Marigolds

I was jolted awake by the deafening hoonnnkkkkk of my car horn as my forehead bounced off the steering wheel. I sat in my beat up 1999 Ford truck in the parking garage of the hospital, trying to gather enough motivation to force myself out of the car for my third 12-hour overnight shift in a row this week; clearly having to pay rent was not cutting it in the motivation department anymore. Fighting the exhaustion, I rubbed my eyes one more time and started making my way towards the elevator. The security guard near the door tipped his hat, and I returned the greeting with an exhausted half-wave and “silent what up” nod; our typical 8 PM exchange. It’s one of those mundane sort of things where you take the same route to work, park in the same spot, and say hello to the same person every day...but you can’t for the life of you come up with the name of the person you’re exchanging pleasantries with.

I continued my routine, making my way up to the third floor cafeteria for a cup of coffee -- half coffee, half French vanilla creamer -- then back down to the concourse level to the intensive care unit for my shift. I remember being so excited for my first day as an ICU nurse three years ago. Now, I can’t even figure out what made me want to be a nurse in the first place. Most of my time these days is spent updating charts, refilling IV bags, giving sponge baths, and explaining to cranky families and depressed patients that they have to wait for a doctor if they want new information, discharge papers, or anything of the like. Today was just more of the same.

Six hours and two more cups of half coffee-half creamer later I was making my rounds again, checking in on patients to see if they needed anything. I peeked into Room 2225 again and rolled my eyes as I walked in. On the bedside table was a vase full of dead flowers -- again. I noticed them every night at the same time but could not for the life of me understand why someone would keep bringing flowers to this room. Jeanie Burke, the 90-year-old patient, had been in a coma for two months and the family insisted on keeping her plugged in. There was no chance of her seeing the flowers in her room, whether they were alive or dead when they were delivered. Seemed like a waste of money to me, and definitely a waste of my time to keep having to throw them away at 2 AM every day. But such was the routine, so into the trash they went yet again. Thankfully, disposing of the flowers also meant that I was far enough into my shift for a break.

I made my way back up to the third floor for a third cup of coffee. It’s a wonder the cafeteria staff didn’t know my order by now. As I trudged back into the elevator, inhaling the sweet aroma of caffeine and sugar and hoping it would reignite my sanity, my head smacked something very firm and my coffee sloshed everywhere, drenching my scrub top and what turned out to be a very nicely pressed white dress shirt and emerald green satin tie in front of me. My exasperated “WHAT IN THE NAME OF…” was cut short by a deep, velvety smooth -

“Oh my, I’m so sorry ma’am!”

I shook the coffee off of my arm and looked up to see the face of whom I swore was the guy voted “Sexiest Man Alive”. His kind, hazel brown eyes were framed by the cleanest trimmed yet still masculine looking thick, dark eyebrows I have ever seen. I watched his soft lips move as he spoke, but had no concept of what words came out.

“Huh?” I replied, still shaking off the stupor.

“I said, can I replace your coffee?”

“Oh. Uh, it’s fine. I don’t want to bother you” I said curtly.

“Really, it’s no big deal,” he insisted, “I have plenty of time before my next meeting. Unless I’m interrupting you in the middle of something?”

“No,” I said, “I’m on break for another 20 minutes.”

“Perfect!” he replied enthusiastically. “What can I get you?”

“Half coffee, half French vanilla creamer,” I said for the fourth time tonight.

“Ah, the perfect combination of caffeine and sweet. Just like my grandmother takes hers,” he said with a smile.

I knew that smile. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out, but I definitely knew that smile. It’s the same one that was plastered on every third billboard the entire length of the interstate: Bradley McCarthy, CEO of Schuylkill-Grays Ferry Memorial Hospital. I internally face palmed, realizing I was smack dab in the middle of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy; exactly where I never wanted to be as an ICU nurse. I’m here to do my job, I thought to myself, not to be gifted a cup of coffee by my boss’s boss’s boss with the flirty eyes just to be tossed aside later like last night’s stale Chinese food.

“Your grandmother has good taste in coffee,” I replied, taking the cup he offered me.

