I know I’m a hunchback with an opinion, or two, but I do have a tender side. All of my life, I’ve wanted to do something that’s meaningful and helps people. That’s why I’ve worked in so many areas that relate to taking care of people in various capacities. Thus, a precious moment brought to us by CNA days. I’ve always been a night owl and with that comes lack of meaningful connections to patients in most circumstances.

We’re usually yelled at for waking people up to change them, reposition them, taking vitals, or getting them up to go to the bathroom. Oh, and we’re the server who takes the order for opioids. It’s not the most glamorous of jobs or skills to have, but someone has to do the shit work.

Anyway, I took care of two older ladies who I will never forget. I changed their names cause, HIPPA, but Lady and Beth were two of my favorite patients to care for. Lady lived in the town I grew up in, and I didn’t meet her until I started working at a nursing home, and she was mostly gone to dementia at that point. Beth wasn’t as old but had rheumatoid arthritis that had progressed to the point that she couldn’t be cared for at home anymore. She also hadn’t seen her son in many years and would always, hesitantly, use the call light for anything.

What made lady special is her humor and her glimmers of personality that shown through in her lucid moments, and even the way that she acted when she wasn’t. She wasn’t the typical lump in a bed that would hit, bite, and spit when trying to care for them. She was still kind, fairly active, and just fun to be around. She loved tapioca pudding. Like to the point that we would make sure she had a cup of it every shift because it was something nice we could do to bond with her and help keep her weight up. She savored those nights and the taste as we fed it to her and she smacked her lips when we gave her the last spoonful. It’s those simple things that made the long nights, the wandering hands, and the poop finger painting worthwhile.

She also sang us Frank Sinatra song while we changed her and told us how special we were and how she appreciated what we did for her when she came around, in those fleeting glimmers of her old self. Then, just as quickly as they came, they went, and she was back to a little girl in a weary body of an aging woman who had a baby doll to take care of. I’m grateful that she was one of my first patients to care for because she embodied what I wanted to do with my life. She was an outlet for my desire to impart simple acts of kindness and to hone my skills.

And Beth. She will always hold a spot in my heart that won’t go to anyone else. Her son had moved to another state or might have pushed her out of his mind. I never gathered the full story other than she had a strained relationship with him, which happens when there’s a debilitating illness. Her mind was still sharp, even if her body wasn’t. She never wanted to bother us, even if she and her bed were soaked, and all of us knew she was embarrassed that she waited so long before calling us to help her. I slowly eroded those walls, and we started a patient and caregiver relationship. I listened to her stories as I checked her vitals, cleaned her up, took her to the bathroom, and sometimes helped her get ready in the morning. When I moved on, I got permission to give her my picture because I wanted her to remember me just as much as I will always remember her. I wanted her to know that we cared about her and saw her as a person and not as a burden. That last time with her had both of us crying, but it wasn’t at loosing each other, but that we saw each other as equals and that both of us knew that we cared about each other.

Those relationships are what medicine should be about. It’s that selfless act of doing whatever we can to relieve suffering, about listening to someone who’s in pain or afraid of what’s happening to their body and doing whatever we can to help. Sometimes all that is needed is to allow them to speak and be heard. But the most important part is to show all patients kindness. We’re all busy in the medical field, and life in general, but kindness doesn’t take extra time and builds rapport and relationships faster than indifference or being mean. Even in my interactions now I have a hard time not taking what people say personally, but I do my best to remember that I should always try kindness first and foremost.