Today is International Nurse’s Day and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank nurses all over the world for what they have and for what they continue to do for us during a very difficult time.

We’re delighted to be joined on our blog today by Mills & Boon Medical author Janice Lynn. As a full-time nurse, Janice has been working on the frontline during the pandemic and offers us a glimpse into her experiences.

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I’ve always heard the expression that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. For most of my nursing career, I have truly loved being a nurse practitioner. Taking care of others is an innate part of who I am, whether that be my family, friends, or my patients.

But during 2020, COVID-19 stole my passion. Last spring, I was fearful to go to work, afraid of what I might catch and taking extreme measures in hopes I wouldn’t bring COVID home to my family.

When giving a diagnosis of COVID-19, I saw the fear in my patients’ eyes that I’d previously only seen when diagnosing someone with cancer and there were few answers. As more was learned about the virus, my fear decreased to where I no longer dreaded going to work. But I still struggled with how to best provide care to my patients as I watched the many fingers of COVID affect my patients’ health beyond their actually contracting the virus.

My elderly patients became more and more isolated, lonely, and depressed, many of them going weeks, and then months without seeing their families. Adults of all ages struggled to cope with job and financial worries. Teens struggled with lack of social contact, with fear of the world they lived in, and many became depressed and suicidal. Students of all ages struggled with virtual learning and many former star students grades plummeted.

As I provided care for so many struggling in their own unique ways, I clung to the knowledge that the world was working together to come up with a vaccine, and hopefully, a cure. I’m going to fast-forward to 2021 and say thank you to all the nurses out there still holding the line, still facing the same challenges as I mentioned above, still exhausted and many dealing with mental and emotional trauma from this past year.

As stressful as I found nursing at times, I was, and am, so proud to be a part of this wonderful profession that provides healing and comfort.

Another of my passions is writing romances because I love happy endings. I’m lucky that I get to write Medical Romances as it’s easy for me to envision the medical professional characters as heroic as I truly believe they are. Whether it be an emergency worker, a physician, or one of my fellow nurses, the common desire to make others’ lives better shines through and who can’t help but love a hero or heroine who show such compassion fort heir fellow mankind?

When I look back on history, see that other generations have faced pandemics, and life went on, I remind myself that we, too, will have a happy ending. One where the sharing of information was like none other thanks to social media and a common goal to save lives. One where we’ll remember how the world came together to work on a vaccine for a virus that threatened us all. One where life, love, and happiness will ultimately triumph.

To all the nurses out there, happy Nurse’s Day. Thank you for all you do today and every day.

Janice

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We are eternally grateful for everything healthcare workers have done for us over the past year. This International Nurse’s Day, we celebrate and applaud their dedication and bravery. Thank you, from all of us at Mills & Boon x

By Lauren Gardiner