Sometimes when I am caught up in the political arena at work or frustrated about something we need to do, something happens that takes me right back to why I am here in this job. That something is often in the form of a 5 year-old boy, who I think is a very old soul.

He has blond wispy hair now that stands on end and brown eyes. When I first met him, he had no hair because he was in the middle of chemotherapy to treat relapsed Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia . This child has a way of setting me right when I least expect it.

One day I was taking care of him and he was having negative side effects from the treatment I was giving him. I was very concerned and was in and out of his room checking on him, calling the physician, and apparently fluttering around him. His blood pressure was running low and his heart rate was elevated. He was not febrile, but he was shivering. As I was taking his blood pressure for the 8th time, he looked at me intently and gently said, “I’m O.K. I promise. You worry too much.”

I was never sure that he was really just referring to my concern over his reaction to his treatment. His statement seemed more of a global assessment of my personality as opposed to his reaction to my vigilance in that instance. Needless to say, he received the rest of his treatment and was fine.

A few months later I returned to work from maternity leave and I was having some challenges getting back into the swing of things. My buddy came in asking for some numbing cream to put over the spot where his port-a-cath would be accessed. Many of the kids have rituals and preferences when it comes to exactly how we do these things, and the nurses have to keep mental track of who likes which dressing. I remembered that he liked a special dressing over his numbing cream because he feels it is easier to get off. I pulled out the dressing and as I was putting it on, I suggested that we fold the corners of the dressing down so he would have less sticky stuff to take off. He looked at me with a big grin and sighed, “You’re awesome.” He was not trying to be overly cute or sweet, but was simply very grateful for this small gesture that made him a little more comfortable. That reminded me why I wanted to be there.

One of my most treasured possessions is a sign this little guy gave me that says, “I heart you, you are kqut. Love, P.” The day he made that for me, we had visited the treasure box and he had carefully chosen a bracelet with some clip-on earrings which he immediately wore. A little later in the day, he was still wearing his jewels, as he called them, only he had further accessorized with an orange feather boa. He reminded me that you just have to be yourself, without pretense, as much as possible.

The thing about this kid is that every single person in the clinic where I work has a story or two about how this child really made them stop and think for a moment.

While we are trying to fix him, he manages to fix us all somehow.