Saturday, October 22^nd, 2022, 2 pm

 

I met with my new patient and family today. The family speaks four languages in their home. My new patient’s family have gone out of their way to make the bedroom as homelike and inviting as possible with nature scenes painted on the walls and paintings from local and international artists offering well wishes for my patient’s continued good health and recovery.

 

“We try to keep things as normal as possible,” his parents said.

 

My new patient’s parents have heard since he was born that he was supposed to die by the age of 5. Their son has turned 13 and they are super grateful. I’ve seen and heard these types of stories having worked in nursing at that time for 21 years. The truth of the matter is that the only one who knows your beginning and end is God. Patients and cases like this are fun for nurses like me because we get to prove the doctors wrong.

 

 “What school will he attend?” I asked.

 

“Whitney Young High School,” his mother replied.

 

With all due respect to the famous alumni, but everyone in Chicago always knew that Whitney Young High School is da bomb diggity!  Whitney Young High School was great before these individuals became students there. It just got better when the alumni arrived and even better after they left to do great things.

The plan for me before I went to high school was for me to attend Whitney Young High School, but my family moved and I attended high school elsewhere. All my life, it was in the back of my mind, “How might my life have been different had I attended Whitney Young High School?”

 

Sniffle. . .  Pass the tissue. . .

 

It was one of those things that I would rehash in the middle of the night or when I awakened to face the day. And exactly how many people get a chance to do high school all over again without having your parents to yell at you about having to do your homework?

 

Taking this job meant listening to the urging of my heart and my spirit.

 

“I will be your child’s nurse,” I told them.