To A Stranger

Dear Stranger,
There were 2 of you yesterday. One was an excellent, attentive friendly nurse. Another came off that way, but then appeared to run screaming in the opposite direction for forty minutes while I was vomiting. It’s a good thing my mom and fiancé were there because I would’ve been by myself, covered in vomit, unable to sit up , clean up or take a shower for at the very least forty minutes. That’s kind of a scary thought because I couldn’t even move without shaking or feeling like I was going to fall over so I would have been stuck. I realize you have other patients to care for, but I was stuck. Literally. And when you came back forty minutes later, your nails were a different color. You looked shocked that I noticed it, even with me so ridiculously hyped up on Demerol. You wouldn’t write down your name and number and acted very put out when my mom did. Your supervisor wouldn’t get new bed linens or give us the code to GET new bed linens so when I was finished showering (once again, while you weren’t there, my mom literally held me up), I was stuck sitting in a bathroom full of vomit covered linens, and I couldn’t get up by myself and I could barely sit up. This isn’t to be mean or anything, it’s just to say that it was kind of scary, especially to a person who has never been in a hospital before. It was lonely and while I was very glad my mom and fiancé were there, it would’ve been nice to be able to count on the person that I was supposed to be able to. Thank God my mom’s a nurse, otherwise that might’ve ruined the whole nursing thing for me.

Nurse number one, though? Practically perfect in every way. 

Megan