My Sister's Keeper

I am not a big movie buff...I don't even have cable.  I miss the evening news on most days because I either have my nose in a text book or some other book that caught my eye at the library.  The past Wednesday, my 2 year old wondered into the DVD section at the library while we were there and picked up this movie and said, "This looks good, Mommy.  See?? Bubbles!"  I read the back of the cover and he was right...it did look like it would be a good movie.  So, we checked it out.

Without giving the whole story away, it is about the strength of a family and their journey through leukemia with their middle child.  I think I cried through the whole movie. In the evenings, I have to keep the TV volume low so that I don't wake my son and I kept moving closer and closer to the screen so that I wouldn't miss a single word.   If you are wanting to be a nurse, or if you are already a nurse, you should see this movie.  If you have no desire to work in health care and you know nothing about illness and how it effects patients and families, you should see this movie.  Or, if you just like to cry during movies, you should see this movie.

It makes me think a lot about how I am going to handle my emotions when I am a nurse.  I can easily put myself in the shoes of the patients and the families, because I just imagine what my emotions would be if I were them.  But putting myself into the shoes of the nurse is not so easy for me.  The nurse is to be comforting, but also strong.  The nurse is there to care for the patient and do treatments for their physical bodies...but also must provide care for them emotionally.  I know that all my patients are not going to want me to walk around and cry all the time and I am sure that they will want me to understand their fears and their anger/loss/pain/confusion/betrayal/ or their continued hope/faith/joy/peace.  I pray the right words always come to me when faced with difficult situations or questions that don't have easy answers.

Any other "must see" movies I should add to my library request list along these lines?