“It must be a nurses’ thing,” he countered. “She enlisted as an army nurse in World War II, then again with the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Throughout my entire childhood she would tell stories about stitching up soldiers as bombs exploded outside the medical tent, and staying up for two days at a time with coffee because of the shortage of nurses on the battlefield. The way she tells it, she was one of the few nurses who kept a pleasant bedside manner with her patients. Some of the women became so bitter and downtrodden after a while that they were just so caustic to the men they were caring for. She couldn’t stand that part, and always tried to treat people a little better. ‘Attitude is part of the recovery process too’, she always said.”

He chuckled a bit to himself, adding, “Sometimes she couldn’t get the ‘half creamer’ part of her standard coffee order because of the rationing, but that’s how she preferred it.”

“You really don’t have to fuel my caffeine addiction you know, I can make it another couple hours until my next break” I said, trying to weasel my way out of the interaction.

“Nonsense, it’s my pleasure!” Bradley insisted. Drat, I thought. There was no way out of this one. Bradley handed me an extra large cup of coffee, which was nearly triple the price of what I could typically afford to have six of in one shift.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to hide my immense pleasure at the volume of caffeine he was handing me.

“No problem at all,” he grinned. “Although, if you need this much coffee this late at night, clearly I’m not doing a good enough job supporting your department. ICU, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been down there for three years,” I replied, this time trying to hide my severe exhaustion from just thinking about going back to my post.

“I’ve noticed a shortage of nurses there,” Bradley said. I couldn’t tell if his concern was genuine or the kind of concern that executives pull out to make it sound like they care about the little people even though they only care about the budget reports at the end of the quarter.

“Yeah...seems to be a pretty consistent turnover rate. I couldn’t tell you the names of half the nurses on my shift and only three or four of them have been here since I got hired.”

Bradley’s face contorted as if he was thinking very hard about what I had just said. “Give me some feedback,” he said, “What sorts of things do you think would make people more likely to stay, or even to apply in the first place? What sorts of people are you looking to have on staff with you?”

“Well for starters, you could find competent nurses to hire and get rid of these God awful 12 hour shifts,” I replied bluntly.

Bradley took out a pen and pocket-sized notebook. “Nix the 12 hour shifts…” he repeated while writing.

I was shocked; was he actually considering what I had said?

“That will be the first topic at our next board meeting,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s important to me to make sure our nurses are taken care of. You are all so valuable to us in making sure we provide an excellent standard of care for our patients.”

Still dumbfounded, I mumbled some unintelligible sounds of gratitude before checking my watch. Five minutes to finish my coffee and make it back down to the nurses station.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Bradley said. He extended his hand in a formal yet warm offer for a handshake. “It was a pleasure chatting with you.”

I shook his hand with as friendly of a smile as I could muster. “You too,” I said, turning back towards the elevator.

The extra large coffee from Bradley plus the five others I bought myself was just enough to keep me awake for the 12 hours of work, but I was more than ready for bed when 8 AM rolled around. I trudged my way back to the elevator again, starting my trek down to the parking garage. With my head down looking at my phone as I set my six alarms to get me up again for my next shift, I walked through the open doors and head-first into a very familiar pressed, white, slightly coffee stained dress shirt and emerald green silk tie. Crap, I thought, I do NOT have the energy for another interview about working conditions as a nurse at Schuylkill-Grays Ferry.

“We should stop meeting like this,” Bradley said with a chuckle.

I grinned, my heavy exhaustion showing.

“I know you’re on your way home,” he said, “but could you direct me to Room 2225?”

2225? What is he doing going to 2225? “Uh, straight ahead, third door on the left,” I replied, confused. “Thank you so much,” Bradley replied. “I’m visiting my grandmother, she’s been a patient here for several months.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Yes, she’s been in a coma for a while, but marigolds were her favorite flower so I’ve been putting a bouquet of them next to her bed every day. I know it’s silly, but I just hope she somehow knows I’m thinking of her.”

Marigolds. The dead flowers I threw out every night for the past two months were marigolds. From Jeanie Burke’s grandson. Not from Bradley McCarthy, CEO of Schuylkill-Grays Ferry Memorial Hospital, from Bradley McCarthy the scared little boy who hoped and prayed every day that his grandmother would recover and come back to him. Bradley smiled one last thank-you as he started off down the hall, carrying a beautifully simple bouquet of red, orange, and gold flowers down to Room 2225. As the elevator doors closed with a ding, it all came back to me.

This is why I became a nurse; so husbands and daughters and grandsons have someone to give them hope that their loved ones will be healthy and whole again.