Cancer’s Unsung Heroes: Nurses

Nurses are on the front lines of delivering care to patients.

They don’t get the glory they deserve.

In my weekly visits to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, for the first year of my treatments, I chatted with many nurses as they poked me with needles and slowly injected life-saving solutions into my body.

“Why did you want to be a nurse in the cancer ward?” I asked. “Why would you want to be with people who are going to die?”

I asked this before I realized that cancer is NOT a death sentence.

Thanks to advances in science, research, medications, and treatment, many cancers are chronic diseases.

There is no cure, but the medical team can manage the conditions so people can live everyday lives.

One nurse corrected me: People who have cancer want to live.

Another nurse said: I was a nurse in the emergency room. We’d get people who tried to commit suicide. They’d yell at us when they woke up. They were upset that we saved their lives.

Another nurse worked in pediatrics: The kids hated nurses. We were the ones who woke them up and stuck them with needles.

Even though nurses manage dozens of patients daily, they are always meticulous in double-checking patient IDs and medicines.

If there’s the slightest discrepancy, they call for a supervisor to make sure the proper procedure is followed.

When a nurse took my blood pressure, which was quite low, she called her supervisor.

She wouldn’t let me leave until she was sure I was all right. Turns out I was dehydrated, so they gave me fluids, which corrected the blood pressure.

I was good to go.

Recently, another nurse asked me if this was my last appointment for the day.

I thought she was engaging in idle chit chat. I told her I was going for an infusion later.

She said she would keep the IV in.

That action saved me the misery of getting another stabbing from my next appointment.

One nurse told me: We’re like firefighters. We stay the course for the most part. But when there’s a fire, we know what to do. We spring into action.

Nurses care.

They are smart.

They know what to do.