One year and 30 hours: Maryah RN

June 18th marked one year of being a nurse.

My eyes were brimming with tears, the voice on the phone seemed upset with me, I could hardly understand what I had done, I only understood that I hadn't known. 

"I...I didn't know.." I stammered and attempted to collect myself, "What should I do?" 

I wasn't given an answer. I hung up the phone and turned around, finding my Unit Director nearby. She was relatively new to me, but became extremely beloved in this moment when I confessed my sins:

"I sent the patient to rehab...the patient I just discharged? Yeah, well I sent them to rehab with the mediport still accessed. I didn't know," and that was all I could say. 

I didn't keep eye contact once I had finished the explanation. I also wanted to say that I had hardly even remembered the patient had a mediport, because I had only cared for them for a few hours amongst all the rest of my patients. 

But in nursing, there are millions of reasons we can make mistakes and no excuses when we do. 

Yet between my Unit Director and Clinical Coordinator, I was given no sense of shame and neither was I reprimanded for not having known better. They understood: you can't know what you don't know. My own mind gave me all the reprimanding needed: 

"Yeah, you didn't know, but it only makes logical sense, it's direct venous access!" "Even if you don't know, you must be good enough to know." 

I blinked my eyes tight and dialed the phone number to the rehab center, as this is what my Unit Director had told me to do.

"Hey, yeah, so, this is Maryah and I just sent a patient to you. They have the mediport still accessed," I waited to hear some sort of scoff, but it didn't come. "Is there anyone there who can do that?" I was told there wasn't. I hung up and handed it over to my Unit Director. I continued with my day and didn't hear about it again till the next morning, though I hadn't wanted to come back in to work after such a mistake.

I had been written up (not by anyone on my unit). I also discovered someone had been present at the rehab center and was able to take out the mediport. I was reassured of my capabilities and given direction on how to ensure the discharge process is completed correctly every single time. 

The next time tears came to my eyes, it was November. "Maryah...I am so scared." 

Cancer.

My patient would hold my hand, desperate to keep some sort of grip on life, desperate to feel he was still here. Each time I left his room, I would turn and say, "I will be back to check on you," and he would say, "I love you, Maryah." Love was all there was left for this man. Treatment no longer functioned and pain medication hardly helped. In his last weeks of life, he would say it as much as he possibly could, to anyone and everyone: I love you. 

Because when we leave this earth, we leave behind our choices: love or hate. 

Christmas last year was spent in the hospital. When midnight came on Christmas Eve, I was hanging an IV in the room of my patient who was watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. "Merry Christmas," I said to her, not sure how she would respond. She had been placed in the category of "Difficult Patients" due to the manipulation, stubbornness and yelling. She had been surrounded by family for days leading up to Christmas, but when the day finally came, they were nowhere to be found. I would navigate my way through the maze of her room which had been filled with gifts, blankets, chairs, and food her family had brought. She appeared to be greatly loved, but she was not the easiest to love. 

Then again, maybe I would be difficult to love too if I had wasted myself away with addiction.

My last night with her was when we finally broke through to each other. I was assisting her to the bathroom (something she usually insisted on having family do) and beheld her emaciated body. I felt an ache inside. Afterwards I sat next to her on her bed and told her a little bit about me. 

See, in school we're taught to never talk about ourselves, but I have found there are certain things you do need to share. Patients want to know you as a human. Many of them want to know of a world outside of their diagnosis. 

So I told her I was going down to the D.R. to see my boyfriend. We talked about her kids, about relationships and family. My shift was ending, so she gave me a hug and said with confidence, "When you come back, you'll be engaged." I laughed and said I hoped she was right. 

She had refused specific treatments that would help her. When I came back, I could not find out what happened, whether she had died or whether she had been discharged to die in her addiction--because that is something else many medical professionals begin to stop believing in: the power of someone to change. 

It was a sunny afternoon in late March and out of nowhere I had the unexplainable hankering for a coffee. I didn't drink coffee during this time, and in all my months at Arnot, I had never bought one from the coffee shop. But I HAD to go. 

When I reached the coffee shop, I discovered it had just closed. Somewhat disappointed, I was turning back towards the hallway but turned to find her right in front of me. 

"Oh my!" 

I hugged her once, then twice, and she smiled at me from a full, pleasant face, 

"Maryah! I can't believe it's you! I saw you walking over! How are you??" 

I said I was good, "But you? How are you? I never was able to find out what happened!" 

She tells me how life is good and how the doctors are amazed because she's improved and her prognosis is so much better. 

"Did you get engaged?" she is happy because she knows this about me: that my Christmas wish had been to have my boyfriend propose to me. 

I hold up my left hand in response. She hugs me and says, again with much confidence, "Next time I see you, you'll be pregnant." 

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One year and 30 hours--the 30 hours being how long I went without sleep once so as to work a night shift--and I have now cared for approximately 1,000 patients. One thousand people have had me at their bedside saying, 

"Hello, my name is Maryah and I'm going to be your nurse today." 

Here's to 1,000+ more.