I met a real-life Santarina

Someone once told me that teachers are often remembered most by the kindness they show to their students, rather than the knowledge they impart to them.
 

If that's true, then it must also apply to hospitals, doctors - and especially nurses.

There is this one particular nurse who always comes to mind whenever I think of hospitals.

And although it has been nearly 45 years since I last saw her, it still feels as if my encounter with her was only yesterday.

I had been in hospital for nearly three months. I was only a boy of ten, then.

The doctors had put a plaster cast on me, from my chest right down to my foot. This was after a surgery which proved to be a total failure on the surgeon's part.

I was completely bedridden. I could not sit up but had to lie flat on my bed. I could not even turn from one side to  the other without the nurses' help owing to the weight and size of the cast.

During the length of my stay, I had to suffer the humiliation of having a bed pan and urinal brought to me in order for me to answer the call of nature.

It isn't difficult to imagine how a boy my age could quickly get depressed in the paediatric ward.

I felt that my family had betrayed and deserted me in the hospital even though they did come to visit. The surgeon who had performed the operation hardly had time to speak to me whenever he came over during his ward rounds.

I longed for at least a few moments with him. I wanted to know from the horse's mouth why I had become permanently paralysed after the surgery - and what I was to do with my life from then on.

But he continued to avoid me. When he did come by for a brief moment or two, it was always he who did the talking. I was forced to do the listening and swallow all my questions.

I continued to lie there on my bed. I could only see the ceiling fan spinning around and hear the sounds of the other patients and medical staff going about their business in the ward.

I became so frustrated that I threw the jigsaw puzzles and toys at the volunteer visitors who came by twice a week to spend some time with the patients.

And then came Nurse Smith.

She was a foreigner who was temporarily in the ward as part of an exchange programme.

Smith was the only nurse who cared enough to talk about my feelings as she attended to me.

One day, she noticed an unopened gift on my locker.

I told her it was a great battery-operated toy buggy which a relative had bought for me that day.

"I was told that it not only comes with flashing lights but it has a system that would make the motorised object turn around and go the other way when it bumps into things," I explained.

My relative had also said that because of the position I was in, I should wait until I got better and went home to test it out. "Besides, the hospital wouldn't allow you to operate it here," the relative had added.

"I have an idea," Nurse Smith said with a twinkle in her eye. "I'll see you later when my shift is over."

As promised, Nurse Smith turned up at 10.30pm.

Much to my delight, she helped me open my present.

My face just lit up like a Christmas tree the moment I saw the beautiful buggy car.

She then took out a fresh pair of batteries which she had bought and inserted them into the toy.

Nurse Smith carried the car up to my face. After allowing me to touch and inspect the car charged with its electronic capabilities, she put it on the floor.

Sure enough, it had a reflex action which made it turn around in another direction when it bumped into objects like my hospital locker, the wheels of my bed and the movable stand tray.

Although I could not see what was happening, Nurse Smith gave me a "running commentary" of the scene. Her voice slowly turned louder and louder until the buggy was halfway across the ward from where I was!         

After about 15 to 20 minutes or so, she picked up the toy and placed it back in its box. "It's time to let the other patients sleep," she told me with a big smile.

I was so happy that she had taken the time and trouble - as well as defied the hospital's rules for a moment - to let me enjoy my relative's present.

Needless to say, we became chums after that.

Nurse Smith would pop by each time after her duty was over to have a chat with me.

Even though she didn't have the answers that I was looking for from my doctor, she took time to listen to a 10-year-old boy's anxieties and fears about growing up as a person with a disability.

Nurse Smith had to leave the hospital and the country after a few weeks. I never saw her again.

But she had left only after being the best Santarina that any boy could have met in a lifetime.