Chicken Soup For The Soul

© 2004 Jack Canfield & Mark Victor
Hansen/King Features Syndicate

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

Naomi Rhode©1998

(From "Chicken Soup for
the Nurse’s Soul")

Emergency-room personnel transported him to the cardiac floor. Long hair, unshaven, dirty, dangerously obese and a black motorcycle jacket tossed on the bottom shelf of the stretcher — an outsider to this sterile world of shining terrazzo floors, efficient uniformed professionals and strict infection-control procedures.

Definitely an untouchable!

The nurses at the station looked wide-eyed as each glancing nervously at my friend Bonnie, the head nurse, wheeled this mound of humanity. "Let this one not be mine to admit, bathe and tend to" was the pleading, unspoken message from their inner concern.

One of the true marks of a leader, a consummate professional, is to do the unthinkable. To touch the untouchable. To tackle the impossible. Yes, it was Bonnie who said, "I want this patient myself." Highly unusual for a head nurse — unconventional — but the stuff out of which human spirits thrive, heal and soar. As she donned her latex gloves and proceeded to bathe this huge, filthy man, her heart almost broke. Where was his family? Who was his mother? What was he like as a little boy?

She hummed quietly as she worked to ease the fear and embarrassment she knew he must have been feeling. And then on a whim she said: "We don’t have time for back rubs much in hospitals these days, but I bet one would really feel good. And it would help you relax your muscles and start to heal. That is what this place is all about — a place to heal."

All in a day’s work. Touching the untouchable.

His thick, scaly, ruddy skin told a story of an abusive lifestyle. Probably lots of addictive behavior, to food, alcohol and drugs. As Bonnie rubbed the taut muscles, she hummed and prayed. Prayed for the soul of a little boy grown up, rejected by life’s rudeness and striving for acceptance in a hard, hostile world.

The finale — warmed lotion and baby powder. Almost laughable — such a contrast on this huge, rugged surface. As he rolled over onto his back, tears rolled down his cheek. With amazingly beautiful brown eyes, he smiles and said in a quivering

voice, "No one has touched me for years." His chin trembled. "Thank you. I am healing."

In a day when we have increasing concern about the appropriateness of touch, Bonnie taught this hurting world to still dare to touch the untouchable through eye contact, a warm handshake, a concerned voice — or the physical reassurance of warmed lotion and baby powder.