Most of you reading this have no idea, but I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing degree. I went to college to be an RN. I passed my state boards and received my nursing license. I worked for a year on the Pediatric Unit at Fairview General Hospital near Cleveland, Ohio. Then I married my college sweetheart and moved to Columbus. I started a 3 year career in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Columbus Children’s Hospital. After having my first baby, I decided the hospital schedule was not ideal, so I took a job at Hilliard Pediatrics as an office nurse.

With that in mind, this story will be a lot more humorous for you. Either that or you’ll shake your head and pray to God that I’m not the nurse on duty when you are admitted.

See, people expect things of you if you’ve had medical training. They expect you to know the answers to any medically related question. Never mind that my experience in the workforce is all pediatric, I’m expected to know enough about geriatrics to identify various skin conditions, heart palpitations, and aches and pains. I’m also expected to be able to handle every bit of blood and gore and nastiness without flinching. Or gagging. Or passing out.

That’s where the trouble comes. There have always been three things that have made me super queasy. I cannot stand nosebleeds. Seeing someone with a nosebleed makes me lightheaded and nauseous. There could be blood pouring out of any other area of the body and I’m fine, but if it’s coming from a small opening in the face–blech!

The second thing is eyes. I wouldn’t mind looking at yours, but don’t pull your eyelid back and ask me if there is anything in there that’s not supposed to be. I distinctly remember during my Fairview stint “assisting” a neonatologist with an eye exam on a newborn. Because newborns aren’t so cooperative when you tell them to open their eyes, there is a special device to hold the eyelids open. Once the doctor inserted that, I no longer was his assistant. This is where I became hot and sweaty and had to leave the room.

The third thing I cannot tolerate well is watching a patient who is having severe trouble breathing. Oh, it’s not so bad if they can’t breath and they have a tube in their throat and are hooked up to a ventilator. Give me that any day. It’s when they are having trouble breathing and are gasping and saying, “I (gasp) can’t (gasp) breathe!” Again at Fairview I had a patient who was receiving some sort of lung treatment and unfortunately this was her response. I came this close |<—->| to passing out that day. I think it has to do with empathy–a great characteristic for a nurse to have–until that empathy actually causes the NURSE to feel like she isn’t breathing well!

This is where the flu shot comes in. Even though both Mike and I were educated in the benefits of the flu vaccine, we never got one. We figured we were young and healthy and could fight off the flu without too much trouble. And then one winter, KT got the flu. Not a big deal for her. She had a fever, spent a week on the couch, and then was fine. What followed was Mike getting the flu. His experience wasn’t so easy. He got the fever, spent several days on the couch, and then developed pneumonia. He did a bad thing. He had trouble breathing. I should have warned him in advance that if he ever had trouble breathing, I was out of there!

One night I wake up to the sounds of hacking and coughing and gasping. I venture to the bathroom to find Mike leaning over the sink, unable to take a deep breath in and unable to talk because of the incessant coughing. He did manage to choke out, “I (gasp) can’t (gasp) breathe.”

My response was the one every self respecting nurse would have–NOT! I leaned backwards against the wall in the hallway, squeaked out the words, “I don’t feel well,” and let my knees buckle under me. Luckily I crumpled and leaned to the left (landing my body in the hallway) instead of crumpling and leaning to the right (allowing my body to fall down a flight of stairs). The next thing I remember is Mike screaming at me, “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”

And he wasn’t coughing. And he wasn’t gasping. And he wasn’t fighting to catch his own breath.

So I cured him. My fainting spell cured his respiratory distress. Granted, it is not listed in the medical literature that this is a known treatment, but it worked. And I’ll use it again if the need arises.

Since then, everyone in the family has gotten either a flu shot or the FluMist every year and no one has contracted the flu. And I haven’t passed out since. So, somehow, some way, the flu vaccine prevents fainting. At least in my experience.

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