Maura and I connected pretty quickly. She is a nurse in a podiatry surgical unit at Saratoga Hospital. I liked her. She was open, easy to talk to, and willing to explain what was happening to me carefully.

I guess or sensed that she was creative. We just clicked.

A graduate of NYU’s famous Tisch School of Drama, she worked in the theater in New York City until she was nearly 40, and the theater world crashed, as it often does.

She made the decisions so many talented creatives make in the Corporate Nation. She had to make a living.

America is not good to people with sporadic paychecks.

She had to find regular paying work, so she and her husband moved to Saratoga Springs, and she studied to become a nurse. She is a  very good one.

Her son is studying screenwriting at one of the best drama schools in the country. She is very happy for him. In a minute, Maura and I were trading creative life stories even as she was trying to staunch the blood that kept coming out of my foot.

Those blood thinners, I explained, embarrassed to be so much trouble.

I’ve been around Saratoga Hospital a lot in the past year; I’ve enjoyed the respite from hospitals this Spring.

But at every step, I’ve been puzzled and curious about the nursing staff at Saratoga. They are awfully nice.

It seems like a strange thing to say, but nursing is a difficult thing to do, and they often complain that hospital managers are indifferent to their welfare, treat them like cattle, and fail to protect them from arrogant and obnoxious doctors.

Most of them are highly competent, but few of them seem happy to me. Most of the nurses I’ve met in Saratoga do seem happy, and it infuses the place with a feeling that is both reassuring and healing, at least to me. They don’t mind smiling or laughing.

I felt it during and after my surgeries there, and when I see my primary care nurse, I felt it in cardiac rehab, and I felt it today with Maura, who brightened the experience with skill and competence that only the best nurses possess.

Small things matter in surgical procedures.

I had to take my shoes and socks off today, and then they cut up my foot, strapped a boot on me, and left the room; time is always of the essence.

Maura stayed behind to tell me exactly what I needed to do, shouting instructions to Maria over the phone, re-fitting the boot until it was exactly the right size and would not slip back and forth on my foot.

Sometimes, especially today, when I was high up on a surgical chair, it’s hard for me to bend down and get my socks and shoes on. Sometimes, it’s hard at home.

She knew that without my telling her and just put them on for me, preserving dignity and comfort. A small thing, but a big thing that few people seem to think of.

Nurses everywhere have been good to me, but I’ve noticed that most Saratoga nurses seem happier, warmer, and more nurturing.

I find that interesting as well as comforting.

Anytime a nurse gets you laughing while you are bleeding and wondering how you got there, she knows what she is doing.

I keep asking the nurses  I meet if I imagine this happiness and why this might be true, and they all say the same thing as Maura did.

She says the hospital seems to really care about the happiness of its nurses and other employees.

“They listen to us,” she says, “it makes all the difference.”

I suspect one factor in the seemingly high morale at Saratoga is that it is a booming and wealthy town, unusual for upstate New York cities.

Most of the patients have good insurance and substantial resources.

The other hospitals in the area have lots of Medicaid patients, and Medicaid’s reimbursements are notoriously low. Other hospitals don’t have the resources to keep morale high.

Having spent some years in the rural health system, I can’t believe the quality of the Saratoga Hospital Health Care System. I suspect it saved my life. And it reminded me of another of the many reasons why rural people are so disenchanted.

I’ve been around a few hospitals in the past few years, and I don’t hear that from nurses in other places – that their bosses really care about them.

But I’m not just imagining it. Many of them are happy.

I went to  Saratoga to see Dr. Cary, my podiatric surgeon, this morning to get my new orthotics and then go and get my second pedicure. I told Maria that there was no need for her to come; I’d pick up my orthotics and leave.

As it turned out, only one orthotic turned out to be in the package, that came from Canada,  but it was good I came. Dr. Cary misses nothing and takes no prisoners.

The shoes and socks came off, and the examining room filled with people and morphed into a little surgical suite.

I signed a permission paper and closed my eyes, and thought of my Amish lessons: “let it go, let it be. It’s not in my hands.”

Maura and I started laughing.

Nearly two hours later, I hobbled out of the building with a surgical shoe on my left leg, two huge bags of tapes, gauze medicines. I’ll be fine, it will just take a little more time.

I canceled my pedicure on the doctor’s orders and called Maria to explain why I had disappeared for so long.

Maura shouted explanations to Maria that I couldn’t quite articulate over the Iphone. I felt as if I had known her for years.

Because of the blood thinners, I’m on, they had a hard time stemming the bleeding. Instead of wrapping me in bandages and leaving the room, Maura stayed with me until the bleeding stoped. We have great fun talking.

I appreciated that.

But what struck me the most was Maura’s story. I am a collector of people’s stories (I didn’t want to take a photo around all that blood, so I’ll try next Monday again when I have to go back.)

Maura loved the theater and was successful at it.

When Broadway got wobbly, as it periodically does, she sacrificed her acting for her son and husband (he is also a creative. She has regrets but no complaints; she obviously loves nursing and was good at it. And she misses the theater in New York.

Unlike many parents with their wannabe creative children, Maura is thrilled that her son is studying to be a screenwriter. She doesn’t warn him how hard it might be or urge him to have a backup when the volcano erupts.

Don’t take that day job; I tell kids starting or dreaming, if you do, you’ll never go back. Maura knows she isn’t going back, but she had a great and successful run she wouldn’t trade for anything.

I know many parents who would be horrified and beg and plead and preach for their creative kids to get a day job, anything but depend on their creative lives.

But that is the moment when creative kids desperately need encouragement and support, not warnings and alarms. I thought of getting a day job a hundred times when I was starting, but someone I trusted talked me out of it.

Maura’s son is lucky; he knows his parents are in his corner, believing in him and rooting for him, telling him he can make it.

I knew I could never give up writing.

I was desperately insecure and anxious when I wrote my first book, a novel. I was sure it would fail, and so would I.

I was buttressed by my first wife, Paula, who told me I could do it and encouraged me through the rejection years, which are inevitable in any creative field.

Then came Maria, the most supportive human being I have ever known; she even encourages me when I am not writing.

Honestly, I could never have made this transition to blogging – one of the most frightening things I have ever done, or to my photography without Maria telling me a thousand times that I could do it and should do it.

She is honest, and I have always believed her when she tells me I am not finished.

That is worth a lot more than gold to a creative. I left the procedure thinking of Maura’s son and smiling.

I had three supporters of my writing life early on – my mother, Uncle Harry, and grandmother, who would have loved me if I told her I wanted a career driving truck filled with dead cattle.

The encouragement I received made all the difference.

Any creative, especially a young one, doubts their ability and is constantly told they’ll probably starve to death and end up living on a sidewalk.

My father urged me to think about becoming a lawyer, mostly because I fought with him so often and enthusiastically. Writing is for college professor’s he said.

He saw no future in writing.

So I’m home again, resting my leg again, getting ready for a week of bandaids, gauze, special boots,  anti-biotic cream, and keeping my wounds dry. Tomorrow I’ll try to set up a meeting with Moise and show him my illumination test results.

Tonight, I’ll break out the Scotch and toast Maura and all the good nurses,  the importance of listening, and the power of encouragement.

In a sense, she probably saved a creative life right in her own home.