Will You Marry a Nurse?

Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. (Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859)

Nursing care comes in many forms. Sometimes it is the ability to make someone feel physically comfortable by various means. Other times it is the ability to improve the body's ability to achieve or maintain health. But often it is an uncanny yet well honed knack to see beyond the obvious and address, in some way, the deeper needs of the human soul. (Donna Wilk Cardillo, A Daybook for Beginning Nurses)

Last week, I happened to read an article entitled “The Hands where Life and Death Lies.”  This article’s main point is that doctors or any man or woman in nursing uniform or lab coats have the capability to heal or even to kill their patients. Now, since medical personnel’s hands have this great responsibility, it occurred to me the situation wherein a man or a woman would decide to marry a healthcare worker especially a nurse. 

Is marrying a nurse a good decision? Or it would just prove that since nurses have the capability to heal and kill, marrying a nurse had its own benefits and regrets?

In preparation for the heart's month, which is slowly coming I was opted to include here in my second hub the reasons why you must or must not marry a nurse. Of course in the end, the decision will be all yours.

Confucius say:  "Man who want pretty nurse, must be patient."  (Author Unknown)

Jean Watson once said that “caring is the essence of nursing” and Val Saintsbury on one occasion told that “nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription.”  Well, it’s too obvious that nurses will not be considered as the heart of the healthcare if they don’t know how to care or to be compassionate with others. It is the sense of service to others no matter how gross a situation may be that makes me salute them.

Well, let’s see, the nursing career has more salary than some careers, right? The average salary of a registered nurse is $62,450. And since the healthcare profession is a kind of job that will always be in demand until there are no people who are ill, then, nurses will be always needed. “People need to physically visit their health care providers - or have their health care providers come to them - in order to get the care they need, which makes nurses essential to local communities.”

Nurses are very patient people, and hardworking too.  Working for almost 12 hours and more requires hard work.  Discrimination and sometimes even abuse from patients and helping doctors need patience. With these two qualities, they will surely make a good wife.

“Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse, “the famous Elizabeth Kenny once said. From Florence Nightingale up till now, you could always count on nurses in terms of guts and bravery.  You could assign them to a war, a society with different culture and a place with so many diseases and illness, but still in lieu with their duty and bounded oath, they have always the courage to face all those situations.

You know you're a nurse if... you triage the laundry when at home:  This pile needs immediate attention, the pile can wait, this pile, with a little stain stick will be OK until you get back to it.  (Donna Wilk Cardillo)

Since nursing career is always in demand, and nurses are working for 12 hours and more, you could probably guess that these people in lab coats and nursing uniform are very busy individuals. You will always find time to have time with them. And quality time is ever a need of spouses of nurses.

Due to their different hours of shifting and work, it will be hard for you to cope up with their schedules, unless of course you are also a very flexible person.

Although nurses have always safety precautions when they are in the hospitals or when attending to every patient, there will always be a risk and possibility that they may carry something from the hospital to your home.  I may also add that some nurses are depressed  due to their work or duty and it happened that when they  go back to your home, that depression will also affect you, as his/her spouse.

Nurses are clean individuals and yet there are times that the smell of the hospital go along with them. With regards to their nursing uniforms, are you sure you want to see them always wearing scrubs every day? Anyway, this last reason to regret marrying a nurse is so easy to resolve. There are a lot of fashion scrubs out there, and nurses can always add collection of perfumes and colognes in their bags and things. ;)

Now tell me? Are you sure you will marry a nurse?