The Four Previous Columns
Article 1: Charlotte Schools and Science
Fifty one years ago, the United States got a wake up call, in the form of the first man made satellite, pinging a message that our mortal enemy was winning the space race. Our response to that challenge was a nationwide push to improve science and math education. The investment paid off: For most of the last few decades, the US has dominated world science and technology. We have not only begun to explore the planets of our own system, we have discovered planetary systems far beyond our own. We have unlocked the human genome. We have discovered effective treatments for AIDS.
But there are disturbing signs that we are slipping; that we’ve gotten lazy. Japanese, Korean, even Estonian students outscore Americans on science exams. Nearly 35% of doctorate degrees in science at American institutions in 2005 were earned by foreign students, who will take that knowledge home with them. The next generation of supercollider that will unlock new secrets of the atom is being constructed in Europe. Microsoft is building its new development center in Canada. Leading edge biomedical research, including research into the use of stem cells, is also moving off shore. These loses represent not merely bragging rights to esoteric discoveries, but the high paying jobs on which our standard of living depends. We are failing to prepare our students to compete in a global economy.
It is a hopeful sign, then, that CMS has hired 87 new science teachers, and, just this year, announced that elementary school students will actually start learning some science: 45 minutes on each of three days a week. High school students will now take science 90 minutes a day, twice a week. This is still a far smaller dose of science than I got, in the heady days after Sputnik, but it is a start, after years of neglect.
Also, North Carolina is proposing to establish End of Grade science tests for the 5th and 8th grades. After all, what you test is what you get. From what I can see from the sample questions and the science curriculum descriptions, our students should receive a solid grounding in the current facts, theories, and techniques of science.
But what I did not take away from those descriptions is a real feel for what science is – and what it is not. Most of all, it is not a search for ultimate “truth.” It’s more a search for what works. Yes, it’s a matter of gathering up facts and observations, but the core of it is making sense of those facts and observations, by building paradigms, or “theories” - a word that means something very different in science than it does on detective programs. A good theory will explain your facts and observations and will allow you to make predictions of new facts and observations that “test” the theory. Isaac Newton’s theories of space, time, and gravitation “worked” for more than 200 years. However, there came a time when the theory began to fail the tests of its predictions. There was no ether for light to move through; the speed of light was constant, not variable; time was not constant, but was variable. Einstein’s theories supplanted Newton’s. And one day, maybe soon, another theory will supplant Einstein’s. The facts will be the same, but the theories that explain them, and that lead us to new facts, will change.
To illustrate: There is one question on the NC End of Grade Test that could not have been asked when I was in the 8th grade:
“Which is the best evidence that two continents were once connected?”
When I was in the 8th grade, most geologists thought the theory of plate tectonics, or continental drift, as it was known then, was the raving of lunatics, despite “mountains” of evidence in its favor. But the discovery in the earth of a viscous, molten core, on which the continents did float, overturned decades of settled science. Now we know. Or we think we do.
If we want the new push for scientific excellence to work, we have to convey a sense of the adventure of the thing; the excitement. Science should not be a boring exercise in memorizing facts, or reciting the periodic table like the nine times table.
Mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski described science as “a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known. We always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. “
It’s a journey of discovery that never ends.
Article 2: Don’t Feed the Dinosaurs
A dinosaur paid me a visit the other day. The walnut sized ball of hyperactive feathers had been casing my deck for several days, and announcing his ownership of it to the immediate universe. So, when I left the door open for the dogs, he decided to check out the indoor facilities. They were not to his liking; he built his abode in a large azalea nearby.
Scientists’ view of dinosaurs has changed a great deal since I was a girl. Then, my books described dinosaurs as large, lumbering lizards, who might actually have died of stupidity. Years ago, no one would have suspected that my little Carolina Wren is the first cousin, millions of times removed, of Tyrannosaurus Rex. What do they have in common, beyond a giant attitude? Lots, apparently. Many scientists now say that not only are birds the descendents of dinosaurs; they are dinosaurs.
