• NURSE PRACTITIONER VERSUS PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT

    NURSE PRACTITIONER VERSUS PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: Last week in a restaurant in Lyon, France, my tablemate turned toward me and asked, “What’s the difference between a nurse practitioner and a physician assistant.” My husband and I were on a tour. Our traveling buddies consisted of older folks like ourselves. The woman knew I…

  • IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE MUCH

    Last Saturday, toward the end of a daylong workshop, Carol Henderson, our leader, gave the last prompt. Where is home? However, knowing we only had a few minutes left, I believe we seven women wanted to share our appreciation with Carol, and with Mamie Potter who hosted the event, before we left. That prompt fell…

  • LIFE IS A CRAPSHOOT

    As we sat finishing our lunch at a roadside restaurant on our way to the Rainforest in Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, my tablemate said, “It’s all a crapshoot.” We had been talking about the aging process. She uttered the same term I had been using ever since my husband and I bought a two-story town house…

  • Celebrating Forty Years of Friendship

    Originally posted on Write Along with Me: Proverbs 18:26 Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family. Readers of Caring Lessons know I was desperate to find a friend when I was in my early thirties, someone like me, a nurse and mom who wanted to go back to…

  • SO WHAT’S NOSTALGIZING?

    Nostalgizing is a new word for me. I discovered it in a New York Times article: Tierney, John. What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows. The New York Times, 8 July, 2013. I needed to re-read the essay for reassurance that feelings of nostalgia I’ve been experiencing with some frequency could very…

  • THE FALL

    I entered a large department store on a rainy Sunday two weeks ago. My foot hit a slick spot and I became airborne. You know that awful feeling when you’re going down and there is nothing you can do about it. I drifted in slow motion closer and closer to a display table, finally making…