A friend of mine shared this short note on Facebook, and it surely resonated with me! I’m sharing it here, on our blog, and Facebook page. We get it Maureen, and we love you and all the nurses who serve their patients, help out their colleagues, and balance work and family in the course of their daily lives. Nursing is a calling, and it’s hard but ultimately fulfilling work.
“I suspect it is hard to love a nurse. We get up early and don’t have time to drink coffee over the newspaper. We come home late and are too tired to cook. We work extra because we know there are sick people who need us. We miss weekend events, holidays, birthdays. We don’t get too excited over your minor “boo-boo”. We have seen far worse. We don’t want to talk when we come home. We have talked all day. We don’t want to move when we come home. We have moved all day. It may seem that we have left all our caring, our heart, and our love at work, then have come home to you empty, but our love tank is completely full, just our energy is waning. We don’t tell you that many times at work that we are mired by anxiety, we are scared. Scared we are missing something. Scared we will let our patient down or worse. We don’t tell you all the intricacies of hierarchy & issues that affect how we do our job.
I suspect it is hard to love a nurse, but know this: Your nurse needs your love. Needs your understanding. Needs to know that you “get it.” Needs to be the one taken care of every once in a while. Needs someone else to take charge of the details because doing it herself constantly is exhausting. Needs her feet rubbed. (Hint hint) Needs a shoulder to cry on when she can’t even tell you why she’s grieving. Needs you to do the hardest work you may ever do, which is to love a nurse.
I would like to thank those of you out there who love us and let us do this work, this calling, this life: Nursing. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ”
Maureen
Maureen Collins Pelletier, RN
