AS OTHERS DO TO US.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 99, 24 April 1909, Page 2

AS OTHERS DO TO US.

THE EXPERIENCE OF A'NURSE

- An American nurse writes from Boston, U.S.A.:— . The surgeon had diagnosed my illness as appendicitis, and an operation wa&.advised, although my case was not considered just' then an emergency one. So I hoped to escape for a while, as it was most inconvenient for me to give the time necessary just then. _. However, two days later I was glad to consent to immediate operation. I had visited one of the private hospitals or nursing homes in the city, and admired the fine, up-to-date operating-room. It was to that particular one I asked to Be taken, feeling as keenly interested in the details of the case professionally as though I were not the subject under discussion. The preparation was practically the same as in English hospitals, with the exception that a sterile towel is used as a swathe instead of the perchloride compress. After a night of sleeplessness, due, in part, to the unaccustomed noises of hospital—and including a crying infant in the next room—l made my •way down to the' operating room at 8.45 a.m. , How many times I have escorted patients there myself, and how little I thought Or knew of their feelings under such circumstances, so much 'occupied/ were we always in having everything in surgically-perfect condition. .

A very few long breaths, and my troubles were temporarily over. After an interval I opened my eyes drowsily, and looked around. " A nurse sat by my side reading. She was a stranger to me, but, after making up my mind that I was really on earth, I asked the time. " Eleven thirty," was the reply. I next inquired if my friend was there.

"No one is here; is that someone you expected? 1' was the reply, in somewhat icy tones. I continued to try and collect my scattered senses; my nurse continued reading. The next 12 hours I do not want to remember long enough to write about. I had an unusually bad ether sickness and backache, during which time I; learnt much about the difference there is in being moved by a nurse who has been trained to lift properly and one who has not. I also learnt much1 about the Importance of details to a patient, For instance, I grasped the fact that a window-blind drawn up awry meant that my eyes always turned to that particular window; the inartistic arrangement of the flowers worried me; but, most of all, the knowledge that I was left for some time with my bell just out of reach, and something placed in front of the clock made me intensely nervous.

All these things seem 'trivial, perhaps, but, as a nurse of good training and years of experience, I want to say to fellow-nurses that the 12 days spent as a patient taught me more than any number of text-books on the subject of the care of a patient after an operation.