Nursing the hurt

BY JASPER L. TOLARBA

The moment I had been dreading happened today.

As soon as I entered my patient's room, she stared at me and asked, "Who are you?"

I answered, "My name is Jasper and I will be your nurse for tonight."

Before I could even finish, she asked, "Where are you from?"

I told her that I came from the Philippines. Her look suddenly turned to disgust. "Oh, Jesus! I've heard a lot about you people. You come here in the country in troops, and you work for almost nothing!"

Right there and then, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. I felt the blood rushing to my face with intense humiliation. In four months of doing bedside nursing outside my own country, I had not been put into such a difficult situation. My patients, black or white, were mostly, if not all, very friendly and pleasant. But there I was, face-to-face with an 80-year-old lady catching me unprepared on how to handle the situation.

I gathered my wits and replied, "You must be upset. You know, I'm just here to take care of you."

I knew this would not placate her.

"We have a lot of you here already," she said. "Why do you come here? Because you cannot work in your country?"

It was too much of an insult for me to take. At first, I thought of walking out of the room to save myself from more humiliation. But what would that make me? Instead, I found myself approaching my patient. Touching her on the shoulder, I said, "With all due respect, ma'am, what you just said is rather degrading. Do you really want to know why we are here? It's because you don't have enough nurses to take care of the ailing population in this country. That is why they entice us to work as nurses here, to fill your great shortage. Otherwise, there might be nobody to take care of you right now."

She was speechless. I straightened myself and helped her to turn over. I checked her pulses, listened to her lungs and abdomen. I took some washcloths and did a peri-care. I put new Depends on her and changed her soiled pad.

I then started giving her some back massages and applying some lotion, explaining to her that it would help improve the skin circulation. She finally spoke.

"That feels good, she said. "I wish the other nurse did the same thing to me."

I began to wonder if this was the same patient who belittled me just minutes ago.

When I walked out of her room, my heart was light. The magic of tenderness, love and care had transcended hatred and prejudice. This is what I like about nursing. It knows no color, sex, age, social status, nor race.

My philosophy in life is that any human being, however unpleasant, yields to the honest, caring hands of another. I believe this is the essence of nursing - to heal not only the ailing physical body, but also to mend bruised feelings and self-esteem.

And on that particular night, my self-esteem was healed, too.

Jasper L. Tolarba, 30, moved here from the Philippines five months ago and works as a registered nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital. He is pursuing a master's degree at Xavier University.