Things Are Not Always What They Seem (Pt 1: I Still Feel Guilty After All These Years)
EXCERPTS FROM LADY B’s DAIRIES
Hello Readers,
Welcome to Lady B’s page. It is my pleasure to join the many wonderful people who make up the DUNIA family. During this journey, we will discuss Faith, Religion, Family, Culture, Traditions, and yes, Politics! Other times we will just tell stories or relate our crucible moments.
The purpose of this column – LADY BERNADETTE – is to treat serious subject matters in relaxed atmospheres. Most of us live and work in too serious of an environment. We hardly find time to open our minds to other topics. At the end of our busy day, we just want to crawl up and go to sleep. Lady B’s column is hoping to open that window of relaxation with stories of the heart as well as in heated discussions that will broaden your thinking. Ok, now that we have a compressed synopsis of Lady B’s column, why don’t I go ahead and introduce you to her?
Lady B is a mature woman in her mid 40s. She has 3 children. They cover quite a span on the growth spectrum. Nelly, her first daughter is in college, Yeken, the second daughter is in high school and Madison is an elementary school kid. Lady B is a professional nurse. Her husband is a college professor which leads us to a unique definition for an African as offered by Lady B’s college age child: “college professor + nurse = African” Wao! Lady B lives in the southern part of the U.S.A. Lady B is not a psychologist, sociologist, politician or an expert on child upbringing. The stories you will read and answers you will get for questions asked will be based mainly on personal experiences and some readings. The goal is not to turn this column into a lecture but to let it be as interactive as possible so we can all share in our knowledge and offer support and encouragement where ever we can.
Now that we have all met Lady B, let’s go ahead and begin our discussion. We will give her the first chance to recount a crucible moment:
Part 1: THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM
Do not judge until you have walked in someone’s shoes and even then things are not always what they seem.
Five years ago, I was working in the Renal/Oncology Unit at a hospital in GA. Tina, (not her real name) a 44yr old school teacher was my patient. Like most terminally ill cancer patients, Tina was becoming a “frequent-flyer” (an insensitive term used by most nurses to describe patients who are on a routine admission- discharge schedule). In the last four months that preceded her death, Tina had become more than just a “frequent-flyer” She was the epitome of a terminally ill person facing her own mortality. Sometimes she was admitted directly from her doctor’s office and sometimes she would just be wheeled in from the ER with just her pocket book as company.
Her husband rarely visited and even those times when he did, it was just to strut pass the nurse’s station with this ever angry countenance and dash in and out of Tina’s room as if afraid of being contaminated by the disease. And oh yes, what hard words we had for him behind his back. That Tina and Bob (not his real name) were an interracial couple did not only give us unkind words to say, it added fuel to the gossip about them. Poor couple, if only we had stopped to think about what was instead of what we thought should have been. You never know until you actually walk in someone else’s shoes. And even then, do not judge!
On this particular night, Tina was dying. No amount of chemo could reverse the prognostics. Her systems had all shot down but Tina for some unexplained reason was still cognitive even though to utter a word required an enormous amount of energy. Anyway, here I was, “the lucky nurse” assigned to Tina as her care giver that night. There is always a purpose for every situation you find yourself in so, always put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Empathy is a must have virtue if you believe in the Golden Rule. Back to our story:
I had been off from work for two days. By all medical accounts, Tina should have died before my return. Report from the off-going nurse stated that Tina would not make it through the night. Pain management was in progress just to “ease the end”. What presumptiveness! But no, though all systems were out, I needed to be reminded that God is the Author and Finisher. He decides when it is and when it is not. If only we can just remember that! How many times have we been tested to confirm that and we have simply chosen to rely on our limited knowledge?
At 7:05pm, I knocked on Tina’s door and walked in. Her lights were deemed. The only sound was the second hand on the wall clock hanging opposite Tina’s bed ticking “Tic! Tack!” reminding us of the pending darkness which was about to engulf Tina’s family. Sitting by her bed, rocking away in a chair was Bob, Tina’s good-for nothing husband, so I thought echoing the thoughts of a dozen nurses out in the hallway who had come to know him as the “uncaring husband”. Oh, how I still feel so guilty after all these years for judging, convicting and sentencing him without ever stopping for one moment to place myself in his shoes!
Tina’s room looked, smelled, and felt like death. (Not that I know what death looks, smells, or feels like); no other word could better synonymies this environment. To stop myself from getting sucked in to the drudgery, I gingerly approached Tina’s bedside. There she was eyes half closed, round eyeglasses in place, no color on her face. She was so pale; she almost took the color of her bed linen. The urine in the bag hanging from her bedside was bright red, more evidence that her kidneys had given out. Bob kept on a steady rhythm in the rocking chair. Neither the sound of slow rhythmic breathing coming from Tina nor the fact that Bob was fully conscious in the chair or even the sound of my approaching steps were enough evidence of life in the room. Ironically, there was no life! I had to shake myself back in to my professional realm.
From the foot of the bed I watched the IV bag as drips fell in to the chamber every ten seconds or so it seems. It reminded me of the reality of the here and now. Soon, pretty soon, all these would stop and the story of Tina and Bob would just be another story of an uncaring husband at the end of his wife’s life. How wrong I was. It was in the realization of this inevitable moment that made me turn to Bob and said, “Hi, Bob. I will be your wife’s nurse for this evening. Do you need anything? You can talk to her you know? She may not be able to talk to you but she can still hear you.”
And when he turned around to answer me, my heart almost ripped out of my chest.
Dear readers, I have to go. Let’s continue this next time.
Lady B
LADY BERNADETTE is a DUNIA Magazine Column by Lilian Nukuna-Fomunung. Topics will range from serious subject matters such as politics to women empowerment and much more. Some topics will be controversial; others will leave you with a feeling of “I am counting my blessings”. Lady Bernadette wishes to engage her audience and provide a relaxed atmosphere as well as teach a lesson or two and help make the world a better place for someone. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment or ask questions. Enjoy.
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