Stories are everywhere

We visited our son, Patrick, in New York City recently, and strolled around the Village on our way back to his apartment. I happened to notice a Bowery building that was gated and covered with graffiti, but with striking architecture. “How sad that someone doesn’t do something with that building,” I said. With that, Pat’s girlfriend turned and said, “Someone lives there, they won’t sell it, and the inside is amazing.” I thought she might be pulling my leg until she sent me an article from New York Magazine, with slides of the interior. An artist and his family live inside the 72-room former Germania Bank, built in 1898—and it’s true—they won’t sell. The inside story is worth a read.

The smoke room at Monticello
Photo by Gail M. Pfeifer

So what’s the point for nurses? There is a story inside everything, particularly inside your work: What presents as an obvious diagnosis in one person can be something else entirely in another—and you have ferreted that out at times. What the physician prescribes today might not be best for your patient in the long run, based on your clinical observations and your knowledge of how much—or how little—family support the patient gets. What your colleagues view as a family that is “a pain in the neck” to the nursing staff, you see as close-knit kin under extreme stress—a treatable diagnosis. There is more, as you know. These inside stories are worth a read, and you should write them.