Dear care workers, care receivers, and everyone else –
(I’m mostly thinking of nurses of various stripes,
attendants, PSWs, nannies, expert generalists in everyday care… but also others.
Community health workers, therapists, friends and family, people who receive care episodically and/or regularly, weird docs, those who defy naming
as carers or as workers… family and friends of the above, and anyone else reading)
Hi.
It’s been another year of this nurse’s learning, and another
year of this blog being online, and so I thought I’d take a moment to put up some
pictures and words and let you know that I’m thinking of you lately. A lot.
Especially during this season of yuletide festivities/chaos and accompanying
heavy (emotional) labour.
Since the last time we chatted through the Blogosphere, I
graduated from school and got my nursing license. About a year ago I got a job
in pediatric home care as a shift RN. Since then I’ve been working full-time
night shifts pretty much without a break. Your sincere congratulations and your
side-long looks of concern are anticipated and greatly appreciated. (Yes, I
gained some new experience and paid off my student loan - with some help. Yes, I verged on
losing my mind a couple of times. I’m fine just now, thank you.)
Now for my cute holiday annecdote:
The image I’m including for you here comes from the holiday card given to me by a young family I’ve been working for, 4-5 nights a week, for the last several months. Their baby ("Joey" or my “patient” or “client” properly speaking) has some health issues since birth but is now doing pretty great living and growing at home in his family’s care 99% of the time. My job, primarily, is to put a set of trained eyes and ears on this kid and to spell the parents off for a few hours so that they can (theoretically) sleep.
The image I’m including for you here comes from the holiday card given to me by a young family I’ve been working for, 4-5 nights a week, for the last several months. Their baby ("Joey" or my “patient” or “client” properly speaking) has some health issues since birth but is now doing pretty great living and growing at home in his family’s care 99% of the time. My job, primarily, is to put a set of trained eyes and ears on this kid and to spell the parents off for a few hours so that they can (theoretically) sleep.
I say “theoretically” because they have another, older kid.
And she, even more than her littler sibling, does not like to sleep at night.
On a shift starting at 11pm and ending at 6am, it is not uncommon for me to see
her as many as three or four times. Sometimes it’s for 5 minutes each time and
sometimes it’s an hour. I’ve tried different strategies to get her to do the
things that I think she should do (sleep: preferably at nighttime and in a
bed,) and the things her parents want and need her to do (sleep; or at least
not prevent them from sleeping). I’ve researched, I’ve tried to be consistent,
and I’ve tried to systematically track my “successes”, but if there have been
any so far it is not obvious to me. Ultimately: she is cute and sneaky, and I
am a pushover for those things. For the last couple of months this child has
been the most interesting, and definitely most challenging, part of my job.
Anyway, here is the card her parents gave me on Christmas
morning:
When I read this on my way home I was pretty tired and had a
good laugh/cry. I was not expecting such a sweet, personal, and funny note.
I say funny because of the line about me "treating Sammy like a little sister". (Sammy is of course their older, rascally daughter.)
My immediate reaction was: “Holy Hannah! Is that really how I come off?! I was going for something closer to, like: kindly, respectful professional health care/respite provider.” Anyway, I guess you could say this was a moment of transference/countertransference made visible, if this language means something to you. (It means a little bit to me but I need to read more to really feel like I know what I’m talking about. We just got a whiff of Freud in undergrad.)
My immediate reaction was: “Holy Hannah! Is that really how I come off?! I was going for something closer to, like: kindly, respectful professional health care/respite provider.” Anyway, I guess you could say this was a moment of transference/countertransference made visible, if this language means something to you. (It means a little bit to me but I need to read more to really feel like I know what I’m talking about. We just got a whiff of Freud in undergrad.)
I think (now) what they probably meant was a few things:
that I’ve become a fixture in their home, almost like another family member.
And they see me treat their little girl with affection, and varying degrees of
patience (somewhere between “some” and “really quite a lot” on a regular
night.) But finally (and this is a huge part that makes me laugh/cry): they
also see my complete lack of true parenting skills and experience.
For them this is just a given. For me, it was a wake up call.
I was thinking of myself, on some level, as a third parent. I’m not. I’ve never
been a parent, I don’t have those skills, and also it’s not my role. This could be a nice time,
maybe, to rethink what my role really is or could be.
For now I’ll only add that the implied “big sister” title is
just as funny and touching to me since I grew up as an only child. They could have conceivably
meant so many other things in this card: maybe they see me as their daughter, from
a completely different cultural and ethnic background to both of them, who is
somehow also around their same age and only comes to visit on weeknights. Or
maybe they think that I treat their daughter "Sammy" as the “little sister” to the
younger baby… or maybe they didn't mean anything at all. The readings are kind of endless. If you have a funnier one, let
me know.
In the meantime, I hope you and/or the people you’re caring for
are getting through the season with some kind of grace and comfort, and all of
your most important parts intact.
Your with nursy/sisterly love,
Nurse Peents.