Why I care
My nursing background includes post partum, NICU, pediatrics, rehab, home health, hospice, and nursing administration. I have a Masters Degree in Nursing and Healthcare Administration. In more recent years, I have served as a director, which I have found to be my favorite nursing role yet. This resume, if you will, has led to me having a particular set of skills. In a remarkably odd and accurate way, this set of skills prepared me for being a mother to Gavin.
One of my nursing roles was a Clinical Liaison for one of the largest home health agencies in the nation. The responsibilities of that job included meeting families that needed home health services for their child. Many times I would walk into a hospital room to find an exhausted mother at the bedside of her child. Most of the time, it wasn’t a pretty picture. She often looked overwhelmed, confused, and most of all, broken. I would introduce myself and give a small amount of information on our company, and hand her a folder with some information in it, including my business card. I know that she probably wouldn’t remember anything that I just said, but she had the resources she needed to find me again. Then I would sit down. Try to find the right words. I wanted to ask “what kind of questions do you have for me” knowing that her mind must have looked like five tornadoes swirling in five different directions. However, many times, all I said was “How are you?” She typically would blurt out several questions all at once, each one referring to a different tornado. We would talk for a while and then I would make an appointment to come back another day… typically with coffee, because damn it, this woman definitely deserves a good cup of joe, especially since a glass of wine would have been frowned upon in that setting.
Some days I would leave that room and want to find a quiet hospital corner so I could cry my eyes out for this woman, for her child, for her family, for…. her life. These women came from all backgrounds, all socioeconomic levels, some very young, some established in successful careers, some with eight children at home, some with no kids at all. The epidemic of childhood diseases does not pick favorites. I slowly began to not want to bear my own children. These meetings hurt so badly that I never wanted to risk the chance that I could be the woman sitting across from me. I also began to have a deep amount of gratitude for the amazing life that I had: a great job with a purpose, a really, reeeaally good man, two energetic dogs, the greatest friends and family across the nation. I was so thankful. More importantly, I still am.
Here I am. Now one of those women. As much as I understand the feelings that my naive self had leaving those meetings. I never. Never. NEVER want someone else to feel that way about me and our life. Pity is something that I do not need or want. It will do nothing. Nothing for me. Nothing for my husband. And absolutely nothing for my son. I remain thankful. Thankful for each of those women and the opportunity to spend precious moments with them. Those women taught me some incredible lessons. They showed me incredible amounts of courage and even incredible amounts of gratitude.
I don’t believe that “everything happens for a reason,” because really bad things happen to the best kind of people. But I do believe that “everything” has a purpose. One tiny moment at a time, I found purpose in my trauma.
I am not weak. I am not broken. I am certainly not dying. I have some deep scars. I have been through at least four of the seven levels of hell, but, (there is always a but), I was never alone. That’s why I care.
#TRUTH: You are not alone.