A HOSPITAL NURSE FINDS NEW MEANING IN PATIENT CARE.
The carpet was starting to wear. She wondered if her many trips up and down the corridor had contributed to its worn appearance. Ann Abbot didn't have much enthusiasm for her job. Being a nurse had simply worn her down—like the carpet. She'd worked the 11-7 shift for the past five years and still wasn’t comfortable with the quiet, dim world of the hospital at night. Most of her assigned patients were asleep, and the ones that were awake fell into two categories—the very sick or the very worried.
Ann paused outside a patient's door. She glanced at her clipboard—Bill Jones, 406. Marked in red was a notation that the patient had learned on the morning shift he had inoperable cancer. There was nothing ordered for him, but she still didn't move on. A thin stream of light crept out from under the door. Jones was awake and alone. Tapping softly on the door before entering, she eased it open. Jones looked up at her and smiled. "I saw your light on, Mr. Jones. Do you need anything?" she asked, feeling awkward. She'd been around death, seen it, but was still uncomfortable around those facing it.
Jones sensed her difficulty. He knew what she was thinking. He'd been preoccupied with his own demise all day. Not yet fifty, and cancer had cruelly entered his life, invaded his body. "I was thinking about my life, and how nothing is for certain," he said, sadly. "Silently, without compassion or remorse, the disease crept out of my darkest fears and declared war! I have memories of a Christmas morning with snow, and it filled me with such peace that, at six years old, I knew what heaven must be like." He tried unsuccessfully to smile.
Ann walked over to the bed and took his hand. She'd never done that before—instinctively reached out to a fellow human being. She'd never allowed herself to care, but there was something about his memory that had stirred her spirit. Was everyone connected by those isolated moments of contentment found in childhood, she wondered? She'd grown up in an abusive world but had captured a memory just as poignant as the one experienced by this patient. "I don't have any words of comfort," she blurted out, apologetically. "Perhaps I let myself become distant so I could do my job as a nurse. I lost my sense of duty many years ago."
Bill Jones nodded wearily. It was her haunted look that had touched him when she’d looked into his room. There were worse things then dying, and one of them was living without ideals. "The medical profession let me down," he said, without anger. "And I'm to blame because it's my body, and I'm the one who has to take charge of it. I think people look at their doctors as the true saviors of this world. They forget that we're all human, and we all make mistakes."
"The treatments for various diseases have come a long way," Ann answered. She wasn't too thrilled with the medical profession either, but it was all sick people had.
"It's a money-making business. I can say this because I share in the blame. You see things from your angle, but I see things from the eyes of a dying patient. It's not difficult to figure out," he said, thoughtfully. "It's not the disease that makes the victim or the family hostile but the medical profession. Those doctors who think they're God—the staff that become employees, forgetting that they're dealing with real people. I wish medicine would take its rightful place in this world as a tool to help those who can recover and an aide for the dying to make death less painful. Doctors are only human, educated to some degree, but human beings nonetheless who, one day, will deal with their own dying process. We need a drastic change in medicine. As it stands now, the patient is the one paying the price for callous and indifferent doctors."
"Mr. Jones, we all pay a price for the times we live in," replied Ann. She understood his anger—this need to blame some facet of society. She, in her own way, was doing the same. Her anger was directed at this profit-making hospital. Because of the emphasis on profit the staff had been reduced to such an extent that quality care for the patients suffered. For a long while the guilt would follow her home. She'd lay in bed and think of the things she didn't have time to do for her patients.
"I'm dying because they let me down!" Jones declared, as he released her hand. "You have your story, and I have mine. At the moment, I'm just dying a little faster—getting there a little sooner then you. It's all the same in the end."
Ann glanced at her wristwatch then did something she'd not done since her "caring" days. She pulled up a chair and, sitting by his bedside, said, "I want to hear your story, Mr. Jones."
Bill Jones was surprised by her request, but pleased. His fear wasn't so all-consuming when he was engrossed in conversation. "Let me see," he mumbled, as he absently ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Can I start at the very beginning? I don't want to be too much of a bore..."
"Mr. Jones, you take as much time as you need," said Ann. She was starting to feel like a nurse again, not just a pill-pusher.
"Okay, it started thirteen years ago. I'd taken my family to Nags Head for a week's vacation. All was going well until I started passing blood when I urinated. Well, I can tell you, that scared the hell out of me, but I wasn't in any pain so I didn't see the family doctor until a week later. He ran a few tests and declared it a classic case of kidney stones but, in a hurried way, mentioned that there was a very small shadow above the left kidney. He brushed it off and so did I. He treated me off and on for two years, then one day, a Saturday, I was in severe pain—the kind of pain where you don't care if you live or die. I went to the emergency room, and a urologist was called in. It was "pot luck" when it came to which doctor you had, and I found out later that mine was a total ass."
"Did they discover what was causing your pain?" Ann asked. In her mind she could see where this was leading. God, she thought, how many patients have been ignored by indifferent doctors? She was angry, and it felt good.
