Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

English translation of his tutorial. As I repeated it in my head, I was comforted by the cohesive support I felt from the other patients and staff looking on with eager anticipation. I assumed they sensed the emergent need for Mr. Mendoza to respond, lest he fail his neurological assessment.
    With my hands on his shoulders, I leaned over the side rail, twelve inches from his face. In my Midwestern dialect, I articulated the Spanish words in a desperate cry, “Beso mi, Senor Mendoza, beso mi!”
    To this day, I am not sure what startled me more: the chorus of laughter of my colleagues or Mr. Mendoza, eyes wide open, shooting up in bed! Dazed, I turned to question my instructor, Art, who was buckled over in laughter. In between breaths, he provided me the English translation: “Kiss me, Mr. Mendoza, kiss me!”
    Kathleen Dahle
     

The Night Al Heel Broke Loose
     
T he ability to laugh at life is right at the top with love and communication, in the hierarchy of our needs. Humor has much to do with pain; it exaggerates the anxieties and absurdities we feel, so that we gain distance and through laughter, relief.
Sara Davidson
     
    In a certain northern city, in a certain regional hospital, a story is still whispered about the “Legend of Wanda May.” It has grown some over the years, but as one of the few witnesses to the entire chain of events, I will try to stick to the facts.
    Wanda, a rookie nurse, was a mighty mite of sorts. Standing four feet, eleven inches, she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, yet every inch of her screamed spitfire! With her green eyes and shiny black hair, Wanda was a looker. Even her cap, which conjured visions of the flying nun, and her oversized scrub suit added to her allure.
    Our fifteen-bed ICU ran like organized chaos. With whirring ventilators, beeping monitors, blaring code sirens, ringing phones, glaring lights and chatting nurses, sensory overload was a common problem for our patients. A unique phenomenon known as ICU psychosis afflicts about 10 percent of those treated in this environment. Without warning, a sweet and kindly grandmother could morph into a Linda Blair clone right before your eyes. With proper medication, the condition usually lasts only twenty-four hours. Still, the poor patients are often mortified by their reported behaviors.
    On the night in question, the unit was unusually quiet. With only three patients, I stayed at the desk to read the cardiac monitors while Phyllis, a jolly seasoned nurse, looked after two patients. This left Wanda to care for Alan Heel. Al looked much older than his twenty-seven years; he’d lived a hard life. Kidney disease and his penchant for alcohol proved a difficult combination. His heart strained to pump the extra fluids his body couldn’t eliminate. Weekly dialysis is a hard lot in life. Long deserted by family, you could almost understand the root of Al’s addiction. He was a frequent patient in our unit, and we all knew it would be a miracle if Al saw thirty. This huge grinning fellow with an unruly shock of black hair loved the attention he received in the unit. And he was never happier than when Wanda was his nurse. He swore she looked exactly like his favorite stripper, and we teased and regaled him with “Hey Big Spender” whenever Wanda was at his bedside. In spite of all of his shortcomings, Al was easy to like.
    By midnight on this particular night, the patients were settled and the checks were done. Sitting at the desk, Wanda entertained us with the latest chapter of her ill-fated romantic life. Suddenly, multiple monitor alarms screamed. In the time it took to look up, there was Al, looming over us, huge and naked—except for the monitor leads flapping from his chest. We could have taken his pulse by watching the blood spurting from his thigh where he’d yanked the arterial line. If not for the blood, the absurdity of Al dragging his urine bag might have been comical—but there was nothing funny in his