• The Compliment

      Two weeks ago I flew to Sioux Falls to visit my good friend, Lois, in her new home. She and her husband left a Chicago condo off Michigan Avenue facing the lake to settle in a small town with less excitement than a big city. That weekend we attended the South Dakota Annual Festival……

  • Unsolved Mystery?

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: This happened long ago. I worked for a hospital-based home care program. We, nurse practitioners, received referrals from physicians who had exhausted all options to prolong the patients’ life. We visited the patient in his home and helped the family care for him until death. Traditional hospice…

  • WHAT DOES AGE HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: I made an ageist comment. It didn’t seem ageist at the time. I was sitting in the second row of a packed room at Flyleaf Bookstore in Chapel Hill as Pat Schneider finished reading from her new book, How The Light Gets In. I came to hear…

  • A Hospice Nurse is Featured in The New Yorker

    Larissa MacFarquhar is a staff writer for the New Yorker. She has written profiles on “do-gooders,” people whose altruistic acts “spring from genuine empathy.” Her subjects are varied: Quentin Tarantino, Diane von Furstenberg and Paul Krugman. Most recently she spotlighted Heather Meyerend, not a famous person, but a nurse. Her story starts on page 62……

  • Why Your Imperfections Make You Perfect

    I’m now taking watercolor classes, struggling to create something that I can be proud of but mostly learning how to be humble and not compare myself with my fellow classmates. As hard as I try to enjoy the journey and not focus on the end result, I still strive to have my finished product an……

  •  I Am Grateful to the Nurses

    In 2013 I toured the new intensive care units back at the hospital where I volunteer. At the time I was acutely aware how outdated my nursing skills were and realized that I wouldn’t even be safe to flip on a light switch. The state-of-the-art machines were daunting. I never thought that three years later……