It's that time of year...Christmas stories

64 Christmas is coming. Half of us will be schlepping the halls.
This time of year always brings back one particular Christmas on duty.

First rounds , I am assessing a patient whose name was Jesus, a Mexican-American patient with a common first name for that culture. His wife was at his bedside. Her name was Mary.
His room mate's name was Joseph.
I realized.. it was Christmas morning and I was in the room with Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Spent the rest of the shift in awe.

What's YOUR Christmas story?
priceless!

I'm not topping that story..

I remember one shift I worked Christmas where one of my coworkers brought in fuzzy red and green socks for everyone working. It was a small gesture, but all of us there in our ridiculous matching Christmas socks brought a lot of joy to all of us and our patients stuck there on Christmas. Christmas as tends to be a horrible time of year on my unit for young people dying horrible deaths, so most of my Christmas work memories are not happy.

not a Christmas story but some years ago while working for a national insurance company (auto insurance), a man named Jesus (Latino) called to ask if his auto insurance would cover the rental of a 12 passenger van for Easter services...we got a LOT of mileage out of that!

Quote from xoemmylouoxI'm not topping that story..

Many years ago, I was working in the NICU at Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was a day or two before Christmas and we had to send our transport team to the East -- to Bethlehem, PA to pick up a sick baby.

Hopefully you had a bed available and didn't need to put him in a manger.

My Christmas story is a real downer. I work Onc...well, I guess it's the way you look at it.I was working Christmas(which is the night before for me) and we had a young leukemic who had been in horrible pain. Her room had been decorated in a lovely way, with softly glowing Christmas lights and a little tree. We were giving her a lot of meds just to keep things tolerable. She finally died on Christmas morning. I do remember the soft glow of the room and thinking she had finally found peace. It was one of those moments as a nurse I don't think I'll ever forget.

Well mine would have to be the one Xmas day shift I worked when I was working in the hospital. I was in the process of straight cathing a severely developmentally delayed quadriplegic teenager- like spread eagle, legs up above head, etc... and in the middle of it, the door flies open and in comes Santa.

Quote from KelRN215Well mine would have to be the one Xmas day shift I worked when I was working in the hospital. I was in the process of straight cathing a severely developmentally delayed quadriplegic teenager- like spread eagle, legs up above head, etc... and in the middle of it, the door flies open and in comes Santa.

Great stories!I work peds, and it's hard on the holidays. I am always uplifted by the fact that when I come in that night, every single child has been brought a few gifts from the volunteers. We are a not-for-profit hospital and depend 100% on the community for things like this. One year the community donated so many gifts that many of the children had at least 10 each. This was especially moving because I work on a unit where many of the patients don't have family come to visit very often. They are essentially abandoned-- long-term neuro kids or trach/vent babies who have never been home and are now several months old and still have a long journey to get to home. Working the holidays, especially in peds, I usually grumble a bit before I go into work because my work schedule always messes with my own holiday plans with my own family. But my kids are more than understanding. They tell me how good it is that someone takes care of those kids, especially the ones with no visitors. Nursing is a hard job physically and emotionally. But there's no better way to count your own blessings and hug your own children tight than after a Christmas night shift with the kids on my unit.

When I worked in ICU years ago when I was younger'n'prettier, our unit was in an old med-surg unit, a long straight hallway, with all the rooms on one side of the hall, wooden doors on every room, and the nursing station in the middle of the floor back to back with the nursing station of the mirror unit on the parallel hallway. There were four single rooms, two four-bed wards, and the rest were all two beds. You entered the unit at one end through another wooden door in a waiting room area we shared with the other unit in the parallel hall.Every year we decorated all the doors for the month of December-- this was before anybody gave a damn about flammable paper and stuff, and they were fabulous. Some were covered with stockings, one had a big Advent calendar on it, there were teddy bears and presents and Santas and Rudolphs and a menorah and a dreidl, all sorts of great stuff. I drew the entrance door out in the lobby one year and made a big red flannel panel with a huge 3-d holly wreath made out of felt leaves and red berries, a big bow, and the big letters P-E-A-C-E on the top, bound the edges in white satin blanket binding, and hung it up with a lot of stout thumbtacks. That was forty years ago, good godawmighty, and that banner is hanging on my front door right now. I miss that place sometimes.