Editor’s Letter: Love a nurse, PRN - OCRegister

In this issue, for the second year in a row, we are bringing you our readers’ choice of some of the top women in health care in Orange County. I say “some” because although the women we are highlighting here are fantastic and deserving of the recognition, I know firsthand that there are countless others who don’t receive laurels, but are holding the world together.

Let me tell you about my mom. Her name was Deanne, but everyone called her “Dee.” Dee served four years in the Air Force, then, thanks to the GI Bill, was able to go to college. She started with dreams of going all the way through medical school to become a surgeon. A charming engineer from Italy named Armando short-circuited that plan. Let’s just say that she ended up a single mother, and had to find a way to support her daughter. Nursing was not only a convenient plan, it was also the one more expected of a woman in the 1960s.

Dee was the kind of woman who could do long division in her head. She knew how to use a socket wrench. She could tie maraschino cherry stems with her tongue and she drank Manhattans straight up, no bitters. She was a wisecracking redhead who in her younger days men called a “broad” or a “dame,” and when she was older, a fearsome battle-axe. She was known to terrify doctors, especially ones fresh out of their residencies. She had a mug she always used to drink her morning coffee from that said: “Love a Nurse, PRN.”

“What does ‘PRN’ mean Mommy?” I remember asking. I was probably 6.

“It’s short for the Latin ‘pro re nata,’ which means ‘as needed.’ ” She took a swig. “Cripes sakes, don’t they teach Latin in school anymore? Is everyone an idiot now?”

Which is to say, Dee was not exactly warm and fuzzy.

Naturally, this made for a crackerjack nurse in the operating and emergency rooms. She was her best in the midst of chaos. So often did she cover for a golf-loving OB GYN who never answered his calls that, if you were born in a certain hospital out West in 1971, and you are a girl, odds are your grateful parents named you Deanne, after the woman who brought you into this world.

Growing up I became fluent in the language of hospital workers – 3 to 11, 11 to 7, double shift, on call, pager. I understood that these are what provided my food, the roof over my head, my horseback riding lessons, the expensive jeans I coveted because I saw Brooke Shields model them in Seventeen magazine.

My childhood was filled with moments late at night when my exhausted mother would slip into my room to kiss my forehead. “Sweet dreams pussycat,” she’d say. Sometimes I would pretend to sleep. Sometimes I would throw my arms around her neck and say, “I love you, Mom.”

I think I didn’t say that nearly enough when I had the chance.

In homes across the county, right now, kids are waiting for their nurse mothers to come home. Which is to say, they are waiting for their entire world to walk through the door.

Thank you. We love you.

SAMANTHA DUNN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

samantha@coastmagazine.com

Twitter @SamanthaDunn

COAST :: JUNE 2020

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