The cap on all this was the 2003 finding of the massive leg bone of a tyrannosaur in the deep shale of Montana. Scientists found, to their amazement, that some soft tissue was preserved inside the leg. It was collagen, a protein, and close analysis found that it was nearly identical to the collagen of an ostrich. Give Tyrannosaurus Rex wings, and it would be a bird. Maybe it would taste just like chicken.
So Charlotte is fortunate to have its own Jurassic Park: The Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville. There, you can visit creatures just as magnificent as the creatures in the Jurassic Park movie, on a somewhat smaller scale, of course. Some, like kestrels and eastern screech owls, are almost as small as my little wren. Others are huge, as birds go: Black vultures, ospreys, and bald eagles.
Several of these birds have become well known citizens of our community. Who can forget the perils of Garibaldi, intrepid bald eagle and explorer? A severe storm in July of 2005 caused the eagle aviary to collapse, and Garibaldi was flying free! The problem was, he couldn’t fly well enough to hunt. Still, he was able to scavenge for food and elude would be rescuers for 7 months. After numerous “Garibaldi sightings,“ he was recaptured in near Beverly Hills Elementary School in Concord, very thin, but otherwise healthy.
Then, there are the doting parents, Derek and Savannah, also bald eagles. Charlotte watched them hatch and raise Len and Lola, who were released a couple of years ago. You can still follow their daily travels at http://gisserv1.uncc.edu/website/eagles/viewer.htm. This year, the Center hopes for more progeny.
I have my own favorites. The barred owl Omar is one. Omar was imprinted, and thinks he is a person. He especially likes to “hoot” at the ladies. Imprinting is a common form of injury in the birds at the Center. Someone will find a cute, fuzzy little owlet, and try to raise it as a pet, visions of Hogwarts dancing in her head. But when an adult owl lands on her head, the dream will be a nightmare, for the human and the owl alike. Those talons are sharp. Trust me; I know whereof I speak. You can’t release such an owl, or an imprinted hawk; it does not now know how to find its own food. And as a side note, keeping these birds is illegal; you can get a big ticket for it. So, if you find a nest of barn owl eggs or an orphan baby kestrel, contact the Center immediately. The experts there will foster it (some of the birds at the Center make excellent foster parents) and will make sure it is taught how to catch its own food. It will have to get past Mouse School to graduate to a tree near you.
Another of my favorites is Bob O, a barred owl who suffered the most common injury to raptors: A collision with a car. Bob O is blind. Seventy-five percent of an owl’s head is made up of its eyes; if your own eyes were as big as an owl’s, proportionately, they would be the size of grapefruits. Any head injury will likely affect an owl’s eyes. Car injuries are so common because we humans so often throw food out of our cars. The food attracts the mice and rats that are a raptor’s favorite dinner items. Not even these tough, smart, feathered dinosaurs have any defense against two ton metal objects moving at 80 MPH.
So, come on down to Jurassic Park South! Volunteer (especially if you don’t mind cutting up rats)! Donate! Adopt, either one of the residents, or an orphan scheduled for release! Or, just commune with some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet.
Article 3: “When I Was Your Age”
My Granddaddy used to tell me that when he was a boy, it took two days by mule cart to travel the 10 miles between Reelsboro and New Bern. There was no bridge over the Neuse, then, just a rickety ferry that constantly threatened to tip him into the brink. The picture he painted of the North Carolina of his boyhood was grittier and realer than Norman Rockwell’s airbrushed America, now on display at Discovery Place. Now that I am a grandmother, I wonder what sort of world I will paint for my own grandchildren. “When I was your age . . . .” Heck, when I was in college there were no computers; there were not even any calculators. I had to do long division with a pencil, a paper, and an eraser. Does anybody do that anymore? I could even extract a square root by hand.
“When I was your age . . . .” we had one large, black telephone, with a “rotary dial” on the front. You can play with one at the Rockwell exhibit. The first three “numbers” were letters: MELrose 4861. No family had more than one car, and few had a television. I listened to “The Lone Ranger” on my little red radio: “Hi Ho Silver! Away!”
