Nurse asks, 'Did you know I was there?' in touching viral post
Doctors get most of the credit, but if you ask a hospitalized patient who really made a difference in their life, chances are it was a nurse.
And while they often seem superhuman, nurses have the same emotions as the rest of us.
In a Facebook post that's been shared 10,000 times, nurse Sandra Maria Kluskowski wrote in part: "Did you see how I kept looking up at the ceiling to hold back tears? The lump in my throat was the worst part. It felt like I couldn't breathe."
Kluskowski told "Good Morning America" that a normal day soon turned "very sad" when she found herself preparing a patient for death.
"My heart hurts over the loss of someone's loved ones," she said. "I wish that I could take that pain from them but I don't have that ability; all I have is myself in which I try to do what I can when it comes to providing the care they need before and after death."
Kluskowski works at Memorial Hospital in Southbend Indiana, a place she calls "incredible." And while she said it's hard to leave her family to take care of someone's else's, she said she does it because "I truly love my job."
The hardest part of her work, she told "GMA," is "leaving for the day and wondering whatever happened to that person, and just hoping that if they are not still in the bed I last saw them in, then hoping and praying they made it home."
Sometimes she's the last person a patient sees before dying.
"Did you hear me whisper to you two hours prior to your passing that 'YOU are truly loved'?" she wrote in her post. "I don't understand how I could have met you on this specific morning and felt this kind of love for someone I barely even knew. I can't explain it."
Kluskowski continued, "Did you know I was there? I just want you to know that I did my best. I wanted more than ever for you to feel comfortable and safe all the way to the moment I covered you with a sheet and turned and closed the door behind me as quietly as possible as if to say ... I'm letting you rest."
