Dear Maureen Walsh,
I just wanted to let you know that I completely agree with you and your statements about nurses. When you suggested to the public that nurses probably spend the majority of their work shifts sitting around and playing cards with one another, I was beside myself.
As someone who was raised by a single nurse mother growing up, I will be the first person to tell you what you say is actually one hundred percent true. All the nurses that I know really do spend a lot of their time playing cards, especially when they could be doing a thousand other things that are considered to be more important.
My mother works as a nurse. She made a point to play cards with me at the end of her sixteen plus hour shift — even when she was still in her work scrubs, before she got to eat dinner that day, and before she was able to use the restroom for the first time in 12 hours. She played cards with me whenever I asked during my time in grade school when I was too shy to make friends and she was supposed to be studying for her final exams that were coming up. She played cards with me and took the time to ask me how my day was, even after trying to save the life of a kid my age, who unfortunately passed away on the table. She made sure to play cards with me when I was too sick to go to school before she left to start her almost 24-hour workday because she knew she probably wouldn't be home again until I was already in bed for the night.
She even played other games with me because, no matter how tired and busy she was after a long day of saving lives and helping others improve not only their physical but emotional health as well, she put my needs above her own.
Even when those needs couldn't be met by her specifically, I spent my time playing card games with her nurse friends who would babysit me throughout the years. They played cards with me on their days off that were only given to them maybe a couple of times a month if they were lucky.
So, I guess it really doesn't matter what kind of nurses we are dealing with — state nurses, hospital nurses, registered nurses, maybe the nurses at your local doctor's office, or maybe even just the average high school nurse. I think I have made it pretty clear that all the nurses I have come into contact with throughout my life have all made it a point in their day to play cards with me. Because, after all, what could they possibly have better to do than make sure someone in their lives is okay and healthy?
