Unlikely Friend

Emma, Rachel, Megan, Brianna, Nsimba (yes that was his real name), Ricky, Jen, and Jordan. Those are the names that I remember of the nurses who took care of me for six weeks and three days at CMMC. The women and one man who took out my catheter (Megan), argued on my behalf for better pain meds (Ricky the fucking Rockstar), wiped my ass after going to the bathroom (Emma), emptied my bed pan (Nsimba), and told me to cough to bring down my fever so I could avoid going back to the ICU (Jen). And of course, the nurse who not only helped me survived but also helped me live has chosen to have her name changed. Only the brightest ones don’t want to be seen. But she will be seen in this piece because although every nurse that took care of me deserves credit, Nurse “Jordan” fucking saved me.

I’m sure Jordan was taking care of me long before I was aware of it (thanks to being heavily drugged and in a catatonic state for at least two of my six week stay). And sometimes I don’t remember our days together so much as I remember moments in our days together. The first memory I have of Jordan was the day she came into my room and told me we needed to go for a walk. It was maybe halfway into my hospital stint and up until that moment I had been laying on my back for weeks on end watching True Crime tv. There were no days or nights. I forgot what the date was. I barely knew what month it was. The only way I knew it was nighttime was seeing the new nurses come in for their 7 pm shift. Jordan was always on days. By the time she wanted me to walk with her, I had three drainage tubes coming out of my stomach. I didn’t know it yet, but in another week, I would have my sixth and final surgery to take out my staples and have a feeding sack placed in the fourth and final quadrant of my abdomen. At the time of Jordan’s request of relearning how to walk, I also had a skinny feeding tube snaked down my nose (it had already fallen out once, and the way to correct that is to simultaneously swallow air as a nurse pushes it back down your nose. How graceful) and I was on oxygen. I had no fucking idea why this nurse was asking me to do the impossible—and with a smile on her face.

Jordan was a petite nurse. She was shortish with almost black hair that she always had tied back in a bun. She was in her late thirties—I think she said she was almost 40—but she definitely looked and acted younger. At first, I thought she was immature because of how positive she always was. I mean we were in a fucking hospital during Covid, where was the hope in that? But I have come to realize that I was just a miserable and dying patient (which, who could blame me?) and Jordan’s happy go lucky attitude healed me better than any of those marvelous drugs that nurse Ricky raged for me to have.

Back to relearning how to walk. It took me half an hour, half an hour, to get out of bed. I couldn’t just sit up in bed, swing my legs over the edge, step onto the ground and push myself up into a standing position. No, I had to take both arms, grip the side of the bed I wanted to turn towards, pull with all my might to get from my back onto my side, push myself up into a sitting position with both hands still gripping the plastic hospital bed, take a three minute break as I caught my breath, hold back tears, grab Jordan’s hands and have her pull me upright off the bed, fight the urge to just collapse back onto the bed and give up, and as I stood there gripping Jordan’s hands and her saying “You did it! You did it!” I couldn’t help but smile through the pain. The celebration didn’t last long though. We were just getting started. Jordan then recruited another nurse to hold my hands and make sure I didn’t drop dead (which was a legit concern at that point) as Jordan herself grabbed my walker, readjusted the tube in my nose (as I quietly muttered “It’s fine, just fucking leave it alone”), grabbed the oxygen tank, and reassessed the three tubes coming out of my stomach.

I was ready to walk.

It wasn’t necessarily hard for my brain to remember place one foot in front of the other…but it was hard to do just that with the amount of pain it brought. Instead of easily taking one step at a time, it felt like there was this straight iron rod in my body and someone was trying to fold and break me in half. I stooped rather than stood. I hobbled rather than took steps. After leaving my hospital room’s door, I was exhausted. Jordan and the other nurse were on either side of my walker with Jordan was pushing along the oxygen tank. Both nurses kept saying shit like “You’re doing great.” “How are you feeling?” “It’ll get better.” With each new step I was gaining more confidence. The doctors had told me weeks ago I probably would never be able to walk again. And although I took it in stride and accepted it as my new normal, I was beyond ecstatic to be walking again. I’ll never forget the advice that Jordan gave me for that first walk. We were halfway down the hallway in the hospital, and I wanted to finish. I was determined. I could do it. As if Jordan sensed my willpower, she said, “Now, we could keep going and finish the hallway, but remember you have to go back. In other words, if you feel like you can finish the hallway, could you do it again to get back to the room?” My steps then stopped. I could finish the hallway, but I knew I couldn’t turn around and do it all over again. They would have to carry me back to my room. A third nurse was on standby with a wheelchair in case that happened, but I wouldn’t let it come to that.

“I wanna turn around,” I said shamefully. “No, you’re ready to turn around,” Jordan chirped with the ever-present smile on her face that was starting to grow on me.

There was this thing that Jordan always pulled every morning she entered my room, and I know she’s sporting a shit eating grin right now while she reads this, knowing what’s coming. I used to always keep my blinds down in my room. Again, day and nighttime were not relative terms to me so I slept when I could. When my room wasn’t being plagued by doctors and specialists, when I wasn’t being shipped down to cat scans, emergency surgeries, and the ICU, I slept when I could. And sometimes that was during the day. And in those cases, I didn’t like the sun screaming in my face. So, I would always have the blinds drawn. The first day Jordan came waltzing in my room and drew up my shade I winced/smiled.

“There! It’s a lovely day and the sun is shining! Much better.” This is the first nurse I’m going to hate, I thought to myself. To Jordan I said, “I don’t like the blinds up. Please put them back down.”

