Like the patients and visitors who come through our doors, each and every Parkview team member carries with them a story. Here, we hear one from Amy Ehinger, RN, BSN, Medical Surgical, Parkview Health.
I work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Usually, I start my morning with a prayer. It's a time for me to gather my thoughts and set myself up for, hopefully, a good day, and at least be in a good mindset to approach the day in a positive way. And then, I always tell myself when I get out of the car, it's 12 hours. I can do anything in 12 hours. My preceptor always said that, it's one thing that kind of stuck with me.
I was a nurse for probably five years, and then I had my first child. I stayed home with my kids for about four years. I returned to nursing after my son was about one and a half. I was scared to go back into the nursing field because I had been out for so long and in healthcare, everything changes so often.
I had a lot of anxiety going into every shift that I went to, and sometimes I would have a couple days off in between and I just could not relax on those days. I was so anxious about not knowing something. I was in my early thirties, and I just felt like I didn't know anything.
On a day that started normally. A call light went off in 214 and I went down to answer it and there was a female patient. One of her visitors had noted that she had some chest pain and wasn't feeling right, so I encouraged her to go down to the ER and get checked out.
She was insistent she wanted to kind of let it pass. So, I continued talking with the patient and answering her questions. The symptoms passed and she was saying that she felt a lot better. I asked if it was okay for me to go back out and the patient said to me, ‘Amy, wait, I want to give you something.’
She went on to explain that she had this handmade cross and she only handed them out to people who, she felt, God was telling her needed it. And she said, ‘In this moment, I feel for whatever reason, God's telling me that you need this.’ And it was kind of like a disbelief.
Instantly, I got very emotional, tears started welling up in my eyes. I was just overwhelmed by the fact that she thought I deserved it, you know, and that for whatever reason God moved her to give it to me. I had only known this patient for a few minutes. She didn't know my story, I didn't know her story, but it was a connection that we had and that was very overwhelming to me.
That day will stay with me for the rest of my life because that was God's way of telling me, you're doing it. You're doing what you need to be doing. I feel that this is more than a job and more than a profession. It's an opportunity for a connection with your patients. The patients don't just need us. We need them in our healing process as well. And the emotional connections that I have formed have helped me relieve my anxiety as a nurse. It's helped me continue to get more confident in myself and in my practice. It has changed me as a person and as a nurse. It's changed my faith and it’s changed me as a whole. And I know that it's changed them as well.
