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Portraits: A healing touch
PEDIATRIC NURSE CARL BOESEN'S FOCUS IS ON THE TINIEST OF PATIENTS
By Bob Sylva -- Bee Columnist
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, June 11, 2006
Story appeared in Scene section, Page L3
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Pediatric nurse Carl Boesen says babies are his favorite patients. "They are the epitome of helplessness," he says.
Sacramento Bee/Kevin German
Carl Boesen is a pediatric intensive care nurse at Sutter Memorial Hospital. He and his peers pay meticulous attention to the tiniest of patients, who, mute and helpless, are tethered to IVs, monitors, respirators, the sometimes tenuous thread of life itself.
The majority of the babies are recovering from open heart surgery, if one can imagine such a bold, monumental procedure performed in a thimble.
"There is a strong satisfaction in helping a hurting child," says Boesen of his duty. "You don't have someone who can talk to you, who can tell you what their problem is. So, you have to try and figure it out. You have to be intuitive. Just by walking in the room, there's a lot you can do just by watching."
Right now, on a late weekday afternoon, Carl Boesen is sitting at a shady picnic table on a patch of grass in front of the hospital. In a few minutes, he'll head inside for his swing shift.
Boesen is 47 years old. He is wearing white pants, a maroon smock; a curled stethoscope is by his side. He has gentle brown eyes, immaculate hands, a receding crew cut and wire-frame glasses. Much like a tentative patient facing the exam of an interview, he seemingly cringes: "Is this going to hurt?"
But babies make him smile. "They are my favorite patients," he says. "They are the epitome of helplessness. They depend totally on you for their care. And they are easy to carry around." He smiles. "Yes. I pick them up. I walk around with them. A lot of the times, we'll be at the nursing station and we'll all be holding babies."
Dr. Richard Mainwaring is a 50-year-old pediatric heart surgeon from Philadelphia. For the past three years, in conjunction with Stanford Hospital, he has headed a heart service program at Sutter Memorial. He performs around 125 surgeries a year on babies with congenital heart defects, the most common being a ventrical septal defect, literally a hole in the heart.
The surgery, says Mainwaring, is a relatively simple patchwork. What's stressful is the recovery. "I use the word grumpy," says Mainwaring of his patients' post-operative moods. "At times, they can be inconsolable. But the nurses are incredibly skilled at discerning what these babies need without being able to ask them. Maybe it's being swaddled. Maybe it's being stroked. Sometimes it's as simple as patting them on the scalp. But you can't learn this from a textbook. It requires years of experience with hundreds of patients. It truly is an art form."
Mainwaring's deft hand is guided by a constant voice in his head: "This is someone's kid." Of Boesen, he adds admiringly, "Carl knows this personally."
Carl Boesen was born in Peoria, Ill. As a boy, he was a natural artist and a talented violinist. After a series of unhappy jobs, he earned a degree in nursing from Wesleyan College in Iowa. In 1985, he and his then-wife moved to Sacramento. She enrolled at McGeorge Law School; he worked graveyard at Sutter Memorial.
Two such pursuits were not conducive to marital harmony. Divorced, Boesen dedicated himself completely to his nursing career.
In 1998, he cared for Alexia, then 12, a courageous heart patient at Sutter Memorial who was not expected to survive. And he met her mother, Valerie, who was active in Make-A-Wish Foundation. Alexia made it. And sometime later, Carl and Valerie were reacquainted. Sadly, the occasion was a funeral of a child.
They were married in 1999. Shortly thereafter, Carl adopted Alexia, and then he and Valerie had a child, Aden, now 5, the picture of health.
Last year, Alexia had her fifth heart surgery, this time for a faulty valve. Mainwaring did the procedure; Carl Boesen was a doting nurse. "He's always there," says Alexia. "I think he's the kind of nurse you would want for your own children."
Of his patient/daughter, Boesen says, "She has had a lot of battles to fight. But she's a strong person. She is going to Sacramento City College now, and she wants to be a lawyer." He laughs. "I feel very sorry for anyone who wants to argue with her."
About the writer:
Bob Sylva's column appears Sundays in Scene. Reach him at (916)321-1135 or
[email protected]. Reach Kevin German at
[email protected]. Back columns:
www.sacbee.com/sylva.
