Selfless nurse goes to hospital on her days off to pamper patients
There are things in life that we are passionate about. Apart from our families and loved ones, we are also passionate about our careers, art, and dreams.
For some individuals, helping others in need is a passion in life and one of these people is Brooke Johns, a nurse from Las Vegas.
Brooke works at the Southern Hills Hospital as an emergency room nurse. She is used to giving the best care possible to her patients and her heart is filled with compassion and genuine concern for her patients.
Her weekly shift at the hospital is already filled with numerous patients to look after, but this is not enough for the 40-year-old woman. She knows she can give more to take care of her patients and this is what she does every week.
On her days off work, Brooke still visits hospitals and gives patients the pampering they need.
When she visits various patients on her day off, she does something quite simple but very meaningful, especially for people who spend their days in the hospital bed and could not do the usual self-care routine they used to do before getting hospitalized.
Brooke brushes her patients’ hair and gives them attention. She also helps them in grooming, something that is quite a challenge when you are in the hospital connected to IV fluids and medication.
“It’s something just relaxing and very connecting,” she said about brushng one’s hair.
Brooke started this initiative during the pandemic.
As a nurse for two and a half years, Brooke has seen the impact of the pandemic on patients. Back then, she had a friend who got admitted for Covid-19 and because of the restrictions, visitors were not allowed to attend to patient needs. Only the staff can help the patients in the hospital.
“Her hair was very matted in the back,” Brooke recounted. “She was so weak, and wasn’t able to brush it out herself, so I just said, ‘Do you want me to brush your hair?’”
Her friend, like any other patient, had tangled hair due to lying on the bed for long periods of time. Brooke helped her by brushing her hair which took about an hour and a half to complete.
“Then I asked her, ‘Do you want me to braid it so that it doesn’t get like that again?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’”
The short and simple favor she did for her friend made her friend smile and lifted her spirit.
It was evident that her friend’s mood changed for the better after their short grooming session.
“She was a different person when I left,” she said. “The thought just popped into my head that if my friend benefitted so much from this, I bet there’s a hospital full of people that need some sort of human connection.”
One of Brooke’s patients is Sierra Stein. the 24-year-old woman contracted Covid-19 and had to be hospitalized. The virus paralyzed her legs which left her admitted for months to the hospital until she recovered.
Patients alone in the hospital are experiencing tough times, and Brooke knew this well.
She knew that having someone there for them makes a lot of good difference. Brooke was the attending nurse for Sierra back then, and one of the memorable times they had was when Brooke calmed her down for about 10 minutes and of course, during their mini grooming sessions.
Their connection gave Sierra something to distract herself with while waiting and working on her full recovery. The presence of another person, even though she is not family, gave her a new way to cope with her situation and eventually win over it.
Helping others does not have to be complicated to be meaningful.
Even a few minutes of your full attention to someone in need of human connection can change the way things go for that person. This is what Brooke does, and her kindness and genuine care for others is something we can all be inspired from.
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