tof

Courage comes in many different forms. Nursing, particularly in areas like oncology, pediatrics, and intensive care, requires a very specific kind of courage and a strength that not many of the rest of us possess.

boltonblue

Patty, I also did the hospital housekeeping gig.
As a guy we were more mop and bucket.
Part of my suite was cleaning the morgue.
and yet people ask why did I go back to school.

Kyras

Yeah, I had no idea what I wanted to do but it wasn't a life time of cleaning toilets or working at McDonalds. I took off one semester at college to avoid taking electro-magnetism with Mr. Romagnoli which worked for the lower division class but then I had him for the upper division one. I had people tell me that I'd never go back to college. Yeah, cleaning up vomit and diarrhea was so rewarding, let alone getting looked down on by the doctors and nurses.

Hertz Donut

My son spent a couple of weeks in the national children's hospital back when he was 2 years old. The whole family had to stay there because my wife wasn't well and our daughter was only 10 months old. I spent at least 14 hours each day pushing my daughter around in a pram as she had chronic reflux and the constant motion was the only way to get her to sleep, so I saw a whole lot of hospital corridors, and a whole lot of sick and dying kids. I spent a lot of time crying being in that environment, I don't know how the nurses and doctors who work there do it, I guess you just have to work on a percentage basis - you know you're not going to save every one of them but you'll damn well try.

That experience changed us, and now we have a large property we're working toward being able to hold fundraising events to support the charity house we stayed at, as well as places like the Cancer Society hotel where we stayed another time. Everyone working in those places was so kind and helpful, we didn't really feel worthy of the support we received since compared to the plight of some others in the hospital we had it very, very good.

boltonblue

My nephew lives out in Reno.
His room mate ( unromantic) in an EMT. She had tested positive for Covid.
He's been feeling crappy and is highly likely positive as well.