Some do not like that deep and straight gaze with which they usually accompany the early “good morning” in hospital wards, every time dawn looms through the icy silence of the cubicles. Others become uncomfortable when a "naughty" vein resists and the blood extraction, serum, or intravenous medicine hurts more. At night falls, they give up and are grateful that, in their ways and practices, those angels are willing to calm the wrongs of body and soul.
They are the nurses. Soft steps, almost imperceptible, that leave their footprints, thoughts, commitments, and everything they carry inside as professionals and humans, in the not always silent granite corridors. Nobody knows; perhaps not even that is noticed by the furtive glances that surround them from their inpatient beds. For patients, it seems, many times, it only matters to know them there, like obedient sentinels to the first call of "their orders." Understandably, a minute can simulate a century. Fear and pain are emotions too strong to please the patience. Hospitals have an ugly face despite their saving airs.
They play the blind and return tenderness in bittersweet moments. It is a pleasant perception that I confirm as my weeks add up in the corridors of the Gynecology and Obstetrics services area, where for more than a month I saw them entering or leaving work, and I almost memorized the shift changes of the wards B-2, first, and E-2, later.
Little by little, I put names on the correct faces ... Liznet, Yanet, Yordanka, Lianet ..., and in the face of forgetfulness and my internal monologues of gratitude, I embedded mine as well ... the pretty skinny one; the pleasant brunette, the tall woman who is not so young ... They, the B-2 ladies, who with their care make paths of love for pregnant women and those families who take them under their skin without asking their permission or being able to avoid or notice it. The work in this specialized care service is tense.
The third floor, maternity; the same hospital silence, the impatience; white coats that return again and again on the interior corridors of the rooms. They accompany sleepless nights and squeeze feelings when the impatience of the companions become too insistent and they have to multiply tolerance to fulfill the duties of the day, also long for them.
There is a lot of sensitivity in these women and men who bet on Nursing, although they hide it between the haste or the "labels" with which they sometimes are marked for the necessary hours they pass behind desks, always full of medical records and documents, especially after visits of specialists. In the "E-2", I confirmed such tenacity and dedication of those who defend the lives that pregnant women cradle in their wombs.
Hands that learn beyond touch, oversaturated questions that even seem flat or unnecessary to certain types of patients; because there are all kinds of them, as the world is diverse. And they are there, with the same imperturbable, ethical, tolerant, understanding image ... with a certain halo of methodical prudence.
Danni Bermúdez, Taimí Fernández, Lisandra Morell, Nelvis Collejo, Yordania Urquiza, Daimi Rivero… complete their service cycles. Temperature, pressure, focus, medications ... Alexander Macia, Yamisleidys Leyva, Jessica Góngora, Yurisan Palacios, Lietis Reigada, Graciela Osorio and Katia Leyva, do their job anyway. Each shift is the same delivery, and the routines become relevant. Neifer Esteben, the head of the service, and Anairis López, the secretary, have no fewer bustles.
I think of them while happiness fills the house and tiny man's hands hold tightly to Mom's index finger, who flashes her best smile every second. And yes, gee, nurses and male nurses are angels and vice versa too.
When the night curdles and wakefulness awakens the senses, I imagine them there, in those semi-dark and icy corridors ... attentive, writing on the medical records of their pregnant women, multiplying themselves and leaving a drop of their lives. It doesn't matter what they are like or where they come from. They, the ones in white coats, are there like eternal “guardian angels.”
