50 Great Grandkids

The people I meet in the hospital are SO interesting. Tonight has been incredibly slow, knock on wood. But I did get called on the floor to draw an inpatient. I was almost startled as I walked in the room because this older woman was literally skin and bones. A sight that is hard to see. Trying to move past her image I asked her some surface details about her life. In the course of the conversation she told me that she is soon to have 50 great grandchildren! From the seven children she had there has grown a humongous family that can barely get together anymore. Since my immediate family is small, just me and my brother Cameron, I felt a little envious of this woman. What an immense feat she had attained! It has become a goal of mine to have that many grandchildren. Honestly I believe the bigger the crowd the more fun everyone has!

Patients

I am working again tonight and I have been having a great time tonight. There was a draw on the floor scheduled for 10 o'clock so I went and took my little hand held tray full of colorful tubes and different sized needles. I knocked on the door of a room and when I looked in a nurse was helping the patient slowly to his bed. I heard him ask her for his parkinsens medication. She asked me to go tell Becki another nurse to give it to him. I went back to his room and she was still helping him into bed. I heard him very softly say, "I used to run marathons." That made my heart sink a little. There was such a drastic contrast to his physical capabilities now and what they must have been years ago. I asked him, trying to lighten the mood, "Did you ever run the Boston marathon?" he told me no and that he had run the worst race in the united states. I asked him, was it St. George? again, "No it was the Deseret News marathon. We had to run up hill and then down hill all the way to hogel zoo. My toes pressed against my shoes and I lost skin and it was all bloody." I asked him if he lost any toe nails because I had heard of runners frequently losing toenails. "Yes four or five." He said still barely audible. He was finally sitting on the edge of the bed at this point. The nurse helped him put his feet up and said, "Annaliese is going to draw your blood. Can you believe someone so nice is going to do something so mean?" I laughed. As I proceeded to get all my things together I kept talking with him and made sure to use a matter of fact voice rather than a patronizing childish voice the nurses sometimes use. I wanted him to know that to me he was a real person and not some crippled patient who took a whole minute to get from the bathroom to his bed. He told me that he was the first person to live up in American Fork Canyon and that he used to run up it 10 miles round trip every day. I asked him if there were water falls up there and he told me that the one in Provo Canyon was bigger. I told him how I could never run a marathon. He said something very interesting, "I thought I could learn everything I wanted to know about myself by running a marathon. But I was wrong. I have learned much more about myself since then." I commented on how that was very good because I will have to find other ways than marathons to learn about myself... We had a very good conversation and as I went to leave he said, "it was good to visit with you." I agreed and then left. I hope that I helped him heal more than I hurt him with my needle. And truly I think I did because he really opened up to me. It was a powerful moment and I really think that my interactions with the patients can be the most rewarding. Sometimes they are the most awkward but then sometimes you meet really incredible people in the hospital. It was memorable. I'm glad I wrote it down so that I won't ever forget it.