Let’s talk nurses.

I have been in the position to deal with MANY nurses in the last two weeks. Between my husband’s surgery, my visit to the ER, and today’s ER visit with my dad I have interacted with no less than 10 nurses.

The nurse who helped us check in for my husband’s surgery wasn’t even his nurse. She was helping out because his nurse was handling something that went over. So this nice lady stepped in and did as much of the paperwork as she could so that everyone could be kept as close to on schedule as possible. She gave up her break to do that. At no point was she rude, or grumpy. She just did a job that wasn’t hers to help out.

The nurse I had in the ER on Christmas Eve was super awesome. She was great about making sure that I was being taken care of. She checked on me repeatedly instead of just leaving me to wait. She made sure I had some snacks to go with the mass amount of meds they were giving me. And she was doing this for all of her patients. She used kindness and humor to make my visit seem like no big deal.

The nurses my dad had today put up with his inability to hear him. His need to tell them all sorts of random things that had nothing to do with why he was there, or why they were in his room. They were kind enough to ignore his rudeness.

My dad commented to me today after I thanked one of the nurses – “You have too many manners”. I responded that they were working their asses off and deserved thanks for that. It took four repeats and different wording for him to understand what I was saying. He then told me I say thank you way more than he does. All I could think was, yeah, I do. My dad taught me manners, but never really used them himself. He showed, with his actions, what not to do.

That made me wonder. Am I among a few who believe nurses deserve to be thanked for what they do? Am I the odd man out? Just because it is a job, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve appreciation. I sure couldn’t do what they do. Even if I thought I could before today, I know for a fact that I couldn’t put up with people like my dad all day every day. I would go crazy. I almost went crazy today, and I only had to deal with my dad, and only for a few hours.

So. What do you think? Do nurses get the appreciation and respect they deserve? Or should they get more? Have you had an experience that made you feel like nurses deserved more, or maybe less?