Nurse #65X89 jumps onto the fly-fast transporter so as not to
be late for her shift position at the Central-Technical Hospital, Western
Division (CTHWD). Catching a glimpse of herself in the window, she notes that
her dark-navy uniform is clean and crisply pressed as per regulation code for
technical nurses, section 46723 and her black shoes are clean and
pre-sanitized as per regulation code for technical nurses, section 62894.
During the quick transport to CTHWD the nurse has an opportunity to check her
instant regulation code update messages and check in on her offspring via tele-video
technology. She gives up her prime seat on the fly-fast as a doctor enters the
cabin, as per regulation code for technical nurses, section O784-089, which
details the hierarchical positions of doctors and nurses within the work
setting and in the public sector as well.
While checking in on her child via tele-video
technology, nurse #65X89 feels a strange twinge in her heart that she is not
quite able to place. It feels awkward and almost overwhelming, kind of painful
…and maybe even a little pleasant too…and she hopes she isn’t coming down with
something that might require a technical treatment such as a high dose
injection of super-immune booster. She’s heard it is painful and she has not
experienced much pain in her life.
Once at CTHWD, nurse #65X89 walks through the
instant sanitizer, holding her breath as a combination of modern methods are
used to sanitize herself and her clothing, even the meal replacement bottle
she brought with her for the requisite mid-day rapid nourishment. She then
enters her pod and notes that today she will only be in charge of 33 patients…
a light load. Perhaps she’ll have time to catch up on her technical skills
update today.
Through the plexi-glass she gets report from a
very old nurse, # 94Z82. #94Z82 has been around forever…she must be 45 or 50
years old by now… and she is always trying to talk about the old days, when
nurses attempted to work together as teams and they “enjoyed” some sort of
physical-mental-emotional-spiritual interaction with their patients. #65X89
can’t imagine how that would have been, actually having to interact
with the sickest of the sick, and maybe even their families too. #65X89 looks
at #94Z82 quizzically when she states how bad she feels for the man in bed c-3
who is actively dying. #65X89 thinks to herself that it must be time for
#94Z82 to retire...she must really be burning out if she is truly de-evolving
to caring about a dying patient. As per regulation code for technical nurses,
section DZX872, #65X89 writes up #94Z82 for possible signs of de-evolution and
obvious implications of caring behavior. The system just has no room for this
inappropriate behavior and it’s not what the patients expect or want anyway.
The public wants good, practical, expert, physical, technical medical care.
The days of holistic care were long ago abandoned, when nearly 15 years ago an
infamous group of doctors and insurance agents had managed to prove, with a
great deal of physical practice-based evidence, that all holistic techniques
are ineffective.
The patients are all lined up in her pod, lying on
computer-web based beds that report and record all of their vital signs and
bodily needs. The doctors can walk around above the pod on the glass ceilings
and observe the patients and technical nurses below, cuing in direct orders as
they make rounds every few hours. Most of the orders go directly to the
machines and the nurse monitors the machines functional ability. The beds are
equipped with the ability to administer medications, turn patients, provide
nutrition, clean waste away, perform wound treatments, measure blood values,
run various tests, and record all pertinent patient information. Occasionally
the nurse offers the patient a word of support as dictated in the regulation
code for technical nurses, sections A5cpt- A5dpt and she may assist them in
using the tele-video to contact their relatives. For instance if they are
crying or in pain, she is allowed to tell them, “everything will be fine, you
are receiving the best technical-medical care available”. If they are dying
she is allowed to say, “you are free to pass on” one time every five minutes.
Sometimes the technical nurse even has to enter
the pod to trouble shoot the equipment or remove a dead body if the web-based
bed misses the conveyor belt. If something seems to be wrong with the patient
that the machines can’t fix, or if one of the patients needs to be coded (what
an ancient word that is, but some folks have enough money to try and stay
alive. Why they would want to is another question…), the doctors can
immediately be summoned so that they may give the nurse direct orders from the
glass ceiling overhead. Nurse #65X89 is ever so grateful to know these demi-MDs
are available to her and the pod patients at any moment. How could she solve
or think through the physical needs of these patients on her own?
After all of the patients have had their adequate
nutritional supplementation, nurse #65X89 again checks in on her offspring via
the tele-video and that strange feeling returns to the area of her heart.
#65X89 feels a sense a warmth in her chest and her stomach and a sense of
…longing?… to hold her offspring’s hand. How strange. She’ll have to look
these symptoms up on the extranet. She even notices how her offspring’s hair
is sparkling in the sun as she runs in the play-yard, how her tiny hands dig
deep into the sand, how she turns and waves to her, the joy in her voice as
she states, “I am learning my new set of age 4 regulation codes today,
life-giver!”.
