Nurses Make Birthdays, One Year at a Time

Part of our institution’s medication administration policy is asking patients to state their name and birth date, scrutinizing the information against the medication label. Patients of a certain age, more women than men, customarily wince while saying the year in which they were born. Often they say, “I’m getting so old.”

Perhaps it’s none of my business to respond, but as a cancer survivor and an oncology nurse, I can’t seem to help it. This reply escapes my mouth with hardly a thought in between: “That’s what we do here. We help you grow old, one birthday at a time. That’s why you and I are here.”

It always gets a laugh, and more often than not a, “Well, I suppose you’re right. That is what we’re doing here, isn’t it?”

Like many things in life, the ability to enjoy growing old is a matter of perspective.

It’s a funny world we live in. People bemoan their birthdays and growing old; yet endure chemotherapy and procedures, fighting to add years to lives threatened by disease.

I don’t love the effects of aging on my body. I color my hair to hide the gray. I exercise and eat right, and avoid over indulging in things that destroy a body’s ability to maintain its health. But these things enhance life, they do not prevent the inevitable. I know my days are limited. I know some day I will cease to exist in the manner I do now.

You may feel depressed by reading this post, but I say to you, knowing that life is finite is the most freeing of all thoughts. It bestows the gift of living everyday to the fullest, to make choices honoring integrity, and loving relationships. Life is too short to dwell in unhappiness. This is the least that nurses can do to honor the memory of the patients we have known and lost: live life as if each day were the last.

And, yes, I will take another slice of that birthday cake.