Many of you have likely heard about the senator from Washington, Maureen Walsh who made a comment that nurses just sit around and play cards during their shifts. She's already received over 667 decks of playing cards and counting according to one story I read. Another more recent said over 1000. What started her firestorm was this. "By putting these types of mandates on a critical access hospital that literally serves a handful of individuals, I would submit to you those nurses probably do get breaks. They probably play cards for a considerable amount of the day."
Let me tell you as a medical momma my experiences with nurses. Let the soapbox begin!
My first time as a mom dealing with nurses was when I was in labor with my daughter. Even before that, during my pregnancy. The most recent was our last appointment at Children's. Countless times in-between. Never once have I seen them playing cards, or any other game.
I've seen them have to go into another ICU room because a child coded. I have seen them come out of an ICU room with tears. I have seen them talking among themselves quietly of a miracle they saw the night before in a patient's room. I have heard them advocate for a patient, either to a doctor/resident or even to family who didn't understand what was going on. I have seen them take their time to sit with my kid (Either one) so I could get a quick bite to eat, shower or even to go pee.
I have seen them goof off with my daughter during a stay with an ICP monitor at Medical City Dallas. She loved that nurse and still talks about him all these years later.
I have seen them work with Child Life to get my son a birthday party he deserved even though he was admitted hooked up to an EEG and feeling awful. Yet they made him smile. I have seen my son on countless visits to Arkansas Children's since even that run up to those very same nurses and hug them and talk to them. I have seen nurses hold my son and my daughter as they have cried and screamed through procedures. I have seen nurses soothe my son through seizures and yet at the same time call for help. I have seen nurses rub my shoulders or squeeze my arm through many stays, both outpatient and inpatient.
I have seen them as I have been putting pieces together about my son's TBI called encephalomalacia, how it was from high ICP and why.....
I have even seen nurses clean up nasty bodily fluids. I remember our last stay after my son's last craniofacial surgery, he got too much Colace for too long. OOPS!! 💩 We had been waiting on that BM but just not THAT much!!! Yet that nurse on night-shift cleaned all of that mess up and didn't even tell me about it till after. (I told her she should have woken me so I could have helped!)
I have seen those nurses bring me treats, like one did on my birthday as I was at Children's in Dallas for my son's chiari surgery. They have been there as I cried and they held me or assured me that all will be okay. They have been there as I stood my ground professionally saying I will not accept waiting longer just to see my son decline more and I refused to wait on the doctor to decide anything. They have been there as I have had to call yet again with questions or concerns. They have been there as I have needed a place to vent about life as a medical mom and have listened. They have been there as I cried during the news of a missed miscarriage. They have been there as I cried after the D&C for that. They have even been there to chastise me about not taking pain meds for myself after my unplanned cesarean.
They have been there through so much.....
I have a few favorite nurses at several clinics/facilities yet they all have done what they are called to do. There's one that I know I can call anytime and she would be there. Because I have. Because I have called her bawling my eyes out freaking out during times EMS has been called for my son. Because I had to drive to Children's without him because he was in an ambulance headed there himself. Yet she stayed with me. She talked to me. She told me she would kick my butt if I didn't update her. She has before too!!!! I've even been to lunch a few times with two of my favorites.
Is every single nurse we have had been good? No.... We have had a couple of doozies over the years but by far the majority have been amazing.
Our journey with nurses and my kids is nowhere near done. We have more procedures, surgeries, appointments and more ahead with both kids. Yet I know nurses will be there. They will do whatever it takes to care for my kids. And even me.
So even if nurses did play cards, does it really matter what they do during their downtime? NO! Because they are doing what they were called to do: Save others. Serve others. Love on others.
I'm ending today with the open letter that someone named Shy Braaten wrote. I couldn't have said it better honestly. Now, go thank a nurse.
"This is an open letter to Senator Maureen Walsh -
Dear Senator Walsh,
You said that not all nurses deserve breaks as they just sit around playing cards while on shift anyway.
I don’t know any nurses who play cards, Senator Walsh. I know nurses who care for babies who were born with their spines on the outside of their bodies and brains that won’t stop bleeding. I know nurses who hold infants that can’t stop crying because they were born addicted to heroin and meth amphetamines.
I know nurses who roll those same babies down to the morgue when they finally do stop crying. Do you think that’s where they play cards, Senator Walsh?
I know nurses who care for patients that no one else cares about - the homeless, the forgotten and even the psychotic with the same dedication they would show a celebrity...or a Senator.
I know nurses who can go all night without food or a bathroom break. I know nurses with nerve damage and back pain from doing whatever it takes to take care of patients. I know nurses who cry in their cars. Do you think that’s where they play cards, Senator Walsh?
I know nurses who are hard as steel when delivering life saving treatment to dying patients and softer than a whisper when delivering the news that it didn’t work to the family. Do you think they all play cards together after that, Senator Walsh?
I know one nurse who is asleep in the next room right now after her second 12 hour shift of the holiday weekend. She left her shoes outside because she didn’t want to bring all the blood and bile that she walked through last night into our home. I wish she could leave everything else from the hospital outside that easy. She can’t. It stays with her.
Sometimes she doesn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes she can’t wait to talk about it.
Sometimes she laughs until she cries and sometimes she just cries but, regardless of those sometimes, she’ll be on time for her next shift.
She doesn’t play cards either Senator Walsh - but I do. That’s how I made my living once upon a time before I met a nurse who changed my life. You and I have that in common. Nurses are going to change your life too.
You’ll find out how right after the next election cycle. You’ll have plenty of time to play cards and plenty of cards to play with yourself then.
Sincerely,
One of the millions of people who love a nurse."
If you want to send her your story, or even a deck of cards, go for it.
Senator Maureen Walsh
P.O. Box 40416
Olympia, WA 98504-0435
(360) 786-7630
Maureen.walsh@leg.wa.gov
P.O. Box 40416
Olympia, WA 98504-0435
(360) 786-7630
Maureen.walsh@leg.wa.gov
She may be "sorry" as she said here "I was tired, and in the heat of argument on the Senate floor, I said some things about nurses that were taken out of context -- but still they crossed the line.""I really don't believe nurses at our critical access hospitals spend their days playing cards, but I did say it, and I wish I could reel it back," Walsh said. She also noted her mother was a registered nurse and said she knows the "long hours she worked sacrificing to provide for her family."
Thank you to all the nurses who have and who will be assigned to my children. Be assured, so many more of us see your worth than a simpleton politician who has no idea what she's talking about.
I truly believe that if she felt this way, others who decide the fate of our country do too. Let's send them a message.
~ Special Momma ~
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