“Oh, ok,” she said as she did as I asked. But the next day she came into my room and opened them again. And I told her to close them again. She laughed and said “oh, ok” again. And that’s how it went every morning. Then when she realized she couldn’t convert me to being a sunshine, positivity loving patient, she would open the blinds as a joke and let me grumble that she was crazy and was trying to kill me. Our friendship blossomed into a relationship where she would try to combat my bad moods with pokes and jokes. Usually, she won. And she appreciated my banter and shit talking because at the end of the day, I always gave her my 110% effort. Of course, I let her know how fucking crazy she was to expect me to double my laps, or sit in a chair for an hour straight (hardest and most painful thing ever at the time), or to start doing stairs but I still did it all for her. There were times where if I didn’t feel like doing anything, and told another nurse who was asking “not today.” Jordan would then hear about it, come into my room, and plead at my bedside.

“Do it for me,” she’d say as she was kneeling at my bed and holding my hands. Fucking a that’s all that wonderful woman had to say. “Do it for me,” and all of a sudden, I found the strength to do it. To survive. And to live.

Here’s the point in the story where a disclaimer is needed: I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I was fucking funny in the hospital. My dark sense of humor that I always had growing up came in handy while I was plastered to a hospital bed for six long weeks. I could make any nurse laugh, and even made a few doctors chuckle. Jordan was my favorite to crack up, and my wit surprised her. I would always get a bewildered look followed by her genuine laughter. Every day was a new day to try to make Jordan laugh. Sometimes that meant more to me than any health improvement I may have made.

One day Jordan came into my room and as she yanked up my window shade (as I rolled my eyes) she said she had something fun for us to do. “I need to stick this pill up your butt.”

“Oh, goody,” I cried with sarcasm.

Jordan and another nurse helped push me onto my side so that I was facing the wall. Jordan undid my Johnny and said, “Now, try to think of something pleasant.”

I did not skip a damn beat. “Ok, Bryan.”

Jordan did skip a beat. I could picture her finger and thumb pinching the horse pill that was about to be inserted into my anus, and her stopping midway.

“Why did you call me ‘Bryan’?” Her curiosity got the best of her.

“Because he was the last person who put something up my ass that was pleasant.” It was true, Bryan was the guy I had an affair with and during our drunken hotel hookups we would have anal sex. And it felt good. Credit to a guy with a small dick for once.

I felt the hospital bed shake. At first, I thought we were experiencing an earthquake—which with my luck I wouldn’t be surprised. But Jordan was shaking the bed with her laughter. She was starting to suck in air she was laughing so hard. Then just as quick, I felt the pill go up my ass and my own laughter almost made me shit it right back out. Those were the days I’ll always cherish in the hospital. Jordan and her laughter.

One day when Jordan started her shift at 7 am I was having a rare bad day. There were days I cried, days I wanted it to end, and days I said fuck it. But those were simply fleeting moments that were always remedied by Jordan or another compassionate nurse. But this day was different. On this day, for once my hope was completely on E. I woke up and just decided I didn’t care. I didn’t want to improve. I told myself I was barely improving at all and that my life was pointless. I would never truly live again. That was the saddest day of my life. So, when Jordan came in and pulled up my shade like usual, I didn’t give her shit for once. I just stared at the wall as Forensic Files played on the little tv in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jordan do a double take at my silence. She didn’t say anything but checked my vitals and asked if we were walking today, as if it were a choice. But I did treat it like a choice and my silence was my answer. She then tried to make a joke, but I still stayed silent. I knew I was being rude, but I was just so over it. I had been in the hospital 5 weeks with no end in sight. I had died twice. The pain meds were barely touching my pain. My cell phone had shit the bed in the middle of all this. I couldn’t have visitors. I died during my first surgery and had five more after that. Each time I was scared I would die and wouldn’t be so lucky as to be revived again. Sorry Jordan, but life wasn’t looking so positive for me at that point.

Jordan knelt by my bedside again and took my hands into hers. With tears in her eyes she said, “I am so sorry.” And that was all. And she closed my blinds and left the room. The rest of the day I felt heart broken and guilty as fuck for breaking her spirit.

But the next day she again waltzed into my room and opened my blinds. And I told her to get the hell out of my room as we laughed.

The last day of my journey Jordan unfortunately wasn’t working. I was discharged on a Saturday and the day before she was running around my room double checking everything and reminding me all the OT tips and tricks I learned and how to administer my own drugs through the PICC line I would be discharged with. She told me she was so proud of me and that she loved me. She never brought up my drinking or said she was worried—true to herself, she stayed positive. It was almost as if I didn’t need her my last day in the hospital because she had already taught me everything I needed to know.

It’s been nine months since I’ve been discharged. And Jordan was my nurse again when I had hernia surgery back in February. She was still the same old Jordan. Coming into my room, drawing the blinds, but now she was head nurse! I am so proud of Jordan and owe her my life. I had many nurses who I will always owe credit to, but Jordan was a superhero. She not only took care of me, but she laughed, cried, triumphed, and lost alongside me. She wasn’t just a bystander who administered drugs and did her job. She went above and beyond. I have many reasons to stay sober and make sure I never relapse, and I proudly say that Nurse Jordan (whose real name I leave out, out of respect, which she asked me to do last time I saw her but hope that one day the world will know her fully—I told you readers she was a superhero!) is one of the top reasons I stay sober. I look forward to the day that you literally spill sunshine into my room, and I can make and hear you laugh again.