Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul Read Free Page B

A. Brady
     

“Do you want to speak to the man in charge—or the nurse who knows what’s going on?”
     
    Reprinted by permission of Chris S. Patterson.

Nellie
     
C hildren are God’s apostles sent forth day by day to preach of love, hope and peace.
J. R. Lowell
     
    Nellie was only two years old, the only child of a single mother whose boyfriend walked out when he found out she was pregnant. Not an unusual story in an inner city— but Nellie was unusual. She wrapped your heart around her little finger the moment you met her. Her eyes, huge ovals and black as shiny metal, looked out of a pale, round face. I was told her hair was once dark and curly, but when we met she was bald from chemotherapy.
    Nellie had leukemia. During her six months in the hospital, doctors had tried one chemotherapy regimen after another, trying to save her life. I was Nellie’s primary nurse at a time when primary nursing was not the norm. We all felt Nellie needed someone constant in her life. Her mother, unable to cope with Nellie’s devastating illness, rarely visited. Whenever a care conference was scheduled to discuss the next mode of treatment, Nellie’s mother came to be included in decisions. She wanted to make sure everything possible was being done for her daughter. But she just couldn’t visit. I always thought she had already said good-bye.
    When I first met Nellie she had just started the fifth round of chemotherapy. Her face and body were swollen from steroids. She had a Broviac line in her chest for medications and IV fluids; she had severe stomatitis and was unable to take anything orally; her perirectal area was red and raw from constant diarrhea. Yet she had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen, reaching all the way to her eyes. I wondered when she had decided that pain was just a part of everyday life and decided to smile anyway.
    Two things made Nellie happy: being rocked while I sang soft lullabies, and going bye-bye in the red wagon. With a fireman’s cap on her head, a face mask on to protect her from anyone else’s germs, and the red light flashing on the wagon’s front end, we walked around and around the unit saying “hi” to all the “’ick babies.” Nellie had a problem with her S’s.
    And she had a faith in God only a child could have. “Unless you become as little children . . . “ Nellie bowed her head each time she said his name. She called him “’oly God.” H’s were a problem, too. When I would finish doing her morning bath and dressing her in a soft fuzzy sleeper, she would snuggle into my lap and ask me about “’oly God.”
    “Is his ’ouse big?” she would ask with wonder in her voice. “How big is it?” Then, “Tell me again about the ’treets of gold.” She remembered all the children’s Bible stories her mother had read to her.
    One morning she surprised me with the simplicity of her trust. “Pretty soon I go to ’oly God’s house.”
    “Everyone will go to Holy God’s house someday,” I replied, trying to deny the truth that she had already accepted.
    “I know that,” she said with all the assurance of a two-year-old who understands the mysteries of the universe, “but I’m going firstest.”
    “How do you know that?” I asked, choking back tears.
    “’Oly God. He told me,” she said matter-of-factly. When the fifth series of chemotherapy drugs failed to have the desired effect, the doctors coordinated a care conference. Nellie’s mother was coming and the plan was to get permission to try a new set of experimental drugs, not yet approved for use in pediatric patients. I was surprised at my angry response. “When are we going to say that’s enough? It’s time to let Nellie go.” I couldn’t believe this was me speaking. I never thought there would come a time when I would think it was not only okay, but the only right thing to do, to stop treatment on a child. I was more pro-life than the Pope, yet in the deepest part of my spirit I knew someone