Thank You



“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.” - Abigail Van Buren

After spending a fair amount of time in ERs and hospital rooms the last three months I have come to see just how true this saying is. This is illustrated better in no other profession than the nursing industry. Between Penelope being born and Nina getting sick and now our latest endeavor with Bridget we dealt with countless hospital staff. Hands down it was the nurses that took the best care of my family. They were constantly working to make sure we were comfortable, answering our stupid questions, and dealing with our requests and always with a smile. As busy as they were they never made us feel like we were a burden or that they didn't have time to deal with us.

This latest stay was extended because we were waiting for a doctor to come and sign Bridget's chart so we could go home. The surgeons had cleared her to leave, we just needed one doctor to come and wave goodbye to us. As I started to get very irritated and grumpy I realized that our nurse Sara was getting just as irritated as I was. She came into our room repeatedly and apologized over and over and I started to relate with her. At my job we have a chain of command we follow and so did she. I often times have to be the face to the public and answer for decisions made by the chiefs. She was having to deal with the decisions made by this doctor. It wasn't her fault that we couldn't go home but she was the one that kept apologizing for it.

I have a lot of friends that are nurses or CNAs and very often this job goes unnoticed and unthanked. Everybody thanks the surgeon and doctor that took care of your loved one but the honest truth is that if they didn't have a nurse doing all the leg work for them they wouldn't be worth a shit. So even though nurses day is long past this is my thank you to all the nurses in the world. You guys are the ones on the front lines and you don't get told nearly enough how appreciated you really are.