Posts

  • Humor and Humility

    It started out on a rainy day in January. Like the rest of overweight America, I had resurrected old New Year resolutions. I wandered into a branch of a not-to-be-identified weight loss program and approached a young lady sorting out pamphlets. After giving me the information I requested, she excitedly told me that I would… Read more

  • A Nurse By Any Other Name—

    A Nurse By Any Other Name—

    I read the New York Times article, A Small Picture Approach to Health Care last week with so what’s new thoughts hopping in my head. Sure, the economics of funding health care services continues to be a challenge but we nurses can see the real change agent of this model’s Advocate Health Care approach is the… Read more

  • Never Too Old

    I am empowered knowing age does not limit our creativity. James Arruda Henry learned to read and write in his mid-nineties. He didn’t stop there but went on to write a book: In a Fisherman’s Language. As a gerontological nurse practitioner and woman of a certain age I am delighted to promote his story. Read more

  • Long Lost Story

    Just last week I came across a folder in an old box on the bottom of a closet. There I found accordion-pleated sheets of paper where I had written about the Donovan family in single space dot-matrix some twenty years ago. Bill Donovan had lung cancer with metastasis to his bones and brain. He died… Read more

  • The Importance of the Poem

    The Importance of the Poem

    Earlier today I attended a poetry reading at an independent bookstore a few miles south of where I live. A former instructor of mine, Florence Nash, along with two other female poets read from their chapbooks. Throughout the readings, I drifted on the words, phrases, rhythms, twists, poignancy, humor and surprise endings. I took Ms.… Read more

  • The Murder Building

    When I visited a patient in my caseload that lived in an “unsafe” part of the city, I went in the morning. Right after the pimps and drug dealers had called it a night and before the shop keepers pulled up the bars over the store windows and the women came out to sweep the… Read more