“When I was your age . . . “ my thoroughly Southern Momma demanded that I address anyone my senior as “Mr. or Mrs.;” “Sir or Ma’am.” I lived for 15 years next to a lady named Mrs. Waters without ever learning her given name.
“When I was your age . . . “ my brothers and sisters and I could roam anywhere in the county without supervision – or rather, under the supervision of every person who saw us. Everyone knew who we were, and would tell Momma everything we did.
Times really were simpler “when I was your age.” We never bought anything unless we could pay for it, cash, on the spot. Accepting charity was a deep disgrace, even during the Depression. Miss Mamie Sadler, the proprietress of the Green Grocery Store, gave my granddaddy credit then, out of friendship, but even gestures of friendship incurred an obligation. He paid back every penny. Miz Sadler later said that he was one of the few who did; he kept coming back, with whatever money he had, no matter how long it took.
Much later, he had a heart attack. He had no insurance, and Medicare was undreamed of. That cost him all his meager savings. The doctors think he had several more attacks after that, but he never went back to the hospital. He had no money, and wouldn’t be a charity case. One day, Momma went out to his trailer, and found him sitting there, where he’d had his final attack while tying on his work boots.
So were things better “when I was your age?” In some ways. But I would never want to go back. For one thing, I enjoy modern conveniences. I prefer having a computer to do my taxes, and to connect me to the entire universe. I like the security of a cell phone in my car. And for another, the veneer of gentility past hid a dark heart of bigotry we find it difficult to imagine today. I remember, after all, the line that comes after “Eeny Meeny Minee Mo . . .” Trust me; it wasn’t a “tiger” we caught by the toe.
Besides, we can’t go back. The world that existed “when I was your age” isn’t there any more. My grandfather’s generation, the Depression generation, changed it, by beginning the safety nets, like social security, that protect us from want and early death. The “greatest generation,” my father’s, went on from there to win WWII. My own generation changed the world we grew up in as well. We answered Martin Luther King’s call to help our brothers free themselves from oppression at home, and John Kennedy’s, to “[P]ay any price, bear any burden, ” to protect the world from oppression abroad. It is a testament to how far we have come that the Democratic nominee will be a woman or an African American. That couldn’t have happened “when I was your age.”
Yet, we still have miles to go. Along with our successes, we have created some spectacular messes that our grandchildren will have to clean up. And we have left some of our battles, like King’s dream of equality for all, unfinished. But they’ll do fine. When they tell their own grandchildren what life was like “when I was your age,” our world will be as strange to them as my own grandfather’s was to me.
And maybe they’ll have their own Norman Rockwell to airbrush out the warts.
Article 4: Doughnuts for the Nurses
My grandmother died of cancer, on her fifty-second birthday, June 12, 1937. My mother died of cancer on Easter Sunday, 1965. Cancer is a personal enemy.
So, ten years ago, my heart froze when I heard that my brother had been diagnosed with cancer – our enemy was stalking a new generation. We are all – my seven siblings and I - Brits at heart, and so, do not speak of such things. But we were all very afraid.
He survived. So far. With cancer, you learn always to add “so far.”
Ever since he was pronounced “cancer free” (so far) he has followed a ritual. Every three weeks or so, he visits the Cancer Ward, and drops off donuts and assorted pastries for the nurses. It's how he deals with the place. It's a place he cannot describe, and for years he did not try. He just wanted to recognize some special people who work in trying emotional circumstances. He drops off his goods at each of the three nurse's stations, along with his thanks. It takes a short minute. He sees fewer and fewer nurses that he recognizes, about half, now, measuring by diminishment the passage of time.
The nurses are usually busy, of course. They will smile at him, and try to thank him, so he must correct them, and thank them. Until recently, that was the usual drill.
Then, one nurse stopped him. "I should know you,” she said. “You look familiar, but I don't remember your name." Another nurse, standing nearby, smiling, quickly said, "He's Hardstick, Hiccup."
