As the early morning sunshine seeped through the curtains of the third radiotherapy ward, Xiao Fu was standing beside Teacher Xue's bed, adjusting her good limb position. Teacher Xue's left hand rested on Xiao Fu's wrist, resembling a piece of paper crumpled by the wind. Once, these hands could firmly hold the newborn's first cry, could accurately complete "a hit on the first try" during venipuncture, and could hold the young nurse's hand when she first started her career, saying, "Nursing is a technique that warms the hands and warms the heart even more." Now, the muscle strength of these hands is only at level 3, and even gripping Xiao Fu's fingers requires some effort.
When the "mentor" becomes the "mentee"
When I first met Teacher Xue, she stared at her immobile right hand with eyes resembling a lake shrouded in mist. This nursing veteran, who once stood beside hospital beds and taught students with warmth and professionalism that "nursing is a skill that warms the hands and warms the heart even more," fell into self-denial after falling ill - unable to take good care of herself, despite being able to carefully attend to every patient in the past.
The young nurse Xiao Fu didn't rush to comfort her. Instead, she squatted down to look at her eye to eye and asked, "What do you hope we learn most when you teach us?" Teacher Xue's eyes suddenly lit up. "Rigorousness, responsibility, and treating patients like family." "Then we will take care of you in the way you taught us." These words brought a long-lost smile to Teacher Xue's face for the first time since she was admitted to the hospital.
After that day, a special "reverse teaching" began in the ward: Teacher Xue, leveraging her years of clinical experience, instructed the nurses to detect subtle emotional changes in hemiplegic patients. The nurses, in turn, held her hand, taught her to use her left hand to squeeze a sponge for rehabilitation training, accompanied her in overcoming her fear of the disease, and helped her make a video call to reunite with her former students. At this moment, everyone truly understood that the inheritance of nursing is not one-way. Hands warm the heart even more, and the warmest of all are those willing to bend down and listen with a calm heart.
Rewriting her life story: She is not "Nurse Xue, defined by illness"
On a dusk-filled evening, nurses gathered around Teacher Xue's bedside, compiling her "life storybook". In the photo, she stands proudly in a crisp nurse's uniform, smiling at the nurses' station. Another photo shows her leading an intern on a ward round, with a pen half-exposed from her white coat pocket. The chapter titled "Before Illness" is filled with glory, while the beginning of the chapter titled "After Illness" is reduced to cold and heavy medical descriptions such as "right-sided hemiplegia" and "inability to care for oneself".
"Teacher Xue, look." Xiao Fu pointed to the storybook and said, "You're not Nurse Xue defined by brain tumor and hemiplegia. You're just Nurse Xue, only now with an additional story of illness. The previous stories haven't been reduced at all." Teacher Xue's fingers gently brushed over her young face in the photo, and her eyes suddenly reddened: "I always feel like I've become a useless person..." Xiao Fu held her hand: "You taught us to write nursing records objectively but not indifferently, but when we wrote about you, how did we forget to write the full name 'Teacher Xue'? That day, Teacher Xue showed a relieved smile for the first time on the hospital bed, like the branches of ice and snow melting, revealing the inherent softness of life......
Later, the nurses came to understand that narrative nursing is never just about recording stories, but about helping patients reassemble their scattered self-fragments into a necklace. When Teacher Xue stopped focusing on her lost right hand and instead mentioned, "Today, I rang the bell with my left hand three times, one more than yesterday," the nurses saw the light in her eyes - the glimmer of life recalibrating its coordinates amidst adversity.
Hospice care: Making every day a "meaningful today"
As the disease progressed, Teacher Xue began to experience frequent bouts of pain. The nurses adjusted her analgesia regimen, provided her with a memory foam pillow, and placed a warm water bottle beside her spasming leg. One late night during a ward round, Teacher Xue held onto Xiao Fu's clothes and whispered, "Xiao Fu, I can't sleep because of the pain, but when I hear you talking in the nurses' station, I feel at ease." At that moment, Xiao Fu suddenly understood that hospice care is never about fighting death, but about providing patients with the warmth they need as they journey towards their end.
The nurses encouraged Teacher Xue to use her left hand to send voice messages to her students who were far away. "Xiao Wu, don't forget the 'three checks and seven verifications' I taught you back then when you lead a team now." In the video, the student cried and said, "Teacher Xue, I check every day." The nurses instructed the family members to learn how to make her favorite lotus root starch, and watched her sip the soup with a smile, saying it was sweeter than the hospital cafeteria. The nurses accompanied her to sort out her old belongings, polishing her nurse's cap from those years until it shone brightly, saying, "This is the medal you gave me for nursing care." Teacher Xue no longer asked, "What else can I do?" Instead, she often said, "I feel at ease today because you are here." It turns out that for terminal patients, the most precious treatment is the reassurance of being seen and the confirmation that they are still important.
The journey home within the white robe
On the day Teacher Xue left, the morning light was still gentle. She leaned serenely in her daughter's arms and whispered softly, "I am very content to be a student again, being so gently protected by you all."
Xiao Fu suddenly recalled the frustration expressed by Teacher Xue when she first entered the hospital, "I can't even take care of myself." She remembered her red-rimmed eyes when she was rewriting her life story, and the light in her eyes when she squeezed the sponge with her left hand. It turned out that the most touching part of nursing was not the miracle of healing, but when white uniforms met white hair, and nurses finally learned to use the warmth taught by their predecessors to warm the journey of another life.
Nowadays, every time Xiao Fu passes by the nurses' station, she casts a glance at the ward where Teacher Xue once stayed. The curtains there are still kissed by the warm yellow sunlight, as if they still retain the warmth of Teacher Xue's left hand when she pressed the bell. We finally understand that nursing humanity is to let every person trapped by illness turn "being sick" into a footnote in their life story, rather than the whole. It is to let everyone return with the dignity of "I have lived well".
This perhaps represents the most authentic essence of nursing - nurses are not only warriors battling illness, but also listeners and retellers of life stories. The white robe is never a barrier isolating diseases, but a bridge connecting lives, gently erected through inheritance and protection.
Author: Chen Kailing
Editor: Jia Jiguang
First instance: Huang Guifang
Second instance: Jiang Bei
Source: Hainan Cancer Hospital Nursing Official Account