Photo of exhausted nurse goes viral: ‘Can we just give it up for nurses for a minute?’
Laura McIntyre shared a photo on Facebook showing her sister, Caty Nixon, in tears after a particularly stressful day of working as a nurse.
“She’s gonna kill me for this pic, but can we just give it up for nurses for a minute?” McIntyre wrote.
McIntyre said the photo of Nixon was taken back in July, but it wasn’t until recently that she posted it to Facebook.
“Caty just wrapped up her fourth shift in a row,” Nixon wrote. “That’s around 53+ hours in four days. That’s not including the 1.5 hours she’s in the car each day. She usually doesn’t get a chance to eat lunch or even drink much water. (& she has to dress like a blueberry.. i mean, come on). She is so good at what she does that she often forgets how to take care of herself while she’s taking care of her patients.”
McIntyre said on the day the photo was taken, Nixon had delivered a stillborn baby.
“Have you guys ever really thought about what a labor & delivery nurse sees? They see great joy in smooth deliveries & healthy moms & babies. They see panic & anxiety when a new mom is scared. They see fear when a stat c-section is called. They see peace when the mom has support from her family – bc not all new moms do. They see teenagers giving birth. They see an addicted mom give birth to a baby who is withdrawing. They see CPS come. They see funeral homes come. Did you know that they have to make arrangements for the funeral home to come pick up the baby? I didn’t either.”
McIntyre ended her post voicing her appreciation for her sister and all the other nurses who work hard.
“You are SPECIAL. you bless your patients & their families more than you will ever know. Thank you for all that you do,” she wrote.
