One small step ...

Donna with Martia-Bed
Originally uploaded by Donna RN.

3/12/05: Twelve straight days of work started to take their toll on me - I slept through breakfast, didn't get up until 7 a.m. more tired than I thought I was. But maybe there was another reason I slept in.

Martia left this morning. I don't know what time.

It's hard working PM's as we miss patient's departures. After the exhausting work last night, through our amazing interpreter, we did marathon teaching highlighting and reinforcing the information we have been sharing for two weeks: explaining drugs, doses, uses, and reactions; dressing changes; nutrition and diabetes education, I just couldn't make it to the flight deck at 6:30 a.m. to see what time Martia's “stick” was scheduled (Navy term for “group for flight”).

Martia's first efforts on crutches yesterday morning were unsuccessful, so I scheduled 3 different times last night with Physical Therapy to get her rhythm right with the crutches … a remarkable feat (pun intended!) to keep your balance with a rolling, lolling ship. (Photos show our ultimate triumph! Better than the Olympics!)

After all that, we set up an extensive calendar for the myriad doctor's appointments needed for post surgery treatments, diabetes management, medication dosage reviews, and physical therapy covering the next two months. I packed up dressing materials, labeled with detailed descriptions, color coded for wet and dry dressings, and instructions for use; I filled 1 months worth of all her prescription meds, labeled them individually with proper dose, and potential reactions; and packed a sterile suture removal kit (just in case her doctor did not have one).

With each step I kept praying to myself that they will indeed find a way to attend to these follow-up appointments…a shadow of fear dimmed my happiness at her discharge. She had come so far, what if her treatments end when her month of supplies and medications run out?

Perhaps that fear was what kept me from getting up early to see her again. We said our goodbyes last night. She and her son, Zahir, expressed such warmth and gratitude I didn't think I could handle hearing it again, it was hard to breathe when crying through my TB mask.

We had been together since I came on board this ship. Some of my identity and reason for being here is wrapped up in Martia's bandages, worn in her smile, clutched in her prayer beads.

Her laughter at my elaborate dances through isolation sustains me even now. As I dodged hanging cables, deftly avoided precariously taped needles in IV ports, balanced over anchor hooks in the floor all the while steaming my glasses, and stinging my eyes with sweat, I would hear her laughing as she reached out a hand to me.

They were excited to be leaving, and this time her laughter was of her own creation. And yet, there was something behind that twinkle in her eyes. The same thing I saw in Sara's eyes when she and her husband left. Fear, sadness and the return to the depth of loss they came from.

But we gave them hope … a chance … moments of laughter AND toys for Martia's remaining grandchildren, and a BIG bag of “equal” for her.

… I'm running now, to see if they're still here, waiting on the flight deck … I have a Mercy baseball cap for him.