Nicole Langan CWA 2004

Nicole Langan is also finishing her second year at Yale. Her background is in Psychology. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Boston University where she was honored as a Boston University Cardinal Medeiros Scholar and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She has been an Emergency Medical Assistant, an intern in a cardiopulmonary transplant unit in Sydney, Australia and a medical assistant in Boston. She plans to specialize in pediatric nursing and in particular children with chronic illness. She was the recipient of the 2003 Creative Writing Award.

Transcript of the Reading:

Right-Sided Smile

“Heheyheyeheyheyheyheyheyheyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…………”
I’m sorry that I didn’t know what you wanted when you cried out to me
With an aching, low voice
From a room that got few visitors that didn’t wear purple gloves
And for the fact that I was so caught up in trying to fill in the intention behind
The words the stroke had taken
(Rushing, bumbling, trying strings to the gauzy blue precautions gown)
That I didn’t see your quite obviously edematous hand that must have
Hurt so much
From a line into a vein that had given up and an arm too weak to do much about it
You lay in a cool room, throbbing and swelling in saturated defeat
Waiting for hands that would know how to fix it all. Waiting for me.
And gloved and gowned and every inch regulation, I stepped into your room.
I wanted to help, but you see, I was too frantic.
All you needed was someone to come and help you use the bedpan. And as hard as I thought I was listening, I had ears that
Absolutely did not know what your version of the words meant.
So I ripped off that gauzy blue gown that looked so official and left to call in your nurse, a real nurse,
Who I hoped could come in and make sense of “Heyheyheyheyheyheyheyyyyyyyy……….” better than me.
She could.
It took her all of four seconds,
And five to see your swelling hand, and six to pull out the line, and seven to start to make you feel better.
Just like that. 
I helped her, in awe of all that she could get from your slackened words and urgent eyes
(Staccato exclamations and broken thoughts made whole in her practiced hands)
And took calm directions from her on how to position the bedpan, how to hold back your palsied leg;
How to make my hands work. 
You yelled at us “No no no NO! Okay okay okay ….okay…..”
As she talked you through the catheterization and helped you to relieve
What must have been an awful pressure.
Your resistance turned to gratitude the nearer it all came to ending. 
The right side of your face and both your eyes smiled calmly as
The gown was fixed up and the blankets pulled back to a comfortable place.
(Dignity.)
And that was that.
The nurse gave me my marching orders, gave you sweet parting words, and left me to get back to taking care of you ….alone.
And so I made sure you were comfortable, adjusted the bed, did all the Good Nurse Things I could think of,
And gently put your swollen hand up on a pillow thinking, God, I’m so sorry; I was so stupid not to notice this before.
But alone in that sterile room where no one came in that didn’t work on 6-3,
You turned your drooping eyes and looked at me with clarity and said “Thank you, honey.”
Thank you, honey. Out of nowhere.
And I had nothing to give back to you that would have meant as much.
That you could lose most speech, all of your left side, and still be able to say that to Me (who hadn’t understood, who’d missed the infiltration) was more than I could Believe. Or more than I could have believed before my first day on the floor.
I’m sorry that the only good stories that people seem to tell about this job are from the wings with
New pink babies, full recoveries; clear speech and happy endings.
On our floor, the edges of things are blurry and the endings are always in question; but try and tell me there are no miracles.
You can find them
(In the comfort wrought from the hands of the nurses I learn from, in the brilliance trapped in the eyes of a stroke patient who suddenly finds the words; in deepest gratitude, and long hours, and right-sided smiles)
You can find them here all the time. You hardly have to try.
The reward is in the things you don’t expect to happen
Working in this place where basic is no longer basic
But beautiful.