THE NURSE

GAYLENE WILHELM steps swiftly in bright pink Nike Air Max sneakers through the shiny halls of the Neurocritical Care Unit at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

It is early, before 7 p.m., and her day has just begun.

She’s the charge nurse for the 34-bed unit, which almost always is full.

At 53, she’s been a nurse for 26 years, and she’s worked in this unit for 12 of those.

This unit, housed in the hospital’s new Charles A. Sammons Trauma and Critical Care Tower, treats patients who have had strokes, aneurysms and spinal surgeries.

There are tragedies. Unbearably young stroke patients. Those who don’t wake up from comas, who likely won’t get better.

But there are astoundingly joyful moments too. There are patients who receive the clot-busting drug known as TPA in time to restore their brain to normalcy within hours following a stroke. There are some who struggle for months and years but eventually win their brains and bodies back.

Wilhelm’s strength is in helping families with their concerns.

“You see them at their worst,” she says.

Walking family members of patients through procedures and explaining every step of the way eases their minds a little, she says. Even neurology patients who are awake sometimes are not all there. Brain healing can take a long time.

“It’s so hard for them to see that things will get better,” she says. “Of course, only the dear Lord above knows whether that’s going to happen.”

All of the nurses in the neuro unit work 12-hour shifts, and Wilhelm works 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. three days a week. She lives about 140 miles from Dallas in Wichita Falls. Once a week, she puts her truck in drive for two and a half hours, directly to the hospital. When her shift is over, she bunks with another nurse, Melinda Cox, who owns a home in Kessler Park. At the end of her third shift, she puts it in drive again all the way home.

Wilhelm, who is married with four dogs, says she doesn’t require much sleep. She doesn’t drink coffee, and she’s not a big eater. She has a meal before her shift and then she might have an apple or an orange overnight. She guesses she walks about 9 miles every shift in those Nike sneakers, and she says compression stockings are a must. Without them, her legs wear out before dawn.

She says neuro patient don’t always sleep well, and their internal clocks are usually off. So the night shift is never quiet.

“You’re always busy,” she says. “Any time something happens to the head, they’re always very needy patients.”