“Do you need help with that,” I asked, and smiled at her.

“Yeah, I’m just trying to get the gauze,” she said and grinned.

“Let me get that,” I said moving the boxes around to get to the right one, “I thought I’d met all the nurses.”

“Yeah, you’re new to me too, I’m Tina,” she said shaking my hand.

“I’m Bette.”

“I’ve been gone for a couple weeks, I just got off vacation.”

“Oh that’s fun, what did you do?”

“The first week I cleaned my house a bit and ran a whole bunch of errands. Then last week my husband and I went to my mother in law’s house in Santa Barbara.”

“Oh that sounds like a ton of fun,” I said and my heart broke a little; straight, just my luck.

“Yeah try managing to get there with a restless three year old in the back seat.”

“That’s sounds like even more fun,” I chuckle; damn she’s got a family.

“Yeah, he’s squirrely but he’s the love of my life,” she smiled.

“He’s a lucky kid,” I said and changed the subject quickly before my heart completely broke, “I actually need to talk to you about Mr. Fieldstone. Anything I should know before I get started?”

“Nothing other than him having hip replacement surgery yesterday. But he’s really scared of walking. He’s afraid he might re-injure himself, he just needs reassurance and a lot of guidance.”

“Well my goal for the day is to at least getting him walking from his bed to the toilet and back before I leave. I’ll see him three times before I go.”

“Well then I guess I will see you around.”

“Yes ma’am, I’ll be here all day,” I said and smiled, she looked at me for a quick second, smiled, and then walked out. I watched her walk the whole way. I’m in love I said to myself.

I went about my day and worked with Mr. Fieldstone who was a nice gentleman with three grandchildren. He talked about them all day as his wife sat in the chair next to him and smiled. I talked about the goals I had for him and how lucky he was that our hospital used the minimally invasive hip replacement surgery. During our first session I was able to get him up and walking a couple steps, but his fear got the best of him, so we stopped until after lunch.