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Dawn Speckhart and Octavia Kronemberg
Octavia: When I first started, I went home every night and I cried. I don't think this is for me. And then I said, you know, this is a challenge. The patients are amazing. I'm going to learn this. So five years later, here I am today.
Dawn: When I started, I didn't expect to know the patients as well as we do. I didn't expect that I would know it's their anniversary or that they had a fight yesterday or that their kid was looking for an outfit for their wedding. I didn't realize that we would spend every single day with these patients, like you're immersed in a whole ‘nother family. Why do you stay working here?
Octavia: I stay because we make a difference. I feel like there's more hope.
Dawn: It's been almost 20 years that I've been here. People say to me all the time—how do you work there? Why do you stay? And I always say, “Because no matter what the situation is, I’m making the patient’s day as good as it can be.”
Octavia: You have the opportunity to see the ALL patients when they come in. When you meet them for the first time, do you give them survival tools to cope?
Dawn: I say a couple of things, one of which is we’re going to take good care of you. That our goal is to get rid of this disease if that’s at all possible, and that these diseases are treatable. You know what you have and we just need to figure out what we need to do to get you better.
I do talk to them a lot about focusing on what’s important—that you have to prioritize. You know, you have to let somebody else pick up your kids. And they may not be wearing the right clothes to school and who knows if their socks will match, but it really doesn’t matter.
And most of the time, we just say focus on the day. I don’t like all the cliches we use, but one day at a time, it’s a marathon not a sprint—it really does help because that’s what they need to hear. I can only imagine how frightening it must be.
Octavia: How do you encourage the patient once they’ve entered remission to move forward and accept this new normal?
Dawn: Well, it’s hard because nobody really wants to. Many of them just have to figure out what it is that they want to do and how they want things to be. Not because they didn’t like the way they were or they don’t like the way it is now but you’re forced to give up control and you’re forced to have patience and what’s important just changes.
A lot of those somewhat superficial things go away. You just need to remind them, six months ago you were just hoping to be here. Now you get to be here. That’s really all you wanted. And so it’s a reminder of that.
Octavia: You have to enjoy the flowers.
Dawn: Which I think is a gift that we get from working here.
Octavia: Some days you go home and feel defeated. Some days you feel like a superhero. I don't think anyone understands except for the people who you work with. That's why you have to take care of each other.
Dawn: And the demands are purely for the patient's best interests and not for any other cause.
Octavia: Always for the patient.
