the art of being human

I don't remember the year that I met her, I think 2002. It was over the summer, she was my professor for a phych course I needed for the nursing program. I was not looking forward to the class because next to ob/gyn and peds I hate psych the most. I knew that I would never choose to work with psychiatric patients voluntarily and so learning about them struck me as a waste of my valuable time. There was a delay in the start of the program because of some nebulous problem on her part. When she finally did show up she was all in a dither, a rolling suite case behind her.

She introduced herself and apologised stating that she had just arrived from an archaeological dig in Israel which had been cut short due to illness. She said that she had been through a whirlwind of tests in the past few days and I noticed an ugly bruise in the crook of her arm. I thought that if I had to endure a class I wasn't particularly interested in at least the professor was shaping up to be interesting.

The course required us to experience locked wards where we met some very sick patients. It was very frightening as some of them appeared as though they could be dangerous. She was always kind to the patients and to her students, she had a wide eyed gentile innocence as well as a keen understanding of both groups and was perfect in getting us to interact in a way that was beneficial to all.

At some point the tests that she had undergone at the beginning of the course revealed that she had cancer. I honestly can't remember if it was ovarian or uterine, but she told us that the tumor was inoperable and that she would try a round of chemo to see if that would reduce it's size. That's when the most amazing things started happening, because facing her mortality with her changed the entire focus of the class.

I remember sitting in a conference room on the locked ward at Brookhaven hospital as she was telling us about her tumor. A student asked her a question about it and she literally took the students hand and extended the girls fingers and helped her palpate the tumor. She told us that this was all happening very fast and that she was having a little difficulty assimilating it all, she then broke down sobbing and told us that we would be her last class, she told us that we would get through this together. Because of her extensive training in psychiatric nursing I had to trust that she would be able to Shepard us through the wild roller coaster ride of emotions.

She made a point to get to know each student, and especially sharing with each student the positive qualities she found in them. She also would pick a different student to help her wheel her suite case of books to her car each day. It gave us extra time with her and allowed us to feel as though we were helping a woman who we now viewed as our friend. When the conversation drifted from psychiatric nursing to her illness, always her primary focus was how the others around her were dealing with her illness particularly her children and husband, but us as well.

As the course progressed the tumor grew larger and we watched her girth expand, yet she was determined to complete this course with us. One day during a lecture in the classroom she became overwhelmed with pain, a lab assistant brought a geri chair and she sat down, they then put her head way down and her feet up in an effort to reduce the pressure the tumor was exerting on the pelvic floor and reduce the pain (this she shared with us as a nursing intervention). We all sat there in rapt attention as she continued to lecture us virtually upside down, her color pale almost green, the roots of her long hair which grazed the floor were damp with perspiration.

The class ended and she invited us to dinner at her house, it was a beautiful day as I recall, sunny and warm but not humid as it was toward the fall. Her home was lovely somewhere on the north shore overlooking water, high ceilings sunny and peaceful. We ate and then we walked a while on the beach, then the pain became overwhelming for her so we headed home where she lay in the bed waiting for the morphine to kick in. Instead of asking us to leave she invited us to sit on her bed with her until the waves of pain subsided and we knew she was better. Then we said our final goodbyes to someone we had honestly grown to love.

We got word of her passing later that fall, the funeral is a blur to me I know I was there because I have a prayer card I remember her husband asking all of the students who came if we'd like to join them for dinner afterward, but we declined feeling awkward and not looking to prolong our pain. At out pinning we honored her as best we could, there was a slide show and readings, her husband and daughter were there in her place to watch her last class graduate. needless to say there were plenty of tears.

In December 2003 I got a call from a former professor to verify my address. When they were going through my deceased professors papers they found notes to some of her students, and there was one for me. Just before Christmas I received a short hand written note. the letters are wispy as though she didn't have the strength to press the pen to the paper. there are extra letters inserted in the words as if the pen was writing faster then the morphine allowed her brain to think. The message was simple, she thanked me for my work and admonished me to study hard. The final line says I'll never forget that you are an angel, love you.

I only knew her for 6 weeks, I didn't see her every day, and the days I did see her were only for a couple hours. She passed 5 years ago and yet all I have to do is think of her and I cry. She taught us so much more then the art of nursing, she taught us the art of being human.