Each month, Pulse Plus features of a profile of one of the special nurses who was nominated for the 2011 Nursing Excellence Awards.
Finding out that a child has a serious disease is a nightmare for any parent. When you’re told that “your child has cancer and may lose his leg or [even] his life,” your entire world can come crashing down.
When Tyler Abercrombie was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma (a rare form of bone cancer) in 2008, he was 16. His mother, Maria, remembers that day vividly.
“We met Sarah [Goldberg] the first day my son was diagnosed,” Abercrombie wrote. “The world seemed to be spinning around, but I remember Sarah saying, ‘We are going to take care of you.’ Her words, her smile and her compassion made me instantly believe her.”
Goldberg, RN, BSN, CPON, is a pediatric oncology nurse with the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. A nurse for 12 years, Goldberg works in the outpatient clinic at the Aflac Cancer Center at Children’s at Egleston.
Tyler, now 19, has been treated for cancer for three years and underwent a stem cell transplant in August. Abercrombie considers Goldberg, 34, to be a partner in her son’s battle with the disease.
“Sarah is still the same compassionate, kind and take-care-of-business type of nurse. The words she spoke to us that [first] day remained for the past two years,” she wrote in her nomination. “Through this journey, with so much uncertainty, we knew one thing: we could count on Sarah to help us.”
Throughout the process, Abercrombie has counted on Goldberg to answer many questions about both the medical side of the disease and other issues as “absurd” as wondering if Tyler could have a cat, go to a concert or eat deli meat.
“Each time, she responded with kindness and compassion,” she wrote. “She never wavered, and if she had a bad day, we didn’t know it.”
For Goldberg, a past winner of Children’s Laura Snitzer Boozer Nursing Award for excellence and leadership in pediatric cancer care, what she does is all in a day’s work.
“Tyler is a great kid. It’s easier when you have great patients and wonderful families,” she said. “I feel that I’m just doing my job, but when someone says something like that about the positive effect you have on them, it makes you feel good.”
Unlike many of her peers, Goldberg didn’t always know she wanted to be a nurse, but she was sure that she didn’t want to sit behind a desk. Her decision to become a nurse turned out to be a good one.
“I enjoy making a difference in people’s lives,” she said. “It helps put things in my life into perspective. When you do this job, it’s harder to take things for granted, because of what the people we help are dealing with.”
Goldberg loves caring for pediatric patients, who are very different from adults.
“I love working with kids; they bounce back so quickly,” she said. “One minute they’re really sick, and the next minute they’re riding tricycles down the hall. Sometimes it seems like they don’t even know they’re sick. It makes it easier to do a hard job when you have happy patients.”
The job is not without challenges. During the same shift, nurses can care for one patient who is well on the road to recovery, another who is enduring the hardest part of treatment and still another who is dealing with the initial shock of being diagnosed with cancer, Goldberg said.
“Everybody needs something a little different,” she said. “Here, we have to treat the entire family. Luckily, we have the resources to help them. We have a good team here. We’re here to help all our patients and their families get through it, and to make it easier if we can.”
Then there are the toughest days of all. Her patients are dealing with a serious disease and some of them die – no matter how hard they fight.
“It never gets easier [to lose a patient]. Luckily, a lot of the families are so thankful for the time they had with their child,” she said. “If I played a small part of making even one day better, then I did my job.”
Many of Goldberg’s friends who aren’t nurses ask her how she deals with the sadness that comes with her job. She says that despite the need for caring and compassion, oncology nurses must establish a boundary between themselves and those they treat. They also need to stay healthy, take care of themselves and rely on colleagues for support.
“It helps when you work with great people. They’re not just co-workers, they’re some of my closest friends. They understand what I go through at work,” she said.
Of course, one of the great rewards of working in pediatric oncology is seeing patients get better, go home and later visit the Aflac Center in good health.
“To see kids who are doing great come back years later, it’s wonderful,” Goldberg said. “Sometimes it’s hard to recognize them at first. They’ve grown and have gotten their hair back. They hug you and say they miss you.”
How does Goldberg want to be remembered when her nursing career is over? “Hopefully, people will think that I did a good job clinically, but that I also did my job in a way that made them feel better.”
Goldberg has certainly made Maria Abercrombie feel better.
“She’s always had that compassionate smile,” she said. “She is so consistent; she’s always pleasant. We know that she’s going to take care of us.”
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