Free Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul by Jack Canfield Page B

patients. I loved each and every one of them. At times, it was difficult keeping my emotions in check.
    One day, a patient named Billy came to the floor. He was a large man with bone cancer and a great sense of humor. Though he was in great pain, he rarely complained. His loving wife watched over him with the greatest love one can imagine and made certain he received the best care. We all laughed and cried together, and shared family stories and jokes. They became part of our hospital family.
    After coming in for chemo treatments and going back home several times, Billy’s energy was spent. The last time he was admitted, he looked beaten. So did his wife. He was suffering so much that it was hard for all of us to care for him—we knew there was nothing much we could do. He was now terminal, and his pain so intense that no amount of medicine helped. I think every nurse cried for Billy and his family.
    It was nearing Easter, and Billy had so many visitors it was hard for his wife to have any time alone with him. I felt so sorry for her. But she kept smiling.
    One night, near the end of my shift, I made my last trip down the hallway and peeked in on Billy. I opened the door to his room very slowly so I wouldn’t wake him. The light from the hall shone into the room and lit it up like moonlight. I looked towards the bed and a little gasp escaped from my mouth. There was Billy, lying on his back, the position I knew was most painful for him. Next to him lay his wife, nestled in the pit of his arm, all curled up like a baby deer next to its mother. She was sleeping so soundly, I could hear little whistles coming from her mouth. I stood there, like an intruder. My feet would not move. As I tried to leave, Billy opened his eyes. He smiled a crooked smile and winked at me as if to say, “It’s okay.”
    I closed the door, walked up the now empty hallway, and went to the chapel. I cried a few minutes then thanked God for blessing me with this very special moment.
    Billy died soon after that night, but not before he gave me new eyes and a special good-bye gift.
    Susan Spence
     

3
DEFINING
MOMENTS
     
L ife becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.
Albert Schweitzer
     

All Our Hearts Have to Offer
     
D eath and Love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
Michelangelo
     
    No classroom course I ever took prepared me for one of the most difficult lessons I learned during my nursing career. Feeling fully confident and armed with cuttingedge knowledge of critical care, I embarked into the incredibly exciting field of flight nursing. Life on the helicopter was full of ups and downs—literally. I was constantly placed in a pivotal position impacting the way families dealt with instantaneous life-changing events.
    During my first pregnancy, I worked with a pediatric resident who predicted my outlook on my patients would change dramatically when I gave birth to my child. I’d always felt I had compassion for my patients and their families, but her words proved prophetic and have echoed in my mind and heart many times since that day in 1984.
    I was called to a small emergency room to airlift a five-month-old who had stopped breathing. I was immediately confronted by a hysterical mother, distraught over the possibility that she had somehow caused this catastrophe. She desperately looked to me for reassurance that all would be well. Based on the lab values, X rays and the child’s condition, I could not promise that. In those days, our helicopters were much too small to accommodate a parent, and this child was so critically ill and in need of advanced care, that it became a “scoop and run” situation.
    In my haste, I failed to allow a momentary interaction between mother and child. I cuddled the little girl in my arms, and we flew with all the speed the machine could muster to the awaiting pediatric critical-care facility. Her condition proved too critical, and resuscitation