It’s been a little over a week since Levi had the screw removed from his arm. I keep thinking about a moment I witnessed in the recovery room. It was a simple thing, really, but it has stayed with me.
We were in the first stage of recovery, and Levi was in that odd in-between place where he’s superficially awake but only blinks owlishly in response to questions. So he was unusually quiet for bit. Right then, our nurse had another patient come in from surgery – a little boy, about 18 months old. He was sitting bolt upright in the crib, crying quietly. He didn’t seem to be in pain. He was just sad and confused. (I can sympathize. I usually wake up from anesthesia in a flat-out panic. And I’m a lot louder than he was.)
The nurse checked about six things really fast, and then she looked at him, said, “Oh, honey,” picked him up, and rocked him so sweetly that he settled immediately. And she kept holding him and rubbing his back until his mom came in from the waiting room to take over.
We send our kids off into the arms of other people, some of us, a lot more than we’d like to. Even those of us with flexible schedules and understanding employers can’t be with our kids every second when they’re getting medical care. The nurse that day made her assessment and decided that what baby boy needed most was love, so that’s what she gave him.
It warmed this mama’s heart. Knowing there are people there dispensing love and humanity along with anesthesia makes it a little easier to send off my babies when I have to. And I wish I had written down her name so I could write a letter to the hospital and tell them to give her a raise.