Posts

  • A Broken Man Who is Hard to Forget

    Richey rolled himself in a manual wheelchair into the exam room of the spinal cord clinic for the first time on a warm spring day in April. He managed to lift his quivering right arm to shake my hand. I was the new nurse practitioner in charge of his care. He had some ability to… Read more

  • Dream Deferred 

    Dream Deferred  by Langston Hughes   What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore– And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does… Read more

  • Letting Go of the Life We Plan

    “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ― Joseph Campbell I didn’t plan to write a book but that’s what happened. I had always wanted to be a writer and, even as I worked as a Nurse Practitioner, I took… Read more

  • Excerpts From My Book

      My book will be published on November 6, 2018 by She Writes Press. I have changed the title over the course of writing the book so many times that I can’t give you a count. The latest one, and I do hope the final one, is Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner… Read more

  • There Are Some Patients We Never Forget

    This was first published on January 29, 2012.   When you have been a nurse as long as I have there are patients who take residence in your memories and resurface frequently. They could almost be family except they have a short history in your life. What they were like before or after you knew… Read more

  • Nightingale Tales

    My new project involves interviewing my classmates from nursing school. We “older nurses” are dying off. Who will be around to tell our stories? As I gear up to start this project, I’m educating myself in the art of interviewing. In the meantime, a serendipitous thing happened. Lynn Dow, RN, wrote about her long career… Read more