Making Good on Private Duty | Page 7

aromatic ammonia, etc., take it to be repaired, and see that the needles are sharp, they become dulled very quickly; keep also the tiny wires pushed through them. It is just as well to keep this syringe in the room, its little case is very small and unobtrusive, and if you keep it near your thermometer in some safe, handy place, you will have it when some unforeseen emergency arises, and you do not want to lose time going to your room for it.

III
THE NURSE HERSELF
It is just as necessary for the nurse to be careful of herself as of the patient, though her care must be manifested in a far different way. Always remember that to do really good work you must have really good tools. No man owning, and intelligently working a valuable machine, would keep it going at its highest speed all the time. He takes care of it, keeps it clean, renews defective parts, oils it; and then he expects it to run for so many hours, and to run well,--to do its work thoroughly. But with all his keeping it in order he does not make it work night and day for weeks or months. Such folly is never heard of in an engineer; but with us human beings, who own and manage a far more wonderful machine than any steam engine, we hear of it often, and always, always the tale winds up with the inevitable catastrophe. The business man develops paresis, the clergyman loses his voice or his eyes, the nurse contracts some disease that incapacitates her for work, in every case mother Nature makes the careless or ignorant owner of the wonderful machine pay the penalty of the misuse. It does not matter to Nature what the reason is for our breaking the great laws; we can kill ourselves with philanthropic work just as surely as with over indulgence. One trouble is, that it does not always kill. A paralytic may live for years, so does a man with paresis. When the wonderful God-given machine works badly, or stops entirely, we look on, and sometimes wonder why it is that those who are so helpful, such fine examples of courage, of skill, of virtue, so hardly to be spared, are the ones to be taken away. Do we wonder, we who are nurses? Do we not know what did it? Ah! yes--we know, we know, that such and such a nurse was tired out when she went to still another case-- and when we heard she herself was ill we were not slow to say, "Foolish girl! Did she suppose she was made of wrought iron and sole leather?" But will we take heed, and not do likewise, or will we wonder, with the unthinking ones, why it is that the good, useful people are always taken away? Do not deceive yourselves; they are not "taken away," they take themselves away, for God will not reverse His wise laws because we (no matter how good we are) act in defiance of them.
Please remember I am only speaking now to the good nurses--the enthusiastic ones,--poor nurses, lazy nurses have no temptation to overwork themselves. They may die of indigestion, but they will not die of exhaustion.
It seems to you so natural for others to be sick. You have seen the sick by scores in the hospital, and have waited on them, felt sorry for them, sympathized with them; but have you thought that it was within the bounds of possibility that you could ever come into such a pitiable condition? You go from house to house in your private nursing, always you find the sick, and it seems natural, quite the proper thing. You care for them, they get well, or die--and on you go to the next--but reflect on what made them sick, and though you know you are made of like flesh and blood, do not conduct yourself as if you were not. "Oh, yes" (how often have I heard it said), "I know she worked too hard, but I am so strong, you never heard me complain; I can nurse a fever case for two weeks and never go out of doors for air or exercise." Is it not foolish? Is it not wrong for any sensible woman to talk thus?
Now listen to some few practical hints as to how to keep yourselves in good working order. In the first place, then, never go to a case unless you are feeling well. It is far wiser, as far as you are concerned, and better also for the sick one, for you to say so frankly, if you are not well. Tell the one who comes for you, that you could not do justice to the case, as indeed you could