Perspective

Last week I had a couple of interesting clinical days that made me ponder a few things. Before I started nursing school, I really had no clue what health care was about. In reality, I learn more every day about what it is like to care for a patient, their family and their health care experience...and I know that I will forever be learning and molding my skills and ability. Taking care of a patient/client is so much more than being able to interpret their lab work and knowing the side effects of their medications. It is about talking, showing kind eyes, encouraging without providing false hope, wrapping your literal and figurative arm around someone who is ill and their spouse, parent, child and cushioning them from the blow of a sometimes unexpected and never welcome experience. I am learning this. It isn't always easy to translate a nurturing instinct into caring for someone whom you have never met. But it is possible and I feel it happening more and more with every experience with which I am faced.

In this whole nursing school experience, I learn from so many places...from my instructors, from the nurses and doctors in the clinical setting, from my peers, my books, but mostly I learn from those I am caring for. And my lessons aren't all about nursing. Last week I learned about life and perspective, hope and inspiration, courage, optimism and tenacity. I met someone who could only teach me with smiles through pain, "tomorrows" and "next years" without knowing if they would come to be and overwhelming gratitude for every breath and every moment. These lessons are the most valuable of not just my nursing school experience but, also, of my life. I don't know if my "teacher" last week knows these lessons that I took away from our time. I do know that, in this adventure, I have the potential every day to meet people who will inspire me. So when I feel down, when I am immersed in my pity parties and grump fests, I will try to remember the perspective of a very special person who I met last week and smile through pain, talk about tomorrow and next year and be grateful for each breath and each moment. If he can do it, I can do it...right?