Being the Patient: The Experience of Being Cared For

By Rachel Y. Hill, DNP, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC

October 18, 2026

When the Provider Becomes the Patient

As a nurse and a nurse practitioner, I have spent my life on one side of the bed.

I am the one who reassures, explains, encourages, and holds space.

I notice the nervous hands and the forced smiles. I know how much it matters when someone treats you like a person and not a chart.

What I have not always been as good at is being on the other side.

I know many of my fellow nurses and nurse practitioners can relate.

This is a story about what happened when I let someone take care of me for a change.

It is about braces, of all things.

But it is really about self-care, about asking for more, and about a team of people who reminded me what it feels like to be cared for the way I try to care for others.

They are not nurses. But for a season of my life, they were my nurse's keepers.

Twenty Years of “Later”

About twenty years ago, I had x-rays taken of my teeth.

The plan was to take them to a specialist and finally get braces for myself.

Then life happened.

I had children, and they had needs that were more important and more pressing than my smile.

So the x-rays sat, and I told myself I would get to it later.

Later kept moving.

As time went on, other needs always seemed to come first, even after my children were grown.

Then came grandchildren, and they needed things now.

Every time, the choice felt obvious.

Their needs were real. Mine could wait.

I want to be honest about how hard this part was.

Even when my kids were grown and on their own, I still struggled to spend money on myself.

Every time I thought about braces, I thought about my grandchildren.

That money could go toward school clothes, a birthday, a trip, something they needed or would love.

Choosing me felt selfish.

Choosing them felt like love.

It took me a long time to see that those two things don't have to compete.

Taking care of myself is not taking something away from the people I love. It is making sure there is still a whole, healthy, happy me to love them.

What I didn't notice right away was what the waiting was doing to me.

Little by little, my smile was getting smaller.

I smiled with my lips closed. I tilted my head in pictures. I laughed and then covered my mouth.

Somewhere along the way, I had stopped showing my teeth without ever really deciding to.

If you are a caregiver, you probably know this pattern.

We put ourselves last so often that it stops feeling like a choice. It just feels like the way things are.

Taking the Jump

One day I woke up and realized it was time to care for the caregiver.

I didn't have a grand plan.

I wasn't even sure I would ever be comfortable showing my teeth again.

I didn't know what was possible at my age, or what it would take.

I just knew I wanted to feel better about my smile, so I took the jump.

The orthodontist who started my journey ended up leaving, and I was transferred to another doctor.

I'll be honest, part of me wondered if my mouth was so bad they had to pass me along!

I can laugh about it now.

That is how I met Dr. Skylar Steel.

From the very beginning, he and his crew of dental hygienists were kind to me.

Every visit felt welcoming.

Nobody rushed me, and nobody made me feel silly for doing this later in life.

I was not just a set of teeth in a chair. I was a person, and they treated me like one.

“Why Bother Now?”

Not everyone understood my decision.

More than once, someone asked me why I would worry about braces now, since I'm over the age of 50.

I'll admit, the question confused me at first.

Underneath it, I could hear a quiet hint that life is somehow over after a certain age.

That the time for wanting things for yourself has passed, and you should just make do with what you've got.

That is a whole other conversation for a different day.

But I'll say this much:

I don't believe there is an expiration date on taking care of yourself.

Fifty, sixty, or eighty, you are still worth the investment.

Your smile still matters.

You still matter.

Asking for More

The finish line was finally in sight.

My braces were about to come off, and they had already fitted me for my retainer.

Then I noticed something on my lower teeth that wasn't quite the way I wanted it.

It was small.

Most people would never have seen it.

And my first instinct was the one I had practiced my whole life:

Let it go.

Be grateful for what you have.

Don't ask for more.

But one of the hygienists saw something in my face.

She encouraged me to tell the doctor.

She told me my concern was valid, and that it was fair to ask for a little more time to get it right.

So I spoke up.

That one change meant about four to five more months of braces.

The team didn't flinch.

Not one person made me feel like I was being difficult or asking too much.

They were encouraging from start to finish.

Dr. Skylar's answer was simple:

Whatever it takes.

He could see the issues and understood what I was trying to accomplish.

The beautiful part is that he was thinking way ahead of me.

He was concerned my teeth might shift later, so he made a reinforcing retainer.

He used that extra time to help perfect my bite and even out some gaps in my teeth.

I asked for one thing, and he cared enough to see the whole picture.

I Got Choked Up Quite a Bit!

When the braces finally came off, I got a little misty-eyed.

It was not the first time I had tears in that dental chair, but this time the change was so big I could hardly take it in.

I could show my smile again.

There was nothing like it.

Growing up, I had a gap and buck teeth, and yes, I got teased a little.

I wouldn't say I carried a lot of pain about it.

But I do remember that little girl who quietly trained herself to smile with her mouth as close to shut as possible.

She practiced it until it became muscle memory, and that habit followed me well into adulthood.

This journey nurtured that little girl in a way I didn't expect.

