This is the week we spend our annual family vacation at the beach. While I have enjoyed the ocean and sand, I took some time to complete an assignment. One of my stories had been accepted by Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, a digital journal. It could be published as soon as this…… Continue reading No Edit Too Mundane
Tag: Nursing Stories
Leaving Our Legacy
I have been thinking for a long time about the fact that we older nurses are dying off. We will take with us our memories of nursing history. I have always loved to hear from other seasoned nurses about how they size up their nursing careers as they look back. What was important at the…… Continue reading Leaving Our Legacy
I HAD A DREAM
Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted:
? In preparation for moving I discover the darndest things as I unpack dusty boxes stored in the attic untouched for years. This time it’s a mercury sphygmomanometer, packed in its original carton along with a “limited warranty” card that should have been filled out within ten…
Getting on the Bus
This post appeared in two parts on September 8 & 20, 2013. The first night in a hotel room in Estoril, Portugal, my heart, flipping about in my chest, jolted me awake. Thump. Thump. Thump. Silence. Then a rush of horses’ hooves clopped on my ribs. Trying to ignore my heart’s gymnastics, I tried…… Continue reading Getting on the Bus
Nurses of a Certain Age
Excepted from Off the Charts, May 31, 2017 AJN Facebook Readers on Influences, Public Attitudes to Nursing, Practices of Yesterday by Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC What do you remember from early in your career that would never be seen or done today? We “nurses of a certain age” remember!—and we’re amazed at how…… Continue reading Nurses of a Certain Age
Keeping “To-Do” Balls in the Air.
Have