Love is...

"She's my second wife." said my patient as I asked him who was going to drive him home from his colonoscopy.  He sat there in a wheel chair, coat still on, hat still in place, spinning his ring around on his left ring finger.  The volunteer had wheeled him in.
"Your second wife?"  I said.  "Yah, that's what I said.  Second wife, but first love," he said.
"Ok, great. I see that you are on Coumadin.  When did you take that last?"
"Yesterday." he said.
"You didn't stop it, we usually have you stop it for 5 days prior to your procedure?"
"Well, I am not really sure if I took it.  It's in my case and I just took what was in the Tuesday slot.  Is Coumadin the white pill?"
Getting annoyed, I said "well let me just go ask the doctor if he wanted you to take it, maybe there is something that he knows, that we don't.  Would your wife know if you took it?"
 "No, she is certainly the better of the two of us.  She always has been, always will be, since the day I met her.  I was 19, she was 17.  I am glad that I found her again.  But she has her own problems and I have mine.  She takes care of hers, I take care of mine."

--Ok... thanks for nothing, guy.  I walk away, go check on this whole Coumadin issue, leaving the patient with a gown and yellow socks to change into.--

I return with my needed info and find that the patient is half way done, struggling to tie up his gown in the back.  I get behind him to tie it, and look down to remind him to take his underwear off, because after all he is having a colonoscopy, and he says, "I was just testing you to see if you would look."  Oh... dear... Lord.  I never get sick of seeing an 80 year old back sides, I'm thinking.  "Don't worry, I won't tell her."  "Tell who?" "My wife.... that you know... looked."

I knew he wanted to get back to talking about his wife... as he kept trying to lure me back in... so I asked him as I was starting his IV about this second wife of his who was sitting in the waiting room for him.  His face lit up, and the words just exploded out of him, as if he had never told "their" story to a soul before.  Although, I bet every dime I have... every server who serves them food in a restaurant, every bank teller that gives them cash at the bank, and every cashier at the grocery store has heard this story once, or twice.
He went on to tell me that he knew this woman was the one he wanted to marry in high school.  They both asked their parents for permission as she wasn't 18 yet, and both sets of parents said HELL NO.  (his words, not mine) They told them that they were too young.  And too this and too that.  So, he enlisted in the Army and said good bye to her.  They remained loyal to each other and wrote letters... "You know Erica, not even the Pony Express could deliver our letters, they had to go overseas!  It would take a month to get a letter over!"  So finally, he told her to have fun and to just live, that this was no way to be living.  And so they broke up, for lack of better terms, despite not wanting too.  She eventually married, and so did he.  She had 3 children, so did he... "and then guess what happened?"  "What!?" "Well, my first wife, she found someone who was better than me I guess.  And she left."  She left him high and dry he said, and "just so you know, I am not very fond of the guy."
He was alone for years, and woman he met and dated wanted him to "move in" with them.  He told me, "I'm just not that kind of guy so I never did it!"  And then just a few years ago, out of nowhere... "She called, RING RING (he actually did the sound of a rotary phone ringing), Hello, who's this... It's Ruth," he told me that he just cried.  She had explained to him that her husband just recently died... and he had explained to her that he was currently going thru chemo for prostate cancer.  Shockingly enough they both were brought back to the same area.  He raised his children in Italy, and she raised hers here.  They met up.  And then 57 years after the date that they asked their parents for their blessing in marriage, (and they said no) they got married.  That weekend they were going out to celebrate their 5 year wedding anniversary.

This story was just so touching.  He was very sure to tell me that he was blessed in his first marriage because she gave him his kids.  But to hear an old man say... my heart was never really with her, it was with Ruth... just made you want to hug him.

As a nurse sometimes, by force, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of getting the patient in, and ready for the procedure that we don't get to listen to the human side of the patient.  The part that makes them, them.  And in the end, that's what I love about being a nurse.  The few times I actually have the time to listen.  You never know what gem of story they can tell.  And I am glad I let him tell it.  No matter how many times he has told it before.