Nurses are Your Ally

A friend’s mother has anal cancer. They begin the process. I give her the best of my experience: the notebook, the tips on chemo, the caregiver resources, the importance of nurses, how to ask a nurse a question so she can give you a straight answer. Another friend’s mother has just had her second surgery for throat cancer. She has had her larynx removed. Bad enough but then the complications begin: emergency surgery, hyperbaric chamber, feeding, bleeding. She is so ill. The siblings all live far away so the “When do I go?” begins. I share my strategies and perspective. Again, “talk to the nurses not the doctors.” Another friend talks to me about her sister-in-law’s ovarian cancer. It’s a year after surgery, chemo, chemo again, radiation and now more chemo. She talks about the nurses.

I remember the many nurses who helped me through my brothers’ illnesses and deaths. I remember the day that a nurse waited until the doctor had left the room—he had just given me a lengthy explanation of my brother Larry’s diagnosis—Anti-Trypsin Disorder—and the nurse must have seen me trying to make sense of the info and reaching for solutions. She took me by the shoulders and held me very still and said, “Your brother is very ill.” I’m sure I said “uh-huh, the doctor was just explaining that…” and she looked at me again and said, still holding my shoulders, “Your brother is very ill.” She may have said it three times before I realized that she was saying—in the only language she was legally able to use, “Your brother is dying” . It was so helpful and gave me such clarity about what I needed to do and not do going forward. He was dead in four months but the doctor had never communicated the seriousness of his condition. The nurse did and told me what I needed to make decisions and plans.

In all of the conversations about healthcare and end of life care and long-term care I think about the nurses who see up close what families struggle with and I remember how they helped me to take better care of my brothers at the end of their lives.