Jodie Picoult and an ugly Australian

I've been in hospital recently, and because it was difficult for me to focus my eyes for a while, I listened to podcasts and audiobooks. I hadn't read a Jodie Picoult novel for a while, so I chose Small Great Things as one of the audiobooks. The title is a nod to a quote from Martin Luther King.

In the author's afterword she said how she had wanted to write a novel about race for some time, but had felt inadequate to the task. Ultimately she completed the research that was needed and the result is this fantastic book. It revolves around an African American labour and delivery nurse called Ruth Jefferson, and is set in the recent past. The white supremacist parents of a newborn child refuse to have to Ruth touch their child, in spite of the fact that she is a nurse with twenty years' experience and a nursing degree from Yale. I won't spoil the plot line for you by saying any more!

You don't need to be Einstein to work out that along with race, prejudice is a key theme of the novel. We would like to think that 'that sort of thing' doesn't happen, but it does, and it happens in our own backyard.

In a bitter irony, I witnessed it myself when I was a patient in the ICU following my surgery. Many of the nurses were Asian, some from the Philippines, and I especially remember a beautiful Buddhist RN called Jackie who was the gentlest of souls and who had a knack for getting me to stop crying and focus on putting my energy into relaxing and getting better. Bless you, Jackie.

Across the corridor from my room was the man who is mentioned in the title of this post. He wanted to watch television all the time, and objected to being told that there was a curfew on tv watching- not unreasonable in the intensive care unit. In my post-induced-coma state, I was hearing everything three times, and let me tell you, I am not a fan of The Simpsons even when I only get to hear the dialogue once. This was part of the hell of ICU; that and the hallucinations and the pain. Eventually my hearing cleared and the hallucinations stopped.

I could see through my doorway (I wish I'd asked for it to be closed) across the corridor and into the darkened room of this man. I'm going to make some assumptions here, based on his voice. He was a working class man in his seventies or eighties. He would chant, "More tv, more tv!" but that was not the most obnoxious thing that came out of his mouth.

"How you got to be a nurse I'll never know!" was preceded by a small Asian nurse quietly leaving his room, sliding the door half closed, and disappearing down the corridor. I was stunned, and then I was upset. The tears that Jackie had forbidden were back, and I wept for that nurse, and all of the others who tended to this man's every need. Things tend to get back to basics in the ICU and you come to rely on the nurses for the most basic care, as well as the really complicated stuff. It's the ICU for goodness' sake- these nurses are highly trained and competent, regardless of where they come from and what the colour of their skin is.

I'll never forget the symmetry of this event, and the events of Jodie Picoult's novel. I give thanks daily for all of the nurses who looked after me when I was in hospital, and hope that one day the man in the room opposite might just see beyond the colour of the people he meets.