An interesting day

One of the many great things about my job is that my colleagues come for all over the globe. The mix of cultures is a wonderful asset to us as a team and to our patients. Sometimes, though, there are little surprises. Several months ago, I was chatting with a fellow nurse who is from Kenya, and mentioned that I couldn’t wait to get home to bed and to cuddle my little dog. She was horrified! “What!” she exclaimed. “You let your dog sleep with you? Under the covers?” She was visibly repulsed. Twenty minutes later, she was still appalled that such a grotesque thing could happen. “Joanna,” she asked, “that does just not seem right to have a dog in your bed! What if……… what if …. it touches your breast with its fingernails?” Obviously, she could think of little that was more disgusting. “I have my pajamas on and she never does. She just sleeps and growls at me if she thinks I am encroaching on her part of the bed.”
Then, on a recent evening, several of us were having a conversation in the med room – the social center of our unit, because we often have to wait in line to get our medications out of the machine, and so it’s the one place we have time to chat. We were talking about an odd patient. “Well, we all have our little quirks,” I said. “Some just have more quirks than others. I, however, don’t have any.” “You certainly do,” Mary interjected. “What are my quirks?” I asked. “You let your dog in your bed.” She still couldn’t quite get over it.
Here is a picture of my little darling peeking out of the covers.
PS. There was actually a time when I thought a dog in the bed was rather disgusting myself, but I have come around and now know that this is their proper place. Who could resist being comforted by this little darling?