Posts

  • AN ODE TO THE BEST HOUSE ON THE BLOCK

    Nurses who make home visits will be able to relate to this. I scan houses I would like to visit—to see not only who lives in them but how they live. What health problems or social issues would I have to address? I took a picture of this house on the west side of Chicago Read more

  • WHY DO WE WRITE?

    I attended the book signing this past August. Farther Along, written by my friend and mentor, Carol Henderson, which told the stories of thirteen mothers (she is one of them), a bakers dozen as Carol points out, who had lost children at various ages. I was prepared to cry. I don’t do well with death Read more

  • MOUNTAIN MAN: A NURSING STORY

    I graduated from nursing school fifty years ago this month. I still remember this man. The long, dark hall stretched out in front of me. It was eleven-thirty in the evening, close to the end of my shift. The thick soles of my Red Cross shoes silenced my step as I checked each room on Read more

  • THE AMERICAN NURSE PROJECT

    The American Nurse Project aims to elevate and celebrate nurses in this country by capturing their personal stories through photography and film. Photographer Carolyn Jones and her team traveled to every corner of the U.S. to record the unique experiences of nurses at work. The photographs and narratives shed light on what it means to Read more

  • CARING AND THE MALE NURSE

    Back in the ‘80s I ran a clinic for the elderly that was housed in an apartment on the tenth floor of a Chicago high rise. My patients came to see me, a nurse practitioner, in the office but in many instances I would later check up on them in their apartments in the building Read more

  • WHAT DOES PEA SOUP HAVE TO DO WITH WRITING?

    It’s a soup day. Well, okay, it’s 76 degrees outside on this August morning in Chapel Hill but it’s dark and dreary. The sound of the rain hitting the roof makes me think of soup. Thoughts of the warm aroma of Grandma’s bean soup and the sweet, earthy taste of Mom’s chicken soup, made with the Read more