This past Friday at my Med-Surg Clinical, I had an elderly lady who has aphasia from a previous CVA. She could still say, “I’m good” or “yes/no,” but that was it. She still helped us with things she needed by pointing to things she wanted us to get for her and picking out her clothes for the day from a pile sitting next to her bed.
Whenever we would walk into her room or she would see us coming to her table in the dining room, she would smile and laugh. All day she sat in the dining room, reading her mystery novel about a secret marriage and listening to music with the other residents. At the end of our day, I put on my scrub jacket before going to tell her we were leaving for the day and that we would be back next week. I had forgotten about my pumpkin sticker I stuck on there for Halloween. When she saw my sticker, her face lit up and she started pointing at it. Without hesitation, I took my sticker off of my jacket and placed it on her shirt. Her face lit up even more than it was when she first saw it. I never expected to make someone so happy just by giving them a sticker.
It is the little things like this experience that remind me why I decided to be a nurse.
Samantha's Nursing 302 Blog 