A young boy is held down to a table by his mother and father, while a doctor holds a medical instrument, repeatedly snapping at the boy’s face with an electrical current—inflicting a chilling pain that causes his whole body to squirm in agony. “We’re almost done, honey,” the mother says, reassuring her 6-year-old son. Seconds feel like hours; minutes feel like days. Time seems to stand still, but he tries to remind himself that it’s necessary. Just a little longer and the pain will be over. A few minutes pass, and the procedure, that almost seems like a medieval form of torture, has finally ended. The boy’s stomach, which was gurgling with anxiety throughout the day knowing this procedure was coming, can finally rest until the next month’s appointment. A kind nurse walks in with an infectious smile and a compassionate voice, asking the boy if he’d like a sticker. He gives her a resounding yes as he peruses through the many options. In all honesty, those stickers and the possibility of stopping by the pet store on the way home are what help him get through these difficult appointments. A seed has been planted.
That same boy—now a teenager—waits patiently with his mother for the results of an endoscopy to hopefully discover the reason behind the unbearable pain he’s felt the past few weeks. The doctor enters with a solemn face. The teenager’s heart sinks to his stomach, introducing a new kind of discomfort to his GI picture. While the sedatives from the procedure still linger in his system, he tries to process what the doctor has just explained. He walks slowly to the car with his mother by his side. “It’s okay to cry,” the mother says, reassuring her 16-year-old son. With that, tears begin to cascade down his face as his mother follows suit. Surgery is conducted a week later, and as he wakes up from the anesthesia, he’s cared for by a male nurse. The kind and compassionate care the nurse provides reminds him of the care he received as a young boy. While he slips in and out of consciousness, he is wheeled to his room where he’ll recover for the next few days. Roots have expanded.
A port-wine stain on his left cheek and a tumor in the inner lining of his stomach are what impacted this young man from an early age. After years of laser treatment, with little to no improvement, he decides he is content with his port-wine stain. He’d prefer to stop the treatments. After removing the tumor from his stomach, his care continues at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center, where they discover a genetic mutation that makes him more susceptible to tumor formation. He was impacted by the nursing care he received as a boy, as a teenager, and most of all, he is impacted by the extraordinary care and kindness he continues to receive at MSK today.
I am that boy. I am that teenager.
The nurses that cared for me left a lasting impact. They inspired me to become a nurse and strive to fill the large shoes of those who came before me. I recently graduated from the Rutgers University School of Nursing in May 2021 and have had the privilege of starting my nursing career at Memorial Sloan Kettering’s ICU. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants, and the compassion and support I received as a patient have now translated over to my position as a colleague. I’m constantly reminded that my fate could have very well placed me in a more critical circumstance, similar to many of the patients on our unit. That inspires me every day to do the best that I can for the patients I serve. I was recently told that your nursing career is like a tree, and the branches of that tree are the nurses, mentors, and friends that you meet along the way. I have a lot of growth yet to come, and many branches still to extend, but the seed that was planted and the roots that have expanded from my own medical obstacles have set a sturdy foundation for my nursing tree.
Jeremy Baptista, BSN, RN, BCLS, ACLS, is an ICU nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, New York, USA, and a member of Sigma’s Alpha Tau Chapter.