Posts

  • The Surreal Hospital Experience

    My husband was discharged from the hospital following two heart valve replacements, and a week later was readmitted with a side effect of the surgery that occurs ten percent of the time. He was taken to his room directly from the ER. I hadn’t the foresight to bring along my coloring book and pencils—mindless relaxing… Read more

  • Hearing Zebras

    Zebra is the American medical slang for arriving at an exotic medical diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely.[1] It is shorthand for the aphorism coined in the late 1940s by Dr. Theodore Woodward, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who instructed his medical interns: “When you hear hoofbeats, think… Read more

  • THE TIME IS RIGHT

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: A friend deliberated whether she should visit her father for his 95th birthday. She was swamped with commitments. Since he was unaware of his birthday as well of his surroundings and didn’t even recognize his three daughters, there was no urgency to travel to another state. However,… Read more

  • There Are Some Patients We Never Forget

    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 li… Source: There Are Some Patients We Never Forget Read more

  • Unconventional Nursing

    This Post from 2012–written by my fellow nursing classmate, Ruth Donoghue–describes an episode occurring in the early ’90s. Early ‘90’s December NAKED IN THE DELIVERY ROOM Nursery in a Catholic hospital where 5,000 babies pass through in a year The call comes via unit secretary A nurse is requested as soon as possible to pick… Read more

  • My Mother’s Boyfriend

    Happy Mother’s Day. My mother died the day before Mother’s Day sixteen years ago. Each year at this time my memories of Mom revolve around both her life and death. Her last few years weren’t what I would have predicted. When Ernie and I moved from the Midwest to Maryland in 1993, Mom came with… Read more