On the Cancer Ward, you don’t deal with formal names. The nurses did not know his name, and he realized, then, that he didn’t know their names either. Names are too personal. "Hardstick" means it was hard to stick a needle in his vein for the chemo. It would often take hours, and any nurse was only allowed two tries. Once it took fully half a day. "Hiccup" refers to my brother’s peculiar reaction to the chemo. A few people are hardsticks, fewer still react to chemo with hiccups, still fewer have both. When the nurse remembered him as "Hardstick Hiccup", the other nurse said, "Oh, yeah!"
That exchange forced my brother to remember things he had forgotten – things he meant to forget. He, too, said to himself, "Oh, yeah...." as memories came flooding back. Memories, like the time he tried to call his wife, collect, at some wee hour in the middle of the night. The operator asked her if she would accept a collect call from "Chuck." Yes, the hiccups were that bad.
One of the nurses who did remember him told him, "You don't know what your visits do here. We never know, on this ward, where people go. If they make it, we never hear from them again. If they don't make it, we never hear from them. Your visits - most of us don't care about the donuts - your visits mean that what we do has meaning."
And so, my brother is known both as "Hardstick," by the old guard, and as "The Baker," by the new nurses. To the new ones, he is that mysterious individual who wanders in and suddenly there are pastries. Now, the old nurses are introducing the new ones to "Hardstick," and in the process, re-introducing my brother to his past.
They have invited him back, to talk to patients, but that may be beyond him, for now. He says that his strength may not extend that far. Cancer is personal. How my brother coped with it has little relevance to someone starting out on the path to recovery. Thanking the nurses who deserve thanks is easy. Trying to get someone to "not give up," offering hope, and accepting the burden of hope, means re-living an episode that my brother has buried. So far.
Pastries are easier...
May is Oncology Nursing Month. If you, or a loved one, has cancer, or is a cancer survivor, please pen a note to your nurses, or visit them, if you can. Let them know that you remember them, and that the work they do makes a difference. Your words – the fact of your life - will mean more than donuts or flowers, although these are also nice.
Fifty one years ago, the United States got a wake up call, in the form of the first man made satellite, pinging a message that our mortal enemy was winning the space race. Our response to that challenge was a nationwide push to improve science and math education. The investment paid off: For most of the last few decades, the US has dominated world science and technology. We have not only begun to explore the planets of our own system, we have discovered planetary systems far beyond our own. We have unlocked the human genome. We have discovered effective treatments for AIDS.
But there are disturbing signs that we are slipping; that we’ve gotten lazy. Japanese, Korean, even Estonian students outscore Americans on science exams. Nearly 35% of doctorate degrees in science at American institutions in 2005 were earned by foreign students, who will take that knowledge home with them. The next generation of supercollider that will unlock new secrets of the atom is being constructed in Europe. Microsoft is building its new development center in Canada. Leading edge biomedical research, including research into the use of stem cells, is also moving off shore. These loses represent not merely bragging rights to esoteric discoveries, but the high paying jobs on which our standard of living depends. We are failing to prepare our students to compete in a global economy.
It is a hopeful sign, then, that CMS has hired 87 new science teachers, and, just this year, announced that elementary school students will actually start learning some science: 45 minutes on each of three days a week. High school students will now take science 90 minutes a day, twice a week. This is still a far smaller dose of science than I got, in the heady days after Sputnik, but it is a start, after years of neglect.
Also, North Carolina is proposing to establish End of Grade science tests for the 5th and 8th grades. After all, what you test is what you get. From what I can see from the sample questions and the science curriculum descriptions, our students should receive a solid grounding in the current facts, theories, and techniques of science.
But what I did not take away from those descriptions is a real feel for what science is – and what it is not. Most of all, it is not a search for ultimate “truth.” It’s more a search for what works. Yes, it’s a matter of gathering up facts and observations, but the core of it is making sense of those facts and observations, by building paradigms, or “theories” - a word that means something very different in science than it does on detective programs. A good theory will explain your facts and observations and will allow you to make predictions of new facts and observations that “test” the theory. Isaac Newton’s theories of space, time, and gravitation “worked” for more than 200 years. However, there came a time when the theory began to fail the tests of its predictions. There was no ether for light to move through; the speed of light was constant, not variable; time was not constant, but was variable. Einstein’s theories supplanted Newton’s. And one day, maybe soon, another theory will supplant Einstein’s. The facts will be the same, but the theories that explain them, and that lead us to new facts, will change.