"Oh, he did one of those cystoscopy things. He didn't check the left kidney at all and said I'd passed a kidney stone. Let me tell you, I was relieved to hear that and so was my wife. She'd lost her mother to cancer, and that fear was in her mind. So I went home and all was going well, when it struck again. The attack came on with such force, I was glad to get to the hospital. The same jerk doctor was called in, and he did the surgery. The cancer had taken the left kidney. The bastard thought it was “all she wrote” for me and didn't do a complete removal; he left the ureter dangling. The jerk told my wife it had spread all over, but the next day he had to change his story. The pathology report showed that it was the slow-growing type of cancer. What gets me is that he tried to cover his ass and had me blasted with twenty-two treatments of radiation!"
"How did you find all of this out?" Ann asked. She'd heard rumors about a certain urologist, but his associates always covered up for him.
"I'll get to that, but first would you hand me a glass of water?"
"Certainly." She poured him a glass and waited while he drank. Jones quickly emptied the glass and handed it back to her. Ann refilled it before setting it on his bedside table.
"Well, we thought that would be the end of it—after the treatments. We pushed it out of our thoughts, me and my family. I saw this doctor once a year for that I.V.P thing—you know, where they look at the kidney." Ann nodded. "Then one day it hit again, and my daughter was fed up. She found a nephrologist who agreed to see me. He ran tests, discovered the problem and sent me to a different urologist. None of us had any respect for doctors by this time. You should hear what my wife calls them," he said, with a sad smile. Jones paused as he thought about his family and not being around to see his grandchildren grow up. For a brief moment, he allowed a few tears to fall but quickly gained control of the flow. He wanted this lady, this haunted-looking nurse, to hear his story. He wanted her to feel his hostility towards the so-called glorious world of medicine. He wanted her to show compassion! How could he explain the sorrow cancer had already caused his family? Now they had to watch him slowly and painfully die!
Ann silently waited for her patient to continue. She'd not taken the time to listen to others like Bill Jones before, and now she was determined to hear what he had to say. She actually felt his sadness—felt for all those failed by the system. As she watched him, the memory of why she chose the nursing profession surfaced. Touched by the ideals and visions of youth, Ann was determined to make a difference. But this was many years ago, before long hours and too many patients had forced her to bury the dream of truly helping those in need.
"Anyway this urologist did another cystoscopy and found another tumor. This tumor," said Bill Jones, bitterly, "was on the old sight—in the mess the other doctor had left. The dangling ureter had now become cancerous. It was the slow-growing kind. My wife was determined that I see someone who specialized in cancer."
"Oncologist?" interrupted Ann.
"Yeah. We thought this guy was the best, but my wife made a mistake. You see, she didn't want me to know the whole story so this guy made me one of his "test" cases. He was into research. He put me on Megace—a hormone. I was glad that it was an oral medication and not an injectable. Unknown to us, however, this turned out to be useless. Hormone manipulation for renal cancer is rarely successful. He didn't do those scans to make sure it wasn't growing, and when the bleeding started again he told me to hang in there. I'd had it by this time and went to another doctor, and that's when I got hold of my records and read about the errors and cover-ups those idiots had done. So now it's all over for me, and they're going to try the drug Interferon Alfa-2A. See how fast I learn the medical jargon when my hide's on the line," he joked, halfheartedly.
"What are you going to do, Mr. Jones—about the medical errors?" asked Ann, while realizing it would be useless to take them to court. Records have a way of vanishing, written statements a way of changing.
"Nothing," said Jones, with a shrug. "It's all white shoes and stethoscopes."
"I don't follow," said Ann, wondering where he was taking this.
"They're a part of what you are—tools of the trade, symbols of caring and compassion. Anyone can put them on, but it doesn't change the basic nature of the person. No, it's all outward show that counts. To stay in the game, you have to sell your soul. Doctors are money-making machines, and nurses get caught up in the constant flow of people—patients. Some manage to make it out of the system, but others fall through the cracks of this big business called MEDICINE. I'm just one of many who were harmed instead of helped by this system. It's not right to profit from the sickness of others!" Jones let his fear and anger give way to the deep sorrow he felt. Slumping forward, he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
Ann reached out to Jones. Carefully sitting on the bed, she placed her arms around the poor man. Together they mourned for all that was so wrong in this life.
It was past midnight when Ann softly closed the door and faced the nursing aide coming down the hall. The aide stopped and stared at Ann for a moment. Puzzled by her expression, the aide asked, "What have you been doing? Mrs. Mann is calling for her pain medication. Are you okay? You look different."
"I am different," Ann answered. Her voice was firm, and a hint of the “nurse that was" lingered. "I'll see to Mrs. Mann." With that said, Ann brushed past the aide with a knowing smile.
The aide frowned and shrugged it off, before racing down the corridor to answer another patient's call light. The surrealistic atmosphere quickly swallowed what remained of the night.
A page-turning novel about a relationship between best friends that is interrupted because of betrayal , deceit, sexual promiscuity and pregnancy happens!