She got cared for.

She got listened to.

She got to ask for more and be told yes.

And after all those years of closed-mouth smiles, she finally got to open up and let her smile show.

That was a beautiful thing.

As a provider, I was so used to accepting things as they were.

I didn't ask for more, and I never found out whether more was possible.

It wasn't until I started doing the work of self-care that I learned I was allowed to want it, and allowed to ask for it.

But I've come to realize that not asking for more didn't start in healthcare.

For many of us who become providers, it starts long before we ever put on scrubs.

For me, it started as a child.

I learned early that there were many things more important than me.

There was the church.

There were the members of the church.

There were the grown-ups and their reputations, which mattered far more than the feelings of children.

We were taught that we could all do our part and make sacrifices for the greater good.

So I did.

My sacrifices started there, as a little girl learning to make herself small so that everything and everyone else could come first.

By the time I became a nurse, putting myself last wasn't something I had to learn.

It was something I already knew by heart.

That is why being on the receiving end of care meant so much. It wasn't just about my teeth. It was about unlearning a lesson I had carried my whole life.

A Ministry Like Ours

These folks aren't nurses, but they have a ministry much like ours.

They bring life to people in the ways that they can.

There's a saying I love: people don't remember what you say, they remember how you make them feel.

Every time I was there, someone said something positive to me.

They reaffirmed me.

They gave me the strength to keep going on a journey that sometimes felt long.

They made it clear they weren't happy until I was happy.

I keep thinking about that.

What kind of world are we creating when we give people the space to experience care like that?

I believe it's a better one, one patient at a time.

Taking care of yourself is one thing.

Being lucky enough to find people who take real pride in taking care of others is another.

Caring for people is their job, but you could tell it was more than a job to them.

I love the way I was nurtured.

I love that their office was a safe space where I got to create the smile I had always wanted.

And I love that I got to walk away satisfied, with a bit of self-care, a bit of inner child work, and a bit of “I did something for me.”

They also made it fun.

They let me pick the colors on my braces to match the seasons, football teams, and holidays.

My grandkids loved seeing my braces more than anything.

They couldn't wait to find out what colors NeNe Booh would have next.

Heidi was the one who made sure of that.

Whenever my braces weren't acting right, she didn't take no for an answer.

She got those colors on, come hell or high water.

And here's the funny part.

The day my braces came off, I posted a picture of my smile with the staff in our family chat.

My daughter, who lives in the UK, wrote back right away: was one of the hygienists named Heidi?

It was!

All that time, the woman taking such good care of my smile was my daughter's best friend's aunt.

She had spent many a day with them, getting in and out of trouble.

It really is a small world, and sometimes the people caring for us are closer to home than we know.

Giving Them Their Flowers

In my weekly Wisdom and Wellness blog, I recently wrote about giving people their flowers while they can still smell them.

It's about honoring people while they are alive and can hear how much they mean to us.

It would be easy to write those words and move on.

But I want to put them into action.

This team has truly impacted my life, and I don't want my gratitude to stay quiet.

So consider this post my bouquet.

I'm also sharing reviews on Google and Yelp, because people deserve to know when they've made a difference.

A kind review takes a few minutes to write, and it can carry someone's good work much further than they'll ever know.

To the whole team at MyKIDS Dentistry, thank you.

Dr. Skylar Steel, you were so personable and patient.

And to Heidi, Araelia, Brittney, Sam, and Tanya, I can't thank you enough.

You gave me so much more than straight teeth.

I give MyKIDS Dentistry five stars, without hesitation.

What I Learned

There are a lot of lessons wrapped up in this one smile.

You are never too old to do something for yourself.

I waited twenty years. I'm glad I didn't wait twenty-one.

Self-care is not optional.

Could I have survived without braces? Yes.

But the smile I have now radiates with a freedom I hadn't felt in a long time.

I care about my teeth so much more than I used to, because I've learned how important self-care is in every part of my life.

Your courage can be contagious.

A friend of mine went and got braces shortly after I did.

Sometimes the best way to give someone permission is to go first.

Other people's labels don't have to stick.

You can call me vain, and it wouldn't matter.

You can call me insecure, and that wouldn't matter either.

I know what this meant to me.

I also hold real compassion for people who have walked in my shoes but may not be able to afford the care I received.

I don't take it for granted.

I am blessed on so many levels.

Most of all, I was blessed to see the care I give my patients come back around to me.

Call it orthodontic karma.

For years I have tried to make people feel seen, safe, and valued in their most vulnerable moments.

This time, someone did that for me.

To my fellow nurses, nurse practitioners, and caregivers: you are allowed to be the patient sometimes.

You are allowed to ask for more.

And you deserve to be cared for the way you care for everyone else.

It is my hope that everyone who reads this has allowed themselves to do something nurturing for themselves.

Something that lets you be on the receiving end of all you bring to the world.

I will truly miss this team who gave me back my smile.

Now I plan to use it every chance I get.

--Dr. Rachel