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The biggest gift
Carey Clifton ended up in oncology by accident – it was the only available nursing job at Vanderbilt that matched her qualifications. But that unplanned exposure to cancer patients changed her life.
“It just takes a day with these people to know that it’s a special area of medicine,” said Clifton, who is now a nurse practitioner working in the Vanderbilt-Ingram stem cell transplant clinic.
“When you read through these records that are so complicated, it’s very overwhelming,” Clifton said. “But when you sit down and meet the patients and their parents and siblings, they’re real people who are fighting for their lives, so it’s worth the fight to help them, even if the cure is a long shot. It’s worth it to help them along that journey.”
A long shot is exactly what Chad Welch faced. The Nashville man was just 27 when he was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. He and wife Haley had only been married for two years when they received the diagnosis.
“I knew it was bad from the beginning and that we were up against a battle,” said Haley Welch.
One of the first people the Welches met when they were admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center was floor nurse Leslie Wyttenbach Goebel.
“I remember walking in and seeing Leslie’s smiling face. She knew it was the worst day of our lives, but she just made us feel like, ‘Okay, we can get through this. We can get through today,’” Haley remembered.
During the months Chad spent in the hospital, another oncology nurse cared for him in the overnight hours.
“When I think about someone who has a calling, I think about Rebecca Bice who works the night shift as a charge nurse on the stem cell transplant floor,” Haley explained. “That may be the toughest job I can think of, and she does it with such a pure heart and such joy.
“I spent every night in the hospital with Chad, and on the nights Rebecca was there I could sleep. That was the biggest gift she gave me because I knew no matter what happened, she would take care of Chad and love him the way I did.”
Welch calls Goebel and Bice her “angels” who helped the
couple during the two years of Chad’s medical care, which included induction chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.
“When you’re there through the hardest time in your life, every single day, you live and breathe it – and they live and breathe it with you,” Haley said. “They asked us what we needed, ‘what can we do for you because we know how hard this is?’
“It was nice to feel that sort of connection with them.”
Haley also appreciated the honesty of the nursing team, including Carey Clifton, who cared for the couple in the long-term care stem cell transplant clinic.
“When I asked some very serious questions about Chad’s chances, they would tell me the truth,” said Haley. “They wouldn’t sugar-coat anything, and I appreciated that.”
Helping families through such emotionally wrenching times can be difficult for oncology nurses, who must learn to cope with their own feelings.
“It’s tough. When they’re happy, we’re happy. When they cry, we cry and that helps us get through it,” said Lynetha Verge. “I think our patients like it when we show emotion. We’re not steel. We feel things, too.”
Verge says learning to share the emotional highs and lows that come with cancer care helps oncology nurses stay in the field.
In the Vanderbilt-Ingram chemotherapy infusion clinic, nurses sing, wear funny hats and play kazoos to help patients celebrate their final day of chemotherapy. Oncology nurses also mourn alongside families when patients succumb to their cancer.
Haley Welch says she appreciated the pure emotions exhibited by all of the nurses who cared for Chad, who finally passed away in June 2007, at age 30.
“The nurses became family. They saved me, in every sense of the word.” 
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