So the story began a few months ago when I went to the Dr for the case of a bad flu…while I’m there I get told to come in one day and have a routine blood test just to make sure that everything is on track… Fast forward 2 months… Date is Wednesday December 29th!
I know I know its been 2 months since I was told to have a blood test but at least I made it…well little did I think about the timing of my little visit. It was the first day after a 4 day weekend.. The clinic was packed with sick people. So here we were, Myself and my two healthy kids waiting in line amongst around 30 other sick people…I walked up to the pathology room door and took a number….I was number 28...ok I guess that wasn’t too bad..untill I heard that they had just called in number 6!!!!
…So after about half an hour the first “mum how long is this going to take” came my way…I looked at the clock and thought…well we have been here for half an hour and only 3 people have been through so far…hmmm this isn’t going to be a short wait!
So I got out the trusty old iphone and kept the kids entertained while also watching the minutes just go by… Each time the nurse came out to call someone we all looked at each other and tried to recalculate the estimated waiting time.
The kids started to wonder if the nurse was a vampire and was busy sucking blood and that’s why she was taking so long…all that was on my mind was…after all these patients and considering that half of them were grumpy and rude to her, how light handed exactly was she going to be with this needle… I mean should I wait or just cut my loses and come back another day?:s…
But every time this lovely nurse who was all on her own with a back log of patients called another patient in, she was so calm and had a smile on her face with each and every person. Even with the ones who rudely knocked on her door.. interrupting another patients time and swore at her for taking too long!..
So after 3 hours of waiting at the clinic, the nurse comes out of her room and calls out number 28!! OMG we were all sooo excited we jumped out of our seats and went straight in. I sat down. I’m not the best with needles so I turned away as she prepared my arm…Kaylan my 6 year old however who wants to be a nurse when she grows up went and stood beside the nurse and asked her a million questions… Such as “If my mum eats enough purple lollies will her blood be purple?. Because its her favourite colour” and “Where does the blood go once you put it in the bag?” and “Are you tired of taking blood because you’ve been here a long time we had to wait for ages it was really boring!” and to each and every question this nurse just looked at her and answered each one with a smile!
I mean after such a busy day with extremely rude patients in her face for the last 3 hours of which id known of, she was still extremely nice enough to answer a 6 year olds odd questions.
And in amongst all this I didn’t even feel the needle go in!
So as we walked out the kids said goodbye and then turned to me and said well she was nice…At least she wasn’t a vampire! I looked at them and said..yeah she was nice and I didn’t even feel a thing, She did a great job! Why don’t we do something for her! The kids looked at me all excited as I said.. Lets get her a lottery ticket!
Well you should have seen the excitement in their eyes!!! So we all walked down to the newsagency and got her a ticket, we sealed it in a pretty little gift pack and went back to the clinic. We walked up to the door and waited patiently again for another 15 minutes till she was ready to open the door to call in another patient. As she opened the door she was surprised to see us again and the kids handed her the lottery ticket. She was shocked. I went on to explain to her that she was simply awesome! Even though I had been sitting in a stinky clinic with sick people coughing, and babies crying all around me for the past 3 hours it was worth it to meet such a patient and friendly nurse such as herself.
I explained to her that I had a bucket list and that #37 on my list was to purchase a lottery ticket for a stranger and that I wasn’t sure who that stranger would be or how I would find them but as I watched her throughout the past 3 hours I knew that she was the perfect recipient. She gave me a big cuddle with tears in her eyes and nearly made me cry too! It was a grand feeling. The whole time this stranger had me in her arms I was secretly wishing that she would win something big!!
I truly felt that she was deserving of the big win! And with that we said goodbye.
As we left her to her next patient, a young lady stepped up to verbally abuse her yet again…but we knew that she would be ok because she had a huge smile on her face!
It felt so good to meet someone so patient and loving and I think that it really taught the kids a good lesson that you don’t always have to be seen to be doing something specific for someone in order to receive good things! By the way I don’t even know what this Nurses name was as she was just a fill in nurse for the day due to the public holiday and we were all in a big rush as not to upset the already disgruntled patients. Either way I hope she did win big and wish her all the best of luck in all she does!
Being able to tick off #37 from my bucket list felt just as good as I thought it would and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do it with the kids.
The kids with the lottery ticket
