Dr. Santa and the Reindeer Scrub Nurse

Throughout my career I have worked many Christmas Eve nights.  The first was my first year in Nursing School – with barely enough nursing knowledge to justify receiving a paycheck.

I had volunteered to work 11-7 Christmas Eve. I don’t know to this day what prompted the decision, it just seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was.  I had a nice night with nurses who were surprised to have an extra pair of hands to lighten the load and an heart that was willingly working with them. As I took vital signs that night and again early that Christmas morning, I enjoyed being the first one to wish the patients a cheery and heart felt “Merry Christmas”. 

The vantage point of the unit on which I worked allowed me to watch the sunrise from a nearby window.  While I might have been awake before sunrise on Christmas before, I believe this was the first time I ever watched a Christmas sunrise.  It was as if the full meaning of Christmas rose with the sun inside my heart that morning.

At the end of my shift, my mother and I went to my sister’s to watch her children open their presents.  Somehow I felt as if I had already been given the greatest present of the day.

For years later I would volunteer to work night shift on Christmas Eve.  When our children were young, I would make arrangements with “Santa” about what needed to go where and when I came home, Christmas would begin.

A couple of years ago, I volunteered to work with Tammye and Denise.  All of us have children that are either older or grown and we had worked together the previous Christmas Eve.  That year we had each brought food for Christmas dinner and because our unit was empty – Santa was bringing no babies that night – we ate our middle of the night Christmas dinner and watched Christmas movies all night.  We got paid holiday pay for it, too!

That is exactly what we had planned for this time as well, but Santa had a baby on his delivery list.  Denise was the patient’s nurse.  I was the scrub nurse for the night and Tammye was the “free” nurse, which means she ran around and did everything else.

It wasn’t a calm night in the manger.  The patient was progressing rapidly and it was all we could do to keep up with her. . .get an IV started, get lab work drawn, call anesthesia for an epidural, get her bladder emptied.  In the meanwhile, the baby would have times when it concerned us.  Not bad enough to do a C-Section. . .just enough to keep Denise on the edge of her chair and us on our toes.

I went to set up a sterile delivery table and remembered I had worn a pair of reindeer antlers to work.  Still in the holiday spirit, I didn’t want to take them off, so I made holes in my scrub hat so the antlers could poke through them.  On went the hat over the antlers and I finished setting up the table.  Just in the nick of time too, the patient was pushing and the table called for.

Image via WikipediaThe baby delivered easily, thanks to Dr. Santa, and as the doctor was trying to sew the episiotomy, with me standing beside her to assist her, we kept noticing shadows that would move along the area.  It took awhile for us to realize the bright delivery lights were creating shadows from my reindeer antlers.

Looking back on it, I realize that was my last time to ever work with my dear friend Denise.  Fighting cancer these last six years, her body is now too weak to work with us though that is exactly where her heart remains.

Tammye, too, gave us a scare by having a major heart attack and then open heart surgery.  She is well now and her bright smile greets me in the morning when I arrive to work.

That night, Santa didn’t just deliver a baby to a mother, he delivered precious memories to three friends who love each other, loved to work together and will cherish the memories of our Christmas Eves together, reindeer antlers and all.