5 of the patients die quietly under the influence
of mega doses of morphine and ativan (the age-old standbys, for sure not as
expensive as the insta-death shot but they still get the job done) and
wouldn’t you know it that 3 of them fall off the conveyor belt. #65X89 enters
the pod to remove the debris before the next shift comes on and as she lifts
one of them a small voice barely cries out, ‘please, help me…I am not dead
yet’. Nurse #65X89 stops in her tracks as she realizes suddenly that he, the
patient, is still alive. She has never been this close to one of her live
patients, literally holding him in her arms. He gasps and whispers, “please
nurse, help me…I am not dead yet and I want to see my daughter just one more
time. I love her so much…please nurse, please…”
Jane wakes with a start, covered in a cool sweat
from the nightmare. Her heart is pounding and she can’t believe the
strangeness of her dream, the portrayal of life and nursing as so very
different from how she knows it in the year 2020. She centers herself, starts
some spiritual-clearing energy exercises even as she micro-brushes her teeth,
and then rushes to auto-record the nightmarish-tale of Nurse # 65X89 in her
self-care journal. That one must have come from the collective unconscious of
what could have been in the year 2020 if nurses hadn’t finally organized
themselves and their practice when the peak of the nursing shortage slammed
the healthcare world in the year 2010. She is sure that her holistic
nurse-support group will be interested in this one! Definitely an energy
treatment is in order to integrate this experience within her system.
After performing Chakra Connection, taking her
daily exercise, and aligning her energy fields one last time, Jane prepares
for work. She dresses in purple scrubs with red shoes, because she thinks the
interesting color scheme will give her patients and her colleagues at the
wellness center something else to smile about as they contemplate what the
color scheme says about her emotional outlook today. Jane consumes her energy
drink on the short walk to the wellness center and she is enveloped in the
warmth of the sun, the flowers in full-bloom, and the children playing freely
in the community-learning center next to the wellness center. She looks
forward to her healing work with patients and their families, as well as her
consultations with nurses and doctors who are still trying to adjust to the
inclusion of the new holistic-spiritual-energetic healing modalities that are
now used in conjunction with physical medicine. The new way of providing
healthcare encompasses the best of both of the world of holism and
reductionism. Jane recognizes that the mass exodus out of large hospitals and
back into the community, back to treating the patients and their families in
their own neighborhood setting, has been a challenge for many of the older,
traditionally trained doctors and even some nurses.
Jane also recognizes that the dream she had this
morning may have been a reality if it wasn’t for the 2010 nurses’ ability to
organize and take their professional practice back into their own hands and
out of the hospital-based hierarchical system. The old HMO- based system was
one where the health and healing of patients, families, and even nurses
themselves all too often came in last place as the nurses fulfilled their
duties in truly technical skills: passing medications, charting, and learning
each MD’s preferred style of technical-medical care. Why, some nurses even
took their stress and insecurities out one another as they clearly failed to
recognize their interconnection to one another and the cosmos at large. Many
nurses left the system or traveled from place to place in search of more
meaningful and less stressful team-based work. Who could blame them after the
demanding experiences of nursing school, where words like caring and holistic
were tossed around but never fully supported or facilitated by the educational
system?
Yet, during the years 2003-2010, many nurses still
learned to thrive off the one thank you a day from a patient, the rare hug
from a family member, and the occasional instance of teamwork between doctors
and nurses. These rare moments of joy still occurred even as the profession
crumbled under the increasing demands of medicine, administration, and
regulatory bodies. Finally the National Nurse Walk-Out Day occurred in 2010 on
May 12 in honor of Florence Nightingale’s birthday and nurses immediately
found themselves in the position of moving out of a place of subordination and
into a space of power over their own work and their own lives.
Those that loved highly technical care could still
return to the few hospitals that were left, but with increased wages, the
ability to include holistic practices within their technical duties, and with
greater partnership relationships with each other and the MD’s. The rest of
the nurses chose to re-invent their practice within their own communities:
some provided more traditional primary care and some specialized in anything
from energy work, to guided meditation to art therapy, or herb-ology. The main
difference was that now the nurses were practicing together, independent of
the patriarchal system that had kept them subordinate for so many years. This
new kind of practice and the fusion of healing, caring, and curing had been
dubbed “the middle way”.
Jane thinks through her day ahead as she
washes her hands at the entrance to the wellness center and the healing sounds
of string-based instruments envelop her. First, a guided meditation class to
teach, then a talk about nutrition at the learning community next door,
followed by a few energy appointments and spiritual counseling in the
afternoon. She has also scheduled herself plenty of breaks and time for
regeneration of her own system, as demonstration of self-care is now a
requisite if nurses desire to maintain their professional licenses. Most of
all, Jane starts her day with the knowledge of her interconnection with
others, knowing that she can make a difference in the life of Others around
her even as she experiences self
