The ‘Homeless’ Traveling Nurse

Except for the year and a half that we served in Nigeria, my husband has been working as a nurse in the same ICU, at the same hospital for the past 15 years! During those 15 years, we’ve lived in 4 different houses in the states (and 2 in Nigeria). Somewhere in the past 8 years, the combination of us moving further from work and hubby getting older made the longer commute dangerous. He started saying things like, ‘I have no memory of the drive home,’ and, ‘I have no idea how I got here!’ Those aren’t exactly reassuring words for a wife to hear and we realized the drive was no longer safe for him to make.

This is when he developed his new work routine and he’s been living like this ever since. It goes something like this – Go to work on day one & work a 12 hour shift. Drive to the park and park under a shade tree – sleep in the car. Go for a 5-8 mile walk on the trail. Go to the gym to work out & shower, then go to work again. He’s done this routine over and over until he’s finished all his shifts for the week and then he comes home. As you can imagine, this routine was COLD in the winter and HOT in the summer, but he found ways to make it work and we tried our best to adjust to him being gone half the week.

One day, a few years ago, a dear man approached the spot where my husband was parked and knocked on his car window. He shared his concern and care for ‘whatever tough time my husband was going through’ and offered to help. When hubby tried to explain, he begged him not to say no and to accept the help. Hubby told him his routine and then the man understood better. He said, ‘Okay, but there used to be a red Prius that parked here and I KNOW that man was homeless!’ Hubby didn’t have the heart to tell him that he used to drive a red Prius – he’s been doing this for so long! 😉

So you can see that he’s had a home AND been homeless. He’s been living like a traveler without really traveling at all! Our nest is about to be officially empty when our youngest goes off to college and being apart is getting old after all these years. So, we’re going mobile! Check out the next post to see our new home! ‘See’ you there!