My recollections of the years I spent being a hospital nurse jumble together in a very mixed bag of memories, some wonderful and others hideous. Being a tenderhearted sort of person, I always found it difficult to divorce my emotions from my work. If my patient was suffering, then so was I, more often than not. I loved certain aspects of my job and hated others. The nurturing tasks, such as bringing crushed ice to parched lips, alleviating pain by the administration of analgesics, giving back rubs to sore, bed-ridden bodies and so forth, brought me much satisfaction. Those tasks that always caused pain to people no matter how gently they were performed - such as sticking needles in people, inserting catheters, cleaning out deep wounds, dressing burns - always made me cringe inside. The best I could do was aim to perform these things in such a way as to cause the least discomfort possible, and this I endeavored to do for all the patients under my care over the years.

I worked hard and was rewarded not only with the internal satisfaction arising from a job well done but also with the commendations of my superiors and (best of all) praise and thanks from my patients, many of whom took the trouble to send me thank-you notes after their discharge. It was grueling work, but I relished it.

I commenced my nursing career as an LPN, which stands for "licensened practical nurse," a position that did not receive the honor it should have, being often regarded by those with weightier credentials more like "Little Play Nurse." In reality, LPNs did most of the real nursing work, leaving the paperwork and interactions with doctors to the registered nurses (RNs). The LPN was what you might call the bedside nurse, and this position suited me perfectly. I loved taking care of my patients as much as I disliked dealing with doctors, many of whom I found to be quite egotistical and oftentimes arrogant in their dealings with patients and staff. I was more than happy to leave them to the RNs.

My supervisors, all of whom were RNs, began to pester me with complaints that in their view I was capable of handling more responsibility; that I was "wasted" in my position as an LPN and that I should pursue further education in order to become a registered nurse. They didn't seem to understand that in actuality I had more education under my belt than they did - I had already been to college and earned a four-year baccalaureate degree (in a completely different field) and had even attended graduate school. I had "been there and done that," so I had no interest whatsoever in pursuing more education in order to attain an RN so as to do things I didn't like doing anyway! I have my weaknesses, but hunger for titles and position isn't one of them. I repeatedly declined to heed their well-intentioned advice, but they kept it up anyway, year after year.

It would take another entire story to explain how I ended back in school to earn my RN, but the bottom line has to do with the fact my employer at the time finally handed me a full scholarship, provided I promised to keep working for the hospital for a minimum of 3 years following graduation. In the end, I capitulated, against my better judgment. It was right at this point the plot thickened. I began attending school full-time in the daytime while continuing to work full-time at the hospital on the evening shift (3pm - 11pm) - after all a scholarship had nothing to do with paying the rent! The fact I am naturally drawn more toward the arts than the sciences (we won't even mention math!) just added to the burden of trying to juggle work and school successfully. Up at 5am and to bed and midnight with no rest in-between is no fun. Being a perfectionist by nature (a true flaw), I wasn't satisfied with making anything other than top grades (a very stupid view to take), so my stress level was off the charts. As a result, my body began to rebel. I started having physical symptoms, all of which I ignored. Nurses are notorious for taking care of everybody but themselves.

Almost immediately after I went back to work with my new RN, having successfully completed my schooling and passed my licensure exam, I collapsed one afternoon while on duty on a surgical unit. The symptoms I had been ignoring and chalking up to "just stress" (guess what: stress will kill you!) were actually the lead-in to a critical medical situation, and before I knew what hit me I was hospitalized myself! (You can read my story "Friendship" if you want the gory details.) It took so long for me to recuperate, my job had to be filled by someone else. By the time I could finally go back to work the only nursing job open in the entire 800 bed hospital was for a nurse on the orthopedic unit, which meant heavy lifting...not too smart a choice for somebody with brand-new abdominal surgery. I hadn't been back to work more than a couple of weeks when the incision from my surgery split open while I was lifting an obese patient from a gurney onto his bed, and I had to go off and have another surgery to repair the damage. After returning to work yet again - unbelievably - the same thing happened, this time while I was moving some furniture around in my living room at home. I couldn't believe it.

Apparently the head of our Department of Nursing couldn't believe it either, and I will never forget the morning in May of 1983 when I was called in to her office and unceremoniously told, "Susan, I'm very sorry. You've always been a good employee, but if you can't lift, you can't nurse." End of speech. That was it. Finis. Goodbye. To add injury to insult, because I would now not be working my promised three years, I would have to pay the hospital back for all the tuition it had "given" me. I was dumbfounded. I must have looked like a lunatic as I stared blankly at her, not quite comprehending the enormity of her words. Fired??? Me??? I left her office in a state of complete shock.

It so happened I had only fairly recently become a Christian. As I drove home I sobbed, railing at God with all the strength I had left. How could You let this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? It's so unfair! You promised You'd take care of me - now what am I going to do? How in the world can I support myself? I felt as if the earth were shaken, as if it was the end of the world, because nursing was my world. I was scared to death to have lost my livelihood as well as grieving deeply for the loss of a precious thing, my role as healer. I could hardly breathe!

About an hour before lunchtime my phone rang. I'm ashamed to admit I was hoping it was Mrs. Brown on the line, calling to tell me there had been a mistake and I wasn't fired after all. To my complete surprise, it was the fellow I was dating - who had never, ever telephoned me in the middle of the day, being too busy running his own business to socialize during working hours. Even more strange, he asked if he could come over for lunch. I was astonished. Nothing like this had ever happened before. What I failed to grasp was the understanding that God is trustworthy: even as I was ranting and raving about how He had let me down, He was busy arranging for my sustenance and well-being. My gentleman friend, it turned out, had called and asked to come to lunch because he had decided the time had come to propose marriage to me! The timing was remarkable, to say the least. What started off as a day of infamy cloaked in the blackest of dark clouds ended victoriously in the silver lining of what were to be my new and improved occupations: Wife, and later, Mother. More on those subjects later.