Variety- Nightingale minisode #5

Michelle: Welcome to the Nightingale miniseries. This is minisode number five, Variety. I know you've heard the phrase, variety is the spice of life, and that actually came from William Calper's poem written in 1785 titled The Task. "Variety is the spice of life that gives it all its flavor." I could not agree more. And in this episode, Florence will tell us more succinctly exactly what patients need to recover. You're listening to the Conversing Nurse podcast. I'm Michelle, your host, and this is where together,  we explore the nursing profession, one conversation at a time. 
Florence starts this chapter by talking about what she needed when she was recovering. Remember, Florence contracted brucellosis during her time caring for soldiers in the Crimean War. She didn't take care of herself in terms of resting or eating well because she was taking care of a lot of other sick people, and her health declined to the point of her actually being bedridden for a period of a few years. She talks about the things that really bore us when we're sick, such as the food, she says, the monotony of diet. She describes things such as beautiful objects, a variety of objects, and brilliant colors as the fancies or cravings of patients. She even describes her own recovery when she says, "I remember in my own case, a nosegay of wild flowers being sent me. And from that moment, recovery becoming more rapid."  Who better to know what a sick patient needs than someone who's been sick, and especially a nurse? I'm generalizing here, but I think we could say that nurses have strong empathy, that they know what patients are going through and what they need most to help them in their recovery. In my 36 years of nursing, I have never cared for sick adults. I maintained the slogan, "I don't do big people." The closest thing I've gotten to caring for adults would be postpartum women, but they're generally not hospitalized long enough to have some of the same issues as recovering soldiers. As a pediatric nurse, I definitely agree that children need a lot of variety. And in our unit, we had a playroom that the children could access, and they could bring toys back into their hospital room. They would color and play games if they felt up to it. Their parents could also put them in a wheelchair and take them down to the lobby. I mentioned in a previous episode that the patients could access a patio, which did amazing things for their attitude. As a NICU nurse, some of our infants would be hospitalized for months, especially our extremely premature infants and our infants experiencing neonatal abstinence syndrome. I mean, as these kids grew and got more mature, they needed more stimulation, and they needed a variety of stimulation. Instead of just being fed and bundled and put back to sleep, they would need to be held more and given a frequent change of scenery. In reference to adults, Florence says, "a little needlework, a little writing, a little cleaning would be the greatest relief the sick could have if they could do it. These are the greatest relief to you, though you do not know it."  Florence certainly did. She speaks from experience. She talks about flowers and plants, that they should be present in a sick room, not only because they're beautiful and cheerful, but because they give off oxygen. Because of her liberal education, she had learned that Jan Ingenhouse, a Dutch scientist about 100 years prior, had made the connection that plants give off oxygen during photosynthesis. So, yay for education! Florence had an incredible intuition about the mind-body connection. We talked in a previous minisode about how she felt that light and flowers and a view out the window were necessities for recovery. And she adds variety. In this chapter, in one of her footnotes, she relays a tragic story about just how important variety is and that the lack of it can even be life threatening. She says, "I remember a case in point. A man received an injury to the spine from an accident, which, after a long confinement, ended in death. He was a workman, and not in his composition was a single grain of what is called enthusiasm for nature. But he was desperate to see once more out of the window. His nurse actually got him on her back and managed to perch him up at the window for an instant to see out. The consequence to the poor nurse was a serious illness that nearly proved fatal. The man never knew it, but a great many other people did. Yet the consequence in none of their minds, so far as I know, was the conviction that the craving for variety in the starving mind is just as desperate as that for food in the starving stomach and tempts the famishing creature, in either case, to steal for its satisfaction. No other word will express it but desperation. And it sets the seal of ignorance and stupidity just as much on the governors and attendants of the sick if they do not provide the sick bed with a view of some kind, as if they did not provide the hospital with a kitchen." This is incredible. Imagine being gravely injured, knowing you're going to die and wanting to see out the window, to see nature one more time, and this selfless nurse hoists you on her back, almost fatally injuring herself to give you one last view. This is what it means to be a nurse. Well, we have reached the conclusion of Florence's thoughts on variety. In the next minisode, Florence will discuss food, how we should go about feeding our patients and what we should feed them, and I think you will find it very interesting. I certainly did. Thank you and see you soon.