“I’m not afraid of dying, sister; it’s the pain I fear,” said Teresa’s patient, gripping her arm gently but insistently. “It’s worse at night.” In her delight at finding a person of faith among the nursing staff, Betty had forgotten that Teresa Avila was no longer a nun, and had left her order to nurse in public hospitals. She had not been called ‘sister’ for twenty years or more.
Teresa smiled encouragement, patted her arm, and confided, “The sedative they gave you will minimize any pain you feel. You’re in good hands here. If all goes well, you could be discharged tomorrow.” She bent down and whispered, “Say a quiet prayer.”
“Thank-you, sister.” Betty settled down to sleep.
In their short time together, Betty had entrusted Teresa with so much of her past that she had surprised herself. She did not usually unburden herself to virtual strangers, but Teresa was a kindred spirit: their meeting might even have been foreordained! Betty was single, an only child childless herself, and had had a hard life, just like Teresa. They even shared the same birthday, one year apart. Betty had cared for her bedridden mother until the graceless old woman had died at 98, leaving her alone. “So we’ve both been nurses!” Betty told her triumphantly, but even she knew that she herself, prey to unrelenting anxiety, lacked Teresa’s quiet faith. She admired her thoroughness and efficiency and her selfless devotion to duty. She saw how the doctors respected her, and how younger colleagues consulted her. A cheerful Filipino orderly had even confessed to her that he “worshiped the ground she walks on,” although, he added, hand on heart, he loved the mother of their five children, his wife Lourdes, even more.
That day the ward had been short-handed, and Teresa had been asked to work a double shift. Between shifts there was a gap of some twenty minutes she had used to walk to her brother’s house nearby to see that her young nephews had had their supper, as she could not trust their father, an alcoholic widower, to feed them. No-one on staff knew she sometimes did this.
In the pool of light outside her ward that evening, from her bed nearest the corridor, Betty could see Teresa at her nursing station busy with paperwork. She drowsed uneasily in spite of the sedative, aware of the burden she carried in her brain, and thus on her mind, every waking moment. Her headaches, her neurologist had informed her, were the result of a cerebral aneurysm, a weakness undetected, perhaps, for years, and potentially fatal. She could either submit to surgery to insert a clip at the neck of the aneurysm, which would involve drilling four holes in her skull to gain access to the ballooning artery, or she could agree to an interventional ‘procedure’ involving the deployment of ‘coils’ ferried within a catheter inserted in the groin which would travel all the way along an artery to the brain itself, where these coils would act as a plug to prevent the access of blood to the aneurysm itself, to protect it from bursting. She had decided against surgery, and the intervention was now scheduled for the morning. She knew she would see Teresa before she was wheeled to the “angio suite” at eight-fifteen. Would she feel the catheter? Teresa had told her not to fret: there are no nerve endings within the body, and the radiologist would give her a local anaesthetic, so she should not feel anything. Still, she was apprehensive: since childhood, every dark night for her had always seemed prophetic.
