i infuse hope for a living, what do you do?

today was my patient's birthday! not her real BIRTH day, but her transplant birthday - her day 0.

let me explain:

the days leading up to transplant are minus days (for example, day -1); they are full of icky things, like chemotherapy and total body irradiation. the days after tranplant are plus days (ie. day +1) and include waiting for engraftment (when the cells burrow into the patient's bone marrow, make themselves a home, and start working to produce red and white blood cells - in essence, a new immune system).

as a nurse, in the morning, when i see that i'm giving someone stem cells, i roll my eyes. it's extra work. i'll likely have to be in my patient's room for over an hour; i'll have to do extra sets of vital signs all day; and my patient just might have an anaphylactic reaction (which, let's just say, is not fun and certainly complicates the day). it doesn't happen often, but we must always be prepared (with emergency meds at the bedside, extra monitoring, and adrenaline at the ready).

my patient's partner helped to remind me that transplant day is not all bad; it's not all nuissance. it's not just extra work for me. it's why i became i nurse (and i guess i forget that sometimes) - to make people's lives better. i didn't become a nurse to "cure" people, like some doctors (and thankfully that wasn't my motive, because transplants don't always work). i became a nurse to assist people when making hard choices and to support them, physically and emotionally, in their greatest time of need.

as my patient lay in her bed, sedated from high doses of benadryl, her partner of 21 years talked. and it was not just small talk. it was BIG talk. he said to me, "that woman right there, she is everything to me." he then proceeded to tell me that he hoped i don't take my job for granted. he asked, "do you realize the importance of what you do? do you know you are infusing hope into my darling?"

as a red kool-aid like substance dripped into my patient's veins, i thought about it. i don't always realize what i do. i don't always remember the significance of my job. the stem cells that i gave my patient today came from two separate umbilical cord donations - two separate, small miracles that were born into the world and given the chance to save another life. what a miraculous scientific invention? what an amazing gift! and i get to participate?!? i will forever be the nurse that administered geraldine's stem cells. i had the honor of celebrating her new birthday. and whether or not her transplant is successful, i have the privelege of knowing that i infused hope, in an attempt to let geraldine's partner share more time with his "everything."

who else gets to say they "infuse hope" for a living? i'm going to put that on my resume some day...