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| Home > Newsletter > Walking on Sunshine |
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Walking on Sunshine
I am standing behind the classroom podium, going through our Clinical Orientation booklet with a group of RNs and LNAs, when I notice that I am listing to the right.
A stroke? No, no other symptoms.
An earthquake? No, no one else seems affected.
Then I look down, and notice that I am wearing two different shoes. Two different color shoes, mind you, and one about an inch taller than the other. That's what I get for being late, I think, and for wearing slip-ons that don't force me to look at what I'm getting myself into.
Someone in the group surely has noticed. Later I think that I should have said that I was I simply testing their nursing skills of observation, but in the moment, I decide to confess that I am, on more than one occasion, just plain not very bright.
"Oh, thank God," one of them says when I move away from the podium to show off my fashion faux pas. "I noticed but I didn't want to say anything!"
We all laugh and go on with our day.
But when I limp like "The Real McCoys's" Grandpappy Amos onto our OB unit just after lunch, heading toward my office, I decide that I'd better let them in on the joke or risk more head-scratching about my strange behavior.
I launch into the Jeff ("You Might be a Redneck If...") Foxworthy bit about why he and his wife are always late for parties: it is, he drawls, because she wants him to pick out her footwear for her.
"With this outfit, do you like this shoe," I say, drawing one foot up flamingo-style under my skirt, "or this shoe?", switching to the other.
Again, the whole affair is met with much giggling and a little -- very little -- empathy -- "Oh, I put on two different shoes once. But I changed before I left the house."
The next morning, I arrive late, having had to run a couple of errands on my way in. There at the desk are two nurses, one in two different color Crocs, one in one running shoe and one clog. From down the hall comes a third nurse in one black tie shoe and one white nursing shoe. On Labor and Delivery, there are three more people in mismatched footwear. And, of course, the patients have had to be let in on the joke, too.
I cannot tell you how touched I was by this show of solidarity. We all get too busy sometimes to take the time to laugh, to see the funny side of life. It was such an upper, I'm thinking of wearing my pajamas in next week.
--Lisa McNerney, RN, Clinical Staff Educator, Parkland Medical Center, NHAWHONN Newsletter Editor |
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