National Nurses Week Gives Opportunities for Gratitude

C Davids:peopleimages.com

National Nurses Week is a week-long event celebrating, honoring, and thanking nurses all across America for their sacrifices, hard work, and dedication to helping people. Be sure to take the opportunity to thank a nurse in your life for making a difference.

I vividly remember the first shower I was permitted to take in the hospital following the emergency cesarean birth of my first child. That simple shower was, unequivocally, one of the most life-affirming events of my life. And that shower was made possible for me because of a nurse. A nurse who took the time to gently help me walk into the shower stall, a nurse who helped me scrub off, helped me to sit down on the shower bench, had the patience to allow me to take my time and help make me feel human again. I wish I knew that nurse's name and had the presence of mind in that moment to deeply thank her for helping me regain a sense of normalcy after the absolutely harrowing experience of childbirth. That nurse was the real hero that day.

Nurses serve in that simple heroic capacity hour upon hour, day after day, in hospitals throughout America and it is for a week in May that we nationally celebrate their selfless service, their gentle kindness, their backbreaking work, and their strength in the face of tragedy and triumph every day. The week of May 6 - 12 is set aside to honor nurses and this year's Nurses Week theme is "Nurses Make a Difference."

One Erie nurse, Mollie Mello, RNC, IBCLC at UPMC Magee Womens Hospital Hamot, shares her thoughts about why she went into nursing, "There was never any doubt about what my career would be when I was in high school. My aunts were nurses, so of course, when my dad asked what I wanted to do, nursing was the answer." Mello offers sage wisdom for those choosing, like her, to enter the nursing field, "Learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Be gentle in your approach and surround yourself with positive role models. If you don't know the answer to something, search for it. You will be amazed how this practice allows you to grow."

Take some time this May to thank those nurses you know in your life. Their job is often thankless and National Nurses Week affords us all the chance to change that.