I will often get asked by friends, family, and even strangers what I do for a living. When I reply that I am a nurse practitioner in oncology, the responses are usually something to the effect of, “Wow, that is a hard job. I don’t know how you do it.” But often the second half of the response is, “Thank you for doing what you do, because I could not.” This second response is often why I am reminded why I do what I do.
My oncology journey began way back (and no, I’m not going to date myself!) in undergraduate when I was working as a CNA in orthopedics. I was already in nursing school but hadn’t completely settled on a speciality that I wanted to work in when I graduated. One night, I was floated to the inpatient oncology unit, and to say I was freaking out about this float was an understatement. I thought to myself, “These people are so sick, and if they are in the hospital, they are dying. I don’t want to see that.” I called my mom (who was also a nurse) because I was genuinely scared. She reassured me that not everyone on that unit was dying and that the staff who work there were super special, and they would be very kind to me.
So I showed up and did beginning of shift vitals, passed water, took a couple of folks for walks, and then started bedtime routines. In orthopedics we always gave bedtime backrubs, as many of our patients were in bed most of the day, so this was my routine. I walked into a room and offered a patient a back rub. The patient, who had metastatic breast cancer, was in her room alone. Her family had gone home for the night, and she was watching TV. I offered her a back and foot rub. She looked at me and said “Sure, that would be nice.” We got to talking and she told me about her kids and family and that she was very scared about dying. She was still actively getting treatment, but she knew the likelihood of success was very low. She talked about some of the things she was worried about missing, such as graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. It was a good thing I was rubbing her back because the tears were starting to run down my face. I was in there for about 30 minutes and just listened and offered support as I knew best. Once I was done, she thanked me for listening and said that these were things she was scared to share with her family, and she felt so much better about being able to talk about it. It was this one particular patient who changed my whole view on this speciality.
About a month later, I did my hem/onc rotation in nursing school and absolutely fell in love and haven’t looked back since. After 4 years of bedside nursing, I knew I wanted more out of my career but knew that I wanted to stay in oncology and thus explored pursuing becoming a nurse practitioner. I knew I had more to offer patients and haven’t regretted a day of it. Sometimes my patients ask if I would think about doing something else, and I tell them that “I’m going down with the ship” and never plan to leave oncology.
While we may not always be able to cure patients, we can have meaningful interactions in other aspects of their cancer journey. There are days when the road is tough, but I always remind myself of that patient in room 7 who thanked me for just listening. I still smile today when I think of her.