To illustrate: There is one question on the NC End of Grade Test that could not have been asked when I was in the 8th grade:
“Which is the best evidence that two continents were once connected?”
When I was in the 8th grade, most geologists thought the theory of plate tectonics, or continental drift, as it was known then, was the raving of lunatics, despite “mountains” of evidence in its favor. But the discovery in the earth of a viscous, molten core, on which the continents did float, overturned decades of settled science. Now we know. Or we think we do.
If we want the new push for scientific excellence to work, we have to convey a sense of the adventure of the thing; the excitement. Science should not be a boring exercise in memorizing facts, or reciting the periodic table like the nine times table.
Mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski described science as “a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known. We always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. “
It’s a journey of discovery that never ends.
Article 2: Don’t Feed the Dinosaurs
A dinosaur paid me a visit the other day. The walnut sized ball of hyperactive feathers had been casing my deck for several days, and announcing his ownership of it to the immediate universe. So, when I left the door open for the dogs, he decided to check out the indoor facilities. They were not to his liking; he built his abode in a large azalea nearby.
Scientists’ view of dinosaurs has changed a great deal since I was a girl. Then, my books described dinosaurs as large, lumbering lizards, who might actually have died of stupidity. Years ago, no one would have suspected that my little Carolina Wren is the first cousin, millions of times removed, of Tyrannosaurus Rex. What do they have in common, beyond a giant attitude? Lots, apparently. Many scientists now say that not only are birds the descendents of dinosaurs; they are dinosaurs.
The cap on all this was the 2003 finding of the massive leg bone of a tyrannosaur in the deep shale of Montana. Scientists found, to their amazement, that some soft tissue was preserved inside the leg. It was collagen, a protein, and close analysis found that it was nearly identical to the collagen of an ostrich. Give Tyrannosaurus Rex wings, and it would be a bird. Maybe it would taste just like chicken.
So Charlotte is fortunate to have its own Jurassic Park: The Carolina Raptor Center in Huntersville. There, you can visit creatures just as magnificent as the creatures in the Jurassic Park movie, on a somewhat smaller scale, of course. Some, like kestrels and eastern screech owls, are almost as small as my little wren. Others are huge, as birds go: Black vultures, ospreys, and bald eagles.
Several of these birds have become well known citizens of our community. Who can forget the perils of Garibaldi, intrepid bald eagle and explorer? A severe storm in July of 2005 caused the eagle aviary to collapse, and Garibaldi was flying free! The problem was, he couldn’t fly well enough to hunt. Still, he was able to scavenge for food and elude would be rescuers for 7 months. After numerous “Garibaldi sightings,“ he was recaptured in near Beverly Hills Elementary School in Concord, very thin, but otherwise healthy.
Then, there are the doting parents, Derek and Savannah, also bald eagles. Charlotte watched them hatch and raise Len and Lola, who were released a couple of years ago. You can still follow their daily travels at http://gisserv1.uncc.edu/website/eagles/viewer.htm. This year, the Center hopes for more progeny.
I have my own favorites. The barred owl Omar is one. Omar was imprinted, and thinks he is a person. He especially likes to “hoot” at the ladies. Imprinting is a common form of injury in the birds at the Center. Someone will find a cute, fuzzy little owlet, and try to raise it as a pet, visions of Hogwarts dancing in her head. But when an adult owl lands on her head, the dream will be a nightmare, for the human and the owl alike. Those talons are sharp. Trust me; I know whereof I speak. You can’t release such an owl, or an imprinted hawk; it does not now know how to find its own food. And as a side note, keeping these birds is illegal; you can get a big ticket for it. So, if you find a nest of barn owl eggs or an orphan baby kestrel, contact the Center immediately. The experts there will foster it (some of the birds at the Center make excellent foster parents) and will make sure it is taught how to catch its own food. It will have to get past Mouse School to graduate to a tree near you.
