The Women You Are Forced To Trust

A day in the life of a nurse

I am tired. Every part of my body aches. My back feels like a brittle dog bone. I am crappy after waking up in the wee hours of the morning, long before anyone else did. I work in shifts, morning, noon, and night, suddenly changing throughout the week. My body is crying for mercy, but I need to do this, as there are people who need me more.

I am a nurse. I am a front-line worker. I clean other people’s dirt. I smell the bodily excretions you do not want to smell. I work with blood and the diseased, putting my life at stake. I see wounds and mend them first thing in the morning. I leave my kids sleeping to serve the people you did not want to, or could not care for anymore. I swallow my emotions and make the dead worth looking at.

Today was women’s day at work. They served us a beautiful cake with a message, “Herzlischen Glückwunsch zum Weltfrauentag.” — translated, “Warmest greetings on World Women’s Day”. Indeed, we deserved it, more so this year than evermore. For the first time, at least in my lifetime, I saw nurses the world over appreciated and more in demand than ever before. I pondered over the goings-on of my day.

I start by entering the room of a person who does not know me at all. He/she constantly depends on my capability — both physical and mental. They lie there, trusting that whatever I do to them is for their own good. Their welfare depends on my constant hygiene, on my observation, and my memory. One mistake, one overdose of medicine, too much or too little insulin injected, too big of a spoonful fed, or even one frustrated reaction could cost a life. No, I am not being melodramatic here.

A career in healthcare never occurred to me. I am an artist who sees things more holistically than others. Thanks to my artistic capabilities as a singer and a writer, I have a broader view of things. I can cross the deepest of all waters and remain positive. When I entered this profession as an apprentice nurse, it was more because Corona ruined the chances for all artists throughout the world. There were also other personal reasons, one of them which included certainty.

I never wanted to be a nurse. I had to. This has now changed. I feel proud to serve people as a healthcare worker. For I know that the world can survive without artists, engineers, salespeople, and barbers, but nothing could replace nurses, caregivers, and doctors. Unfortunately, there will always be diseases, accidental emergencies, birth-defects, premature babies, and other things threatening life — the greatest gift of all.

Did you know about 91% of the world’s nurses are mothers? Why should they not be? Women are naturally born with the maternal, caring instinct. Organizational skills in them are natural. They make superb cooks and even better home-makers. But not all of them.

Most nurses are women, and it is so because society is screaming for them. Most women are more comfortable being cared for by women. Most men in old-age miss motherly care, which is replaced by a woman caregiver.

Women have households of their own. Children to care for. Families that they need to establish contact with. They keep everyone in mind at festivities and plan get-togethers. They are supposed to be constant reminders, go-getters, predictors, planners, bookkeepers. In short, they are the savings account you dig into when you are neck-deep in debt. Can your Google Chrome or Alexa do that?

Can you nurse your loved ones when they are old? Do you have time to constantly care for that child with Down's syndrome? Do you have the energy to live with a person suffering from dementia and watch their every step? Will you accompany that partner for a lifetime to the toilet after his unfortunate accident? Would you bandage bed-soars, open abhorrent wounds, and incurable skin diseases? When being related and in love with the sufferer, you cannot do all this, how much of a struggle would this be for a person who has no emotions attached to him?

I hope you never need a nurse’s care. Or if you do, may it be only for an important vaccine. But the next time you abuse, complain, talk rot or under-play the work nurses do, think again. Your life depends on these women, and they are indispensable, especially during these times.

How long can you comfortably wear the mask without complaining? Can you walk fast while your nose is constantly covered, and that elastic bruising your ears? These life-saving individuals do so for at least 8 to 12 hours, constantly on the move.

Look up to your nurses. Pray for them. Wish them well. Do anything but curse them. And no, they do not earn hefty salaries for this important, challenging, and unforgiving job.

Happy Women’s Day!