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By Dagny Stuart | Illustration by Scott Laumann
Betty Eaves knew she had heard that voice before.
Above the din of the bustling outpatient cancer clinic where Eaves was having lab work done, a reassuring voice she had previously heard only over the phone caught her attention.
Shocked by her diagnosis of lung cancer in January 2008, Eaves had made numerous calls to Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center oncologist Alan Sandler’s office for guidance during her treatments.
Even her 20 years in emergency management – and a high-pressure job as an assistant to then Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Ned McWherter, who later became Tennessee’s governor – hadn’t prepared her for the painful and frightening side effects of her cancer treatments.
“I panicked a couple of times,” said Eaves. “I was in pain and didn’t know why I was hurting.”
That voice heard outside the lab had calmed her fears during those frantic phone calls.
Eaves soon identified the source of that voice and hurried over to the information desk to introduce herself to Lynetha Verge, the oncology nurse whose humor and quiet assurance have helped so many Vanderbilt-Ingram cancer patients. The relationship that started during those telephone consultations soon blossomed into a real friendship that has endured.
“Our conversations have turned into everyday chit chat and girl talk,” Verge explained with a smile. “We talk about our favorite kind of wines or something that happened during a shopping trip. I think when we have our girl talk that helps her feel normal and that she’s not just her cancer.”
Verge is just one of the many oncology nurses at Vanderbilt-Ingram who forge strong, intimate and often lasting bonds with their patients.
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