Another of my favorites is Bob O, a barred owl who suffered the most common injury to raptors: A collision with a car. Bob O is blind. Seventy-five percent of an owl’s head is made up of its eyes; if your own eyes were as big as an owl’s, proportionately, they would be the size of grapefruits. Any head injury will likely affect an owl’s eyes. Car injuries are so common because we humans so often throw food out of our cars. The food attracts the mice and rats that are a raptor’s favorite dinner items. Not even these tough, smart, feathered dinosaurs have any defense against two ton metal objects moving at 80 MPH.
So, come on down to Jurassic Park South! Volunteer (especially if you don’t mind cutting up rats)! Donate! Adopt, either one of the residents, or an orphan scheduled for release! Or, just commune with some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet.
Article 3: “When I Was Your Age”
My Granddaddy used to tell me that when he was a boy, it took two days by mule cart to travel the 10 miles between Reelsboro and New Bern. There was no bridge over the Neuse, then, just a rickety ferry that constantly threatened to tip him into the brink. The picture he painted of the North Carolina of his boyhood was grittier and realer than Norman Rockwell’s airbrushed America, now on display at Discovery Place. Now that I am a grandmother, I wonder what sort of world I will paint for my own grandchildren. “When I was your age . . . .” Heck, when I was in college there were no computers; there were not even any calculators. I had to do long division with a pencil, a paper, and an eraser. Does anybody do that anymore? I could even extract a square root by hand.
“When I was your age . . . .” we had one large, black telephone, with a “rotary dial” on the front. You can play with one at the Rockwell exhibit. The first three “numbers” were letters: MELrose 4861. No family had more than one car, and few had a television. I listened to “The Lone Ranger” on my little red radio: “Hi Ho Silver! Away!”
“When I was your age . . . “ my thoroughly Southern Momma demanded that I address anyone my senior as “Mr. or Mrs.;” “Sir or Ma’am.” I lived for 15 years next to a lady named Mrs. Waters without ever learning her given name.
“When I was your age . . . “ my brothers and sisters and I could roam anywhere in the county without supervision – or rather, under the supervision of every person who saw us. Everyone knew who we were, and would tell Momma everything we did.
Times really were simpler “when I was your age.” We never bought anything unless we could pay for it, cash, on the spot. Accepting charity was a deep disgrace, even during the Depression. Miss Mamie Sadler, the proprietress of the Green Grocery Store, gave my granddaddy credit then, out of friendship, but even gestures of friendship incurred an obligation. He paid back every penny. Miz Sadler later said that he was one of the few who did; he kept coming back, with whatever money he had, no matter how long it took.
Much later, he had a heart attack. He had no insurance, and Medicare was undreamed of. That cost him all his meager savings. The doctors think he had several more attacks after that, but he never went back to the hospital. He had no money, and wouldn’t be a charity case. One day, Momma went out to his trailer, and found him sitting there, where he’d had his final attack while tying on his work boots.
So were things better “when I was your age?” In some ways. But I would never want to go back. For one thing, I enjoy modern conveniences. I prefer having a computer to do my taxes, and to connect me to the entire universe. I like the security of a cell phone in my car. And for another, the veneer of gentility past hid a dark heart of bigotry we find it difficult to imagine today. I remember, after all, the line that comes after “Eeny Meeny Minee Mo . . .” Trust me; it wasn’t a “tiger” we caught by the toe.
Besides, we can’t go back. The world that existed “when I was your age” isn’t there any more. My grandfather’s generation, the Depression generation, changed it, by beginning the safety nets, like social security, that protect us from want and early death. The “greatest generation,” my father’s, went on from there to win WWII. My own generation changed the world we grew up in as well. We answered Martin Luther King’s call to help our brothers free themselves from oppression at home, and John Kennedy’s, to “[P]ay any price, bear any burden, ” to protect the world from oppression abroad. It is a testament to how far we have come that the Democratic nominee will be a woman or an African American. That couldn’t have happened “when I was your age.”
