14 JulThe Day They Fired Mom

My mom grew up on a hog farm in Iowa. She was the third of three daughters born five years apart. Her father—picture the farmer in the painting “American Gothic”—must have grunted in disappointment at the birth of each child because he needed boys to help run his farm. Being an innovative man Grandpa learned to use his daughters like boys. They could drive a teams of horses and shovel manure. All of them could except for Mom.  She didn’t make as good a boy as her big sisters. She couldn’t tell a stack of hay from a stack of straw. She found a newborn calf out by the haystack. When she told her dad he hooked a wagon to the tractor and they set out to get the calf. When Mom saw they were going to the wrong “hay” stack she swallowed and meekly told her father, “It’s the other hay stack,” meaning the straw stack. He just grunted. How could anyone mistake a haystack for a strawstack?

When Mom was a senior in high school one of her teachers gave the class the opportunity to write an essay on “Why I Want to Be a Nurse.” There was a job fair coming up and St. Luke’s Nursing School was going to be there. Mom didn’t know what she was going to do after high school. Her sisters were working as book keepers for local shop owners. She assumed she would do the same.  Nursing had never crossed her mind, but liking to write she took up the assignment and did her best. Two weeks later she got a letter from St. Luke’s offering her a full-ride scholarship to their nursing program.

“Should I be a nurse?” she asked her mom.

“Of course!” her mom answered. An opportunity like this had never come to the family before.

Mom completed the program and graduated a registered nurse. She was offered a job as a surgeon’s assistant before she graduated. Grandpa, who had never been impressed with her farming skills was proud of her higher education.

“You’ll have to come down from the third floor,” he’d tease. “The rest of us live on the first floor.”

Mom was a very good nurse. She was punctual, dedicated, skilled, and friendly. As her life changed with marriage and children she went from surgeon’s assistant, to long term care, to surgery prep, to where she found her true home—emergency room. Skilled not just with nursing, but also in managing people, mom became the director of the Emergency Department.

My mom lived on the adrenaline of the emergencies that came through her department. I didn’t inherit this from her. I have eight children and have never helped pull even one of their teeth. I can’t stand the momentary pain and blood it causes.  The stories Mom can tell you if you ask her are horrific. Farmers brought in toddlers they had just run over with their tractor and begged her to save them. A man was caught in a flash fire and stood naked and screaming in the emergency room not letting anyone touch him as his skin sloughed off onto the tile. A mother drove her teenage son in from far out in the country. She had accidentally hit him with her car and severed his leg. The stories go on and on—ten years’ worth.

I would have been destroyed by any one of these experiences. Not Mom. She had feelings. She tells the stories tenderly. Still, she was able to put the horror behind her and be ready to give aid and comfort to the next person who came in.  I was always very proud to be known as my Mom’s son.

My mom’s life changed in 30 seconds one day. She was a passenger in a car that rolled on a country road. She was taken by ambulance to her very own emergency room with what they thought was a broken neck. She could not move or feel her  arms and legs. Eventually doctor’s determined her spinal cord was only bruised, but there was still no guarantee how much functionality she would ever get back in her limbs. Two doctors that worked in her emergency room came to visit her at the rehabilitation center in Pocatello, Idaho. They admitted to her later that when they left they both agreed she would never walk again.

Twelve weeks later, with the help of metal braces on both legs Mom walked back into her emergency department. This created quite a stir. Pocatello was a two hour drive from Burley. Her coworkers in Burley didn’t hear much about her progress. They assumed “Laurel” wouldn’t be coming back. When she hobbled through the door they were happy to see her. The mood was celebratory. Eventually they became aware that Mom was in her emergency room uniform. The mood quieted quickly when they realized Mom was there to work.  Mom couldn’t stand without braces. Her arms were very weak. She couldn’t work like that. Nobody told Mom this. They saw the determination in her eyes; and she was still the boss.

This day she returned to work was an important day for Mom.  Month’s before she had lain completely paralyzed and depressed in the rehabilitation center. A day of hope came when she moved her toe. She determined then that she would return to work. Relearning how to lift one’s fingers is something most of us will never have to do. Making her hand bring of cup of water to her lips was huge. Sliding her leg to the edge of the bed on her way to getting out of bed was her super bowl victory. Her coworkers saw her weakness as she attempted to go back to work. Mom saw her strength.

On her second day back to work a doctor took her aside and gently explained to her that she shouldn’t be there. She wasn’t strong enough to catch a fainting patient. The hospital could get sued. She could lose her nursing license.  Mom heard the truth in his words, but would not stop working. She had built the Cassia Memorial Hospital Emergency Department. She had fought death and depression to get back. She would not quit.

Two days later Mom was called into the Fred Schloss’s office. He was the hospital administrator as well as a friend. When Mom arrived Noreen Harper was there, too. Noreen was the nursing supervisor for the hospital. Reading this we all know what was coming. Mom didn’t.  Her determination to make a comeback blinded her to the way everyone else saw things. After small-talk on how she felt and her physical progress Mr. Schloss came to the point. He told Mom that she was no longer employed by the hospital as a nurse.

Those words took Mom’s breath away. There was that instant of silence in the room as they waited for Mom to process the message. When her brain finally got around the meaning of the words she broke down into sobs. To this day I’ve never seen Mom cry. I can only imagine what it must have been like in that office. To Noreen’s credit she held Mom and cried with her until the tears ran out. It wasn’t all bad news. They had another position to offer Mom, one that took the knowledge of a nurse, but didn’t require the strength. Mom took that job and performed with dedication for the next five years until she retired.

Mom never told me the story of the day they fired her until I was helping her write her memoir. I had no idea she had struggled back from paralysis only to be met with such a disappointment. Disappointments like that can destroy people and make them bitter. Walking back into the emergency room in her braces was a great victory for Mom. To me an even greater victory was when she chose life after the humiliation of being “let go.” She could have chosen the slow death of resentment and bitterness.

After she retired from her position as quality control she volunteered as a Pink Lady. Pink Ladies wore pink tunics and helped visitors find their way around the hospital. I wonder how it felt being a pink lady, a job that required no higher education, with the exciting call of the emergency room just down the hall. The way I see it is that Mom had “owned” her job director of the Emergency Department.  Her moment of mastery was the day she hobbled back in. With nothing more to prove she was able to move on with grace and peace of mind. The visitors to the hospital had no idea they were being greeted by an experienced emergency room nurse.  They didn’t know how well she understood their worries and grief. Mom’s story helps me see the beauty that can be achieved by members of the human race.