He calls me Kansas...

I walk into his room and whisper his name quietly to see if he's really sleeping. I hesitate to turn on the light and decide I'll let him sleep a bit longer even though I had promised to wake him up bright and early that morning. As I turn to walk back out of the room I hear "Kansas? Is that you?" I turn around with a huge smile on my face and we begin our day together.
It's not all that often that you get a really wonderful person to care for at the hospital. It's not that people aren't generally friendly it's just that they are hurting or sick and the last place they really want to be is where they are, but something was different about this man. He had a way about him that from the minute I walked into his room that first day and he greeted me with a mischievous smile and a firm handshake, I knew he would be different. I introduced myself and we went through the regular morning routine that I do with all patients. I wrote my name on his board and he said "Who's adrian?, you're not adrian right?" I said "Nope, I'm Kristen, maybe adrian was from the lab or someone that cared for you in surgery or recovery". He kind of shook his head with an 'I'm out of my mind' look and went about his business. He was one of those patients that you wanted to spend the entire day at his bedside just chatting because he had the most detailed stories and funny too. We discovered that we had a ton in common even though he was as old as my grandfather, but that didn't seem to matter, we talked about music and theatre and literature and growing up in the country and the hours passed like minutes that day.
For some reason even though we were spending many hours together he had a hard time remembering my name. He had a friend visiting during our first afternoon together and as I changed his surgical bandages his friend asked "Where did you come from Kristen?" I wasn't sure what he meant exactly so I said...."What do you mean exactly?". He explained "I mean were you recruited specially for this particular job?" I explained to him that I had recently moved from Kansas in July and that I was indeed specially trained in Spine and Orthopedic surgery. This conversation set the tone for many more interesting conversations to come including the great Kansas plains and favorite pasttimes, and from that point on my patient found a way to remember my name...well kinda. He just called me "Kansas".
For some reason I really liked the name. He would go walking in the hall with the physical therapist and holler down to me "Hey Kansas, we're talking about Alice in Wonderland if you want in on this action". I smiled more that day than most days I can remember at work. I just love it when people suprise me with such wonderful personalities and are so thankful for the care you are providing them. As they say Nursing is at times a very thankless job but each and every smile and 'thank you' we do get makes it well worth it.
He was leaving me today. Going home to continue his recovery and he had a bit of a rough morning with pain and such. He seemed grumpy but always tried to keep a positive attitude, and he was very up front about it, he said to me "I'm grumpy right now". And I said "That's just fine, you're entitled and so I'll just try to keep my spunky personality at bay in order not to really annoy you". He smiled at me and just said "You crack me up Kansas". Later that afternoon it was time for him to go. We packed up his stuff and his wife came to pick him up. As I wheeled him down the hall in his wheelchair he just said again. "Thanks again Kansas." The car pulled up to pick him up and as he stood up from his wheelchair he turned to give me one of the best hugs I've ever had. I don't know what it was about him but it was like getting a great hug from your dad. He went on his way and I went back to my day. He is someone I think I will remember for a long time. He shall be known as 'The man who named me Kansas'.

*On another Kansas note, I'm missing home tonight especially since Jack got to fly home today and it made me very jealous when I dropped him at the airport and then as I flipped through the channels and the stupid bachelor wedding something or other was on I caught the tune Over the Rainbow playing....If you haven't heard his version you should check out Jason Castro. (The kinda dredlocked hippie kid from idol some past season)