Bedford Public Library

The language of kindness, a nurse's story, Christie Watson

eng

autobiography

no index present

non fiction

The language of kindness

Christie Watson

a nurse's story

"A moving, lyrical, beautifully-written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched. Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients. In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. In the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important--which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is as overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol- and drug-addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward--Gladys and older patients like her--show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society. Through the smallest of actions, nurses provide vital care and kindness. All of us will experience illness in our lifetime, and we will all depend on the support and dignity that nurses offer us; yet the women and men who form the vanguard of our health care remain unsung. In this age of fear, hate, and division, Christie Watson has written a book that reminds us of all that we share, and of the urgency of compassion."--Book jacket

Introduction: Worth risking life for -- A tree of veins -- Everything you can imagine is real -- The origins of the world -- At first the infant -- The struggle for existence -- Somewhere under my left ribs -- To live is so startling -- Small things, with great love -- O the bones of the people -- So we beat on -- At close of day -- There are always two deaths -- And the flesh of the child grew warm