August 22

This year is really flying by at molasses speed, isn't it? It felt like March and the impending COVID wave was just a couple of weeks ago, and all of a sudden it's almost the end of August. Weird!

Things are going here. Our hospital is on the upswing after COVID really wrecked us in June and  July, when we were up to four entire floors dedicated to it. Now we're down to one ICU/intermediate unit and one med/surg floor. We still aren't allowing visitors in the ER, but the rest of the hospital is slowly getting back towards some semblance of normalcy. 

I've also completed my charge training and had a couple of shifts on my own, with two more coming up this weekend. So far I haven't burned the department down, and have managed to do a decent job - I think. So that's good!

But today is for a more somber post, one in remembrance of a patient who was one of the nicest, most kind hearted people I've ever met. He was a regular in my Home Hospital ER, so much so that he knew the name of everyone there. But not only did he know everyone's name, he knew the names of their kids, when staff members had ill family, were putting themselves through school, and when their birthdays were. He was a relentlessly positive person, who checked in to the ER only after he had asked how each of the triage staff members were that day. He struggled with sickle cell disease and was in chronic pain, but never got frustrated with the long waits or snippy with the staff. Even when he felt terrible, he still had nothing but kind words to say to the staff. On more than one occasion, someone would start yelling at the triage staff about something and he would get up from his seat, walk over, and tell them to give it a rest because we were doing our best. He literally broke up an argument between family members one time before we could get to it because he wanted the waiting room to be a place of healing, not anger.

One of my personal favorite stories about him was a day I was working in triage - it was godawfully busy  and I was taking him and another patient back to their rooms at the same time. He told me he felt bad for how busy we were and how much I was walking back and forth, so why didn't I just let him take himself back to his room so I didn't have to? I handed him his chart, which was really just his little intake paper, and he walked himself back to his pod, dropped his chart in the rack, let the nurses know he was there, and tucked himself into his room with a blanket from the warmer. 

He had an implanted port due to his frequent hospital visits and always let the newer nurses access it. He'd walk them through it, troubleshoot when things went wrong, and never, ever made them feel bad if they missed it. I personally got comfortable accessing ports because of his kindness and encouragement.

One of my mentors at Home Hospital has been there his entire career - and he remembers taking care of this patient when he was only 8 or 9 years old and first diagnosed. It just astounds me that he was able to keep going for so long with such a painful disease, and remain so unfailingly positive. I wish more people were like him. I've thought about him many, many times over the years since leaving Home Hospital, and am sad I won't get the chance to take care of him again. We care about all of our patients, but some of them truly mean so much more to us.

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A sincere thanks to Sue in Australia, OldFoolRN, Shash, and Solitary Diner for the comments checking in through COVID. I really, truly appreciate it. One of my favorite things about blogging, and why I've kept at it for so long, is that I feel like I've got an internet family out there thinking about me. Even though I've never met any of you, it's one more positive in this world that so desperately needs it!