Sincerely, your nervous nursing student.

Dear First Patient, 

I can't sleep tonight. It may be partially due to that Ben and Jerry's CoffeeCoffeeBuzzBuzzBuzz that I ate a little bit ago, and that feel-good elation I got from watching Zootopia, but it's mostly due to you. I have a feeling that tonight won't be the last night I stay awake thinking about a patient. But what is so different about you tonight is that you're my First and though I don't know you and you don't know me, I feel that whoever you are, you're really important. Whether you're hospitalized for pneumonia, dealing with dementia, suffering from a fractured femur, or don't actually know what your diagnosis is, you're going to be my first and I will never forget you.

Unbeknownst to you, you're that far-out concept that Nursing School constantly drills in our head: nursing is patient centered, assessment is patient centered, diagnosis is patient centered, treatment is patient centered, every step you take and word you say is p.a.t.i.e.n.t. c.e.n.t.e.r.e.d. You're the person that my quizzes and exams are all about, even though that's hard to remember when the anxiety level is through the roof while those sheets of paper arrive in front of our sharp, quivering number two pencils.

I may get that giddy "let's play dress up" feeling as I put on my scrubs, but this is so much more to me than just a little game I'm playing to entertain myself. 'Cause you know what it is that makes you so important? It's not because you're in a hospital bed with an ID band around your wrist, it's not because you're the very center of all my subject matter, and it's not because you're a huge responsibility that I as a nursing student am now taking on.

It is because you have a beautiful soul.

A failing body, yeah, we've all got those, but your soul is priceless and it is loved. I apologize if there are times when I get frustrated or tired and I forget that, but it will always be why I continue doing what I do. Not because it's easy, not because it sounds important to be a nurse, but because you are loved and your soul is so valuable in the eyes of your Creator that He died for you, for me, for us all.

I don't want to be a nurse to help people. Don't get me wrong, I love doing that of course, but I can do that most anywhere. Neither do I want to be a nurse for the paycheck...heaven forbid that money be my motive. I would do other things if that what I wanted.

You see, I've been to some dark places, and I've seen people do bad things. I know it's a messed up world, and having seen and experienced that leads me to a choice: to run away and pretend everything's okay, or to dive into that world and be whatever small amount of light and hope that I can possibly be.

I know that the caring profession of nursing can be nothing more than a pecking-order-money-chase, however I also know that it's not just "It is what it is", but it is what you make it to be.

Now if I were to choose option one [running away and pretending it's all good] then I'd probably hide myself on some secluded tropical island, make a yoga youtube channel and drink smoothies all day long. Or maybe I would have called it quits with my BA in communications and done something in that area.

But I choose option two. I choose to go into those dark areas, into those politically messed up and biased areas, into those places where one doesn't need just a little bit of courage, but a lot. I choose to go into the injustice and pursue whatever justness that I can find. I choose nursing. God equips each of us to uniquely go into the world and He empowers us to be those fighters, those light-bearers and hope-carriers in every area of life. For me, my personal "battlefield of sorts" is nursing. For you it may be something else. But for all of us, it is a very real call. A call to do more than just sit around and watch the world go by, to do more than pursue our selfish desires, and to be more than what stereotypes might say we are.

'Cause you know what? You have a beautiful soul and you have something incredibly big to offer to this world: you have the gift of yourself. The world needs more people like you to step in and say no to the injustice, to speak up for those without a voice, to be hope to those who are hopeless.

Stepping out and doing something might be crazy and side effects may include staying up late at night buzzing with nervous excitement and a twisting stomach, but that's okay, cause the benefits of stepping out are going to be greater than you could ever have imagined. Even if it's hard, and even if you don't right away see just how it is so good and so necessary. You'll move mountains with a little bit of faith and a step forward.

So dear first patient, I'm going to be stepping forward into your room tomorrow morning somewhere around seven thirty. I may swallow my heart in my nervousness and will possibly mess up when I listen to your blood pressure because my own BP will be sky high, but I'll keep stepping forward, I'll keep on keeping on, cause this is what I've chosen and your nurse is who I want to be.