I love my job
It's not that often I get to establish any sort of relationship with my patients. My usual schedule is two days, two nights followed by five days off. Typically, I'll never have the same patient more than twice, unless their stay in the ICU is particularly long or they're one of our chronics who's been there for YEARS. This week was unusual. Knowing how much I hate the night shift, the scheduler assigned me four days in a row instead of the 2+2. As such I had the same patient for four days, plenty of time to form a proto-relationship with both him and his family.
On the final day of the rotation, I finally gathered up the nerve to ask about their religion. I had wondered about it since Monday, when they sat at the patient's bedside at the stroke of 7pm, and prayed, rocking back and forth, their utterances in a Semitic language whose origin I wasn't entirely sure of. The patient kept a set of beads next to him, vaguely reminiscent of a rosary and the family members had similar ones they held while praying. My initial thought was that they were Muslim. However, on Tuesday, I noticed the patient had a little card taped to one of the bed rails that apparently depicted their 'spiritual leader'. The guy was clean-shaven, middle-aged, in a suit. He could have been a bank executive. Now I really had no idea of their faith.
It occurred to me to just ask the wife about their religion however I apparently forgot everything I learned in nursing school and assumed this question was too personal. On the contrary, we were taught to discuss this sort of thing with families in order to provide culturally sensitive and appropriate care. Why at this point I thought it was wrong I've no idea. As the week drew to a close and Thursday's shift waned, I realized I'd invested a bit of myself with this patient and his family. The job sometimes becomes an assembly line, the patients coming and going, coming and dying, etc, with little attachment. This case was a little different. I had helped sell the patient and the family on the idea of temporarily having a tracheotomy to give himself a chance to more quickly wean from the ventilator. I got him out of bed day after day, still connected to the vent and walked in little circles, impressed by his peripheral physical strength in spite of very weak lungs. I wanted this guy to succeed. I badly wanted him off this ventilator and back home with his young wife.
And perhaps this is why I had such an interest in his religion. These were clearly people of faith. Happy, appreciative of the care they were receiving, refusing to let themselves get down in spite of the odds their family member was facing. Their religion was apparently supporting them in this time of crisis and I had a genuine interest in knowing what it was. So I asked. Muslims indeed. A sect the wife described as 'very liberal', called Ismailism. I remarked to them that I had suspected they might be Muslim but the lack of facial hair on their spiritual leader, who it turns out, is the Aga Khan, threw me. They all, including the patient, had a great laugh with me and it struck me then, how much I enjoy the work I do.
There are those moments I come home and cry my eyes out. Then there are the moments like this. I marveled that only, perhaps in my career, could a gay Jewish nurse from New York be having a conversation about faith with a Muslim family from an East African nation. Remind me the next time I'm in a funk about the latest death at work, about occasions such as this one. Where I leave work for a couple of days off, flush with the warmth of the work I do, the benefits I provide and receive and the people I meet. Remind me, won't you?
