meet a lot of ungrateful, self entitled jerks in the healthcare field. Especially when you work at a prison. You meet a lot of patients who don't know how much you do, how much of your knowledge you use, how much of their outcome depends on you - as the nurse. But to talk to this guy, and see tears in his eyes, and hear how grateful he was for ME... it made my heart happy all day.
When I got back to town, I went to Panera to grab something for dinner, still thinking about that guy and the events from three years ago. One car was holding up the line and I waited over 12 minutes to pay for my food, but when I pulled up to the window to pay, the cashier told me that the person in line behind me had paid for my food.
and when two awesome things like that happen in one day, you have to preserve that memory.
This page is for
challenge #36 at Challnege YOUrself and the sketch is from the
Dec 15 Stuck?! Sketches.
Thanks for looking!
supplies
patterned papers: Elle's Studio; Teresa Collins (Tinsel and Company)
die cut pieces: Elle's Studio (Nov, Dec monthly kits; Joy journal tags)