Yet, we still have miles to go. Along with our successes, we have created some spectacular messes that our grandchildren will have to clean up. And we have left some of our battles, like King’s dream of equality for all, unfinished. But they’ll do fine. When they tell their own grandchildren what life was like “when I was your age,” our world will be as strange to them as my own grandfather’s was to me.
And maybe they’ll have their own Norman Rockwell to airbrush out the warts.
Article 4: Doughnuts for the Nurses
My grandmother died of cancer, on her fifty-second birthday, June 12, 1937. My mother died of cancer on Easter Sunday, 1965. Cancer is a personal enemy.
So, ten years ago, my heart froze when I heard that my brother had been diagnosed with cancer – our enemy was stalking a new generation. We are all – my seven siblings and I - Brits at heart, and so, do not speak of such things. But we were all very afraid.
He survived. So far. With cancer, you learn always to add “so far.”
Ever since he was pronounced “cancer free” (so far) he has followed a ritual. Every three weeks or so, he visits the Cancer Ward, and drops off donuts and assorted pastries for the nurses. It's how he deals with the place. It's a place he cannot describe, and for years he did not try. He just wanted to recognize some special people who work in trying emotional circumstances. He drops off his goods at each of the three nurse's stations, along with his thanks. It takes a short minute. He sees fewer and fewer nurses that he recognizes, about half, now, measuring by diminishment the passage of time.
The nurses are usually busy, of course. They will smile at him, and try to thank him, so he must correct them, and thank them. Until recently, that was the usual drill.
Then, one nurse stopped him. "I should know you,” she said. “You look familiar, but I don't remember your name." Another nurse, standing nearby, smiling, quickly said, "He's Hardstick, Hiccup."
On the Cancer Ward, you don’t deal with formal names. The nurses did not know his name, and he realized, then, that he didn’t know their names either. Names are too personal. "Hardstick" means it was hard to stick a needle in his vein for the chemo. It would often take hours, and any nurse was only allowed two tries. Once it took fully half a day. "Hiccup" refers to my brother’s peculiar reaction to the chemo. A few people are hardsticks, fewer still react to chemo with hiccups, still fewer have both. When the nurse remembered him as "Hardstick Hiccup", the other nurse said, "Oh, yeah!"
That exchange forced my brother to remember things he had forgotten – things he meant to forget. He, too, said to himself, "Oh, yeah...." as memories came flooding back. Memories, like the time he tried to call his wife, collect, at some wee hour in the middle of the night. The operator asked her if she would accept a collect call from "Chuck." Yes, the hiccups were that bad.
One of the nurses who did remember him told him, "You don't know what your visits do here. We never know, on this ward, where people go. If they make it, we never hear from them again. If they don't make it, we never hear from them. Your visits - most of us don't care about the donuts - your visits mean that what we do has meaning."
And so, my brother is known both as "Hardstick," by the old guard, and as "The Baker," by the new nurses. To the new ones, he is that mysterious individual who wanders in and suddenly there are pastries. Now, the old nurses are introducing the new ones to "Hardstick," and in the process, re-introducing my brother to his past.
They have invited him back, to talk to patients, but that may be beyond him, for now. He says that his strength may not extend that far. Cancer is personal. How my brother coped with it has little relevance to someone starting out on the path to recovery. Thanking the nurses who deserve thanks is easy. Trying to get someone to "not give up," offering hope, and accepting the burden of hope, means re-living an episode that my brother has buried. So far.
Pastries are easier...
May is Oncology Nursing Month. If you, or a loved one, has cancer, or is a cancer survivor, please pen a note to your nurses, or visit them, if you can. Let them know that you remember them, and that the work they do makes a difference. Your words – the fact of your life - will mean more than donuts or flowers, although these are also nice.
posted by Mooms at 7:00 AM
0 comments
