Five Minute Friday- a time to write for five minutes on a word and then post with other writers. The word is release.
With balloons in hand, solemnly we stood together, nurses and other team members honoring those that lost their battle with HIV. Before standing there, we lighted candles remembering their names. You see, my career dates back to the time when we had serial losses, it was nothing to lose from ten to twelve men suffering from full-blown HIV disease in a month.
Do you know that geese choose mates and fly in a V formation for the good of the flock? If one goose was hurt, another will go down and protect until the goose is able to fly again. At my work, I was a highly qualified, infusion nurse and so I provided care for these men that were suffering from HIV. Sometimes, the treatment would work and prolong their lives and sometimes the medication I administer did not work and the person suffering from HIV would pass away. We formed a club at work, know as Club Goose. The goal was to support each other, we were a multidisciplinary team, each had a role in that patient’s life. Support was so important during this season of my life as the losses were numerous.
A friendship formed during this time, a nurse named Ann. She and I are friends to this day. We were both Christians and struggled with the choices of the men we treated but honored our careers that as nurses we were able to separate the choice and honestly treat the men dying from HIV as human beings, praying silently for them as we performed our duties. There was nothing harder than living through this time in history. Yes, together she and I lived through the serial losses of HIV/AIDS in the late 1990’s.
I’ve retired from my nursing career and she continues to work, I praise God for our career as a nurse but I am most thankful that I do not have to release her as my friend. We may not talk weekly but we only have to call and each of us would be there for one another.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
