Nurses

I remember being in isolation. The room was large but with only one bed. The ceiling was very high, the windows tall and narrow. It was a former Luftwaffe hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany now used by the U.S. Air Force. I spent eight weeks alone there recovering from extensive burns, leaving the room only for sitz baths and debridement of my wounds, and later skin grafts. Some friends, oh so welcome, flew over from America to see me, but otherwise, doctors' visits aside, there were only the nurses.

Nurses are all over the news these days: nurses taking care of Ebola patients, nurses coming down themselves with the dread disease, nurses on the front line of our fear.

Nurses, usually but not always women, are many of the people of my acquaintance--hard-working, generous people, people of courage. I think of those Ebola nurses who suit up in hazmat gear, double gloved, and enter the isolation room of someone with a horrifying disease, fluids exploding out of either end, profuse internal bleeding in between, terrified of death. There, for the length of their shift, they must remain: clearing up diarrhea, and vomitus, providing water, comforting as best they can.

For them, no water, no food, no breaks until they are relieved. Then, carefully, for this is the most dangerous part, removing their gloves, masks, suits so as not to touch what the fluids of the sick person may have spattered.

The patient's world is rendered habitable by these nurses. The battle for health goes on inside the patient, but those who provide and maintain the space wherein that struggle can be fought and, hopefully, won, are the nurses. They do this as a job, and often as a calling.

My recovery was without drama. Open, weeping, granular flesh needed to be dressed and redressed to prevent infection, bits of dead skin needed to be tweezed off one by one, and the mordant spirits of the patient kept up as he contemplated the patterns of foolishness that had led him to that pass, and would probably doom him thereafter. I don't remember any nurses in particular, and they were not at risk dealing with me, but in that bitter time, they gave me room to revive, they cared for and encouraged me. After all these years, whoever you were, thank you.

Day after day, you nurses present yourselves to the sick, the injured, the disabled with a message implicit in all you do: here you can rest; here you can recover. Here is stilled the clangor of the world. Here soothing; here calm. The untoward situations you find your body in, however extreme, don't exclude you from human community: we welcome you.

Of course, this isn't always true. Hospital protocols, inadequate staffing, and other factors qualify this message, but I see nursing as a work of hospitality. Some run, some turn  their faces (I'm among these), some keep a professional distance and schedule. You nurses don't. In you, compassion is incarnate. Blessed are you.