Kindness and Cruelty

Even in my banged upstate, even through the fog of trauma, while firmly planted in mid-air between sheer terror and desperate search for a glimmer of hope, one thing stands out.

There are nurses, and, then there are nurses.

Nurses come in all shapes and sizes. 

There are melted marshmallow nurses.  There are drill sergeant nurses. Crossing-the-t-s-and-dotting-the-i-s nurses. Even the Nazi nurses, one of which I met in the maternity ward after I gave birth to our first child. I could tell she didn't trust me to keep our fresh-out-of-the-oven son alive which was probably very smart. I wouldn't trust myself either.

In many hospitals, it is the nurses, not the doctors wearing the hospital pants, if you know what I mean.  They know so much and they do so much -  the power over life and death, lunch and dinner, surgical supplies and clean sheets resides with them – that they render the doctors practically useless.

The nurses are demi-gods of sort.

The doctors… well, they are more like presidents. Enough said.

Then, this happened. 

I was sitting in an exam room, drilling the nurse who was checking my vitals with the torrent of questions.

The woman was tight-lipped and deferred all my questions to the doctor.

I thought she didn’t understand, so I rephrased my spiel which was met with another,

You can discuss that with your physician.

I was annoyed to no end.

I knew and she knew that she knew the answers to my questions. 

Her silence was embodiment of pure evil meant to torment me in my vulnerable state. 

I could feel my temperature rising even as she was taking it. I would have stuck my tongue out at her if it hadn't already been stuck out.  

But she remained calm, kind and unintimidated by my temper-tantrum, stone-faced and immovable like Mt Rushmore. 

The Doctor will be here shortly. He will answer all your questions. 

And with those words, she smiled, walked out and closed the door behind her.