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It was my first day on my new assignment, a male med/surg
unit, and before I'd been there 10 minutes, I was warned
about Joe. If ever there was a patient from hell, my
co-workers informed me, it was Joe, a Russian Jew who
had already lost one leg to Buerger's disease and was
well on his way to losing the other. He was 66 years
old, looked at least 80 and spoke with a heavy Russian
accent.
Because Joe's condition was deteriorating, he was a
frequent admission to our unit for evaluation and treatment.
At that time-the late '50s-patient stays often were
measured in weeks rather than days as they are now.
Thus, Joe had become a familiar and somewhat unwelcome
face on our department: familiar because of repeated
admissions and unwelcome because he was one holy terror
of a patient who was not only sicker but more cantankerous
with each admission.
Joe hated everybody and everything. He especially despised
his morning bath and fought it tooth and nail, stiffening
when we tried to turn him and refusing to cooperate
in any way. And the barrage of complaints: The water
was too hot! The water was too cold! The nurse was rubbing
too hard, or not hard enough to get him dry. He had
soap in his eyes. He was getting a chill. And on and
on.
As the "new kid on the block," I hadn't been
assigned to Joe's morning care during my first week
of orientation, but I often helped his nurse by holding
him over while she washed his back and changed the linen.
Sometimes, he would swear and shake his fist at us,
and I'm sure he'd have taken a swing at us if he dared.
My luck couldn't last forever, though, and the next
week I took my turn as Joe's a.m. care nurse.
Determined to get the job done quickly and cheerfully,
I forced a smile as I assembled soap, wash basin and
towels.
"Time for your bath, Joe."
"I don't vant bath." His standard response.
Well, I said to myself, I don't want to give you a
bath, either-that makes us even-but you must have a
bath, so let's get on with it. I wasn't about to let
this old curmudgeon buffalo me!
I thought about explaining the benefits of a daily
bath, but I figured he'd heard that spiel before. Perhaps,
though, a little small talk might distract him from
the tirade of complaints that I knew was about to erupt.
It was worth a try.
"I understand you were born in Russia, Joe. Where
in Russia?" He gave me a one-word answer, some
obscure village I'd never heard of, but as I patted
his face dry, I kept on talking.
"When did you come to America?"
Again, a one-word answer. "1919."
I was no history buff, but that date rang a bell. "Wasn't
that about the time of the Russian Revolution?"
I asked. "Why did you leave?"
"I hated Reds," he said. "I was White
Russian. I fought for czar."
My ears perked up. "Really? I'd never met a Russian
before Joe, let alone a White Russian. Tell me about
it."
He spoke hesitantly at first, but when he began to
realize that my interest was genuine-and with a little
prodding on my part-he began to tell his story with
increasing enthusiasm. And what a story it was!
He talked about the events that triggered the Bolshevik
Revolution, the chaos, the power struggle, the rise
of the dictators. Soon, Joe found that he had an audience,
and he seemed to relish his newfound celebrity. Each
morning, he told us more about his childhood in czarist
Russia, stories laced with the culture and history of
the country he had once loved. It was almost like taking
a course in Russian history.
But I learned a lot more from Joe. I learned a lesson
that no nursing arts instructor could have taught me-that
in dealing with our patients, we must remember that
within every sick or disabled body lives a real person
with a history uniquely his own and with a basic need
to share life experiences with others. After all, isn't
that what nursing has always been about-the patient?
Not the computers, not the monitors, not the infusion
pumps-of course, we must be proficient in these areas-but
the heart of nursing is the patient.
I've never forgotten this fascinating man or the valuable
lesson I learned from him.
Learning, of course, is a two-sided coin, and I think
Joe learned from us that friendliness begets friendship,
that interacting with others is a joyful part of human
existence. I can't say that Joe had a miraculous change
of personality overnight, but he did become more responsive
to treatment, more cooperative with his caregivers,
and-although he probably would never admit it-I think
he even learned to enjoy his morning bath!
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