Te Agradecemos Santo Padre

The patient I had the honor of caring for was an elderly, gentle Mexican man. Prior to entering his room, I spent some time looking at his chart. He had had an ischemic brain event (like a stroke, but caused by occlusion of his carotid artery) a few days ago which had led to emergency surgery to open up his left carotid. The surgery was successful and allowed him full sensation and motor function of his right side. However, he was not yet able to speak. After thoroughly examining his chart and looking up the various medications he was on, I went down the sterile , septic smelling hallway to his hospital room.

As I turned a corner, I found myself on Holy Ground.

There in the room with him was his family - two elderly women dressed in long skirts, bright colors, scarves on their heads and an elderly gentleman in a straw cowboy hat. Also in the room was a younger Mexican man in scrubs who worked at the hospital - family friend. I walked in and was a little disoriented. With the traditional clothing, only Spanish being spoken, and the way that the family loved on each other, hugging and kissing on the cheeks - I felt as if I was no longer in America. Such beautiful loving people. I shook hands with each person in the room and introduced myself. The two men who spoke English explained what was going on. They were calling a friend in a neighboring town so that they could all pray together. I think they were letting me know so that I could leave the room, but I asked if I could pray with them. We stood in a circle, holding hands. They prayed like I do not see Americans pray, each person praying out loud and simultaneously. I couldn't understand all of the prayers as they were in Spanish, but I got the gist of them. They were thanking God for this beloved family member's life.

Te Agradecemos Padre, We Thank You Father

What an absolute honor to enter into prayer with such loving, humble, sweet people. Where I may have otherwise felt awkward or culturally out of place, thanking and praising God together brought me into close relationship with these strangers immediately. There were no longer walls of cultural or language barriers, but rather bridges of unity from a shared love of the same Father. I love the way that communal prayer and worship transcends all discord and transforms human dissonance to harmony. I love that anywhere I go in the world, I can pray with someone, even if they are of a different faith, and we are simply children sitting at God's feet. And there we are, people praying, more alike than we are different. I love that my chosen profession of nursing is holistic, incorporating all aspects of being human including spirituality. I am so glad that I can openly pray with the patients I get to take care of without any fear of reprimand from my instructors or hospital staff. I am grateful that the nursing model of health care, sees the whole person and stands firm on the knowledge that a person's God and a person's family and a person's story and a person's integrity and a person's beliefs are as important and even more important than a person's disease. People are made up of so much more than their bodies and I love being able to care for whole people, and not just their symptoms and illnesses.

I met a woman who had been married for 53 years. She told me this as I changed her diaper. She told me that she lives with her husband and smiled wide as she informed me that her husband is "swell". Later on, I saw them walking the hallway hand-in-hand, still in love after all those 53 years. She told me that their secrets to marital longevity are "having a sense of humor" and "understanding" and "not getting angry about little things". Pretty basic but very wise.

I cared for a woman tonight who had fuschia fingernails and a green owl ring on her hand. She was severely crippled and just so remarkably vulnerable as I changed her diaper and cleaned up the stool leakage on her bedding. She no longer has motor control and her body no longer stretches out and her legs are permanently folded into a tight fetal position, making it quite challenging to provide care for her. It is easy, especially in the early stages of nursing education, to get caught up in caring for bodies and performing difficult care tasks, and fail to look a person in the eyes, to smile; to listen to them and hear their story. This woman could barely express herself verbally but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she knew exactly what was going on. As I began to speak to her and keep eye contact, we began to communicate without words. The infected pressure ulcer on her backside is deep enough that I can see her tailbone. It will likely never heal and will probably be the cause of her death. But I know she is a woman who wasn't always like this. She has children and a home and a story of life before Multiple Sclerosis. She has watched her independence, her footsteps, her voice, all of life as she knew it faded away. Yet still, the light in her eyes and her song remains. Te Agradecemos