My Florence

Let me tell you why I like Florence Nightengale. Florence is known as the "mother" of nursing. But it wasn't her phsyical assessment skills or vast medical knowledge base that made her who she was. Her theory of nursing was based on the idea that if basic, physical needs are met, a pateint would have a much better outcome of healing. Fresh air. Nutrition. Sanitation. To Florence, these needs had to be taken care of before one could hope to get much better. I happen to think she was very, very right.

Which is why my overnight in the Intensive Care Unit following my C-section seemed to be one of my darker of days. After the OR, I was transferred to the recovery unit. Anesthesia does all kinds of weird stuff to people, and so being placed a mere few feet away from what sounded like ten-to-twenty very vocal and confused post-op patients waking up in misery made me wonder if I was actually spending the hour in a barnyard. As my epidural began to wear off, I was transfered from that barnyard to another: the Intensive Care Unit. It was for observation purposes, to see if the massive fluid shifting from my C-section caused any cardiac problems (which it didn't, at that point). The nurses were all great, but were very clear to let me know that they practially never got any OB patients. So they sent for reinforcement; every 4 hours a nurse from the OB unit came down to massage my uterus (which is standard procedure to make sure the bleeding slows down inside where the craziness just took place). Massaging sounds nice, but this kind of massage is more like a form of abdominal CPR. Compressions, mind you, that are done right on your surgical site. I'm not one to cry in front of strangers, but this always led me to tears; the nurses were always so sweet and apologetic, but they kept coming back.

I was not allowed to have Oliver or Michael stay with me in my room. I planned to breastfeed, so the OB who was sent to massage my uterus also brought Ollie with so we could practice latching. I felt so conflicted. I was exhausted and in a lot of pain. I still had a foley catheter, three IVs, six heart-monitoring leads, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter, and plastic boots on my legs to keep my ciruclation going. Trying to hold hungry, crying Oliver and breastfeed between wires and tubes seemed nearly impossible. The juxtaposition of cold medical equipment was a severe contrast to the sweet natural bonding that we tried to make room for.

But back to the barn imagery. The rooms next to mine housed one patient who was detoxing from alcohol, and another with dimentia. These confused and anxious men wandered out of bed and hollored all night long. When it quieted down in the morning, I heard my nurse on the phone just outside my room, placing a call for another patient who had just decided to discontinue treatment and was requesting a chaplain to read him his last rights. Where exactly was this in the birth-prep and parenting books? Did I miss the ICU detour on Abbott's Birth Center tour? I was away from my baby. When he came to visit, it was physically challenging, and I wasn't able to do much for him. I was away from my husband and family. I was in a lot of pain. And surrounded by people who were dying and confused.

By this point in our hospital stay, I had not taken a shower for 3 days, which is a lot when you consider what the body goes through in the labor process. I hadn't eaten for 3 days, either; because I had surgery, I was still not allowed anything but ice chips. I had fevers day and night. I felt like crap. The next morning, my new nurse for the day stepped in. He was about 5 years younger than me, and shared that I was his first OB patient ever. I had no question about his capablity in caring for me, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't care that a younger guy was going to be changing the sheets from under me, emptying the bag of pee haning from my bladder and assessing the bleeding from my hoo-ha. But it was out of my control, so I decided that I would find humor in it someday, and count my blessings that he brought me my IV narcotics every 2 hours on the mark. Good nurse.

But it was an incredible nurse, my Florence Nightengale, who I met later on that day. I was transferred to a normal post-partum unit, and Holly was waiting for me in my room. She was caring for Oliver, whose bassinet was next to my bed in our room. Our room. This was more like it. And as she got me settled, she kept telling me how glad she was that I was finally there. "I'm not saying that they were wrong to keep you for a day in the ICU, but I do think it may have set you back a bit. I'm so, so glad you're here now." She confirmed how much I had been through in the last couple of days, and shook her head in empathy. I know that this nurse has seen every possible scenario when it comes to labor and delivery, but she made me feel like my story was a big deal to her. She looked at my tiny clip-on fan that I had brought with me, and she brought me one ten times bigger. She poured me ice water and gave me a full pitcher of it. Holly wrote out what pain meds I could have when, gave me her direct phone and told me to call if she was more than 5 minutes behind in giving them. She gave me a clean gown, something that nobody had done yet. She told me I would get to take a shower the next day, and promised that it would feel like that shower you get after a week of camping. She rolled her eyes when I told her I was on a restriction of ice chips, and handed me a menu for dinner. And she made sure that while I worked on breastfeeding, I took care of myself just as much.

I was blessed to have Holly as my nurse several times over the next week, and she came to visit when I came back in. Her empathy and attention to basic and very important needs made me feel human again and because of that, I was able to start to take care of Oliver. When we left the hospital the first time, Holly took pictures of the three of us (including the one above) like she'd never seen such a cute baby before. "Now when people offer to help, when they want to make you a meal or run errands, you are going to say yes," she said. "I mean it. I'm worried you're going to try to take on everything too soon, but you've got to take really good care of yourself." Ah, words from one nurse to another. We can be the worst patients. But I think that having had a Florence for my very own is going to help me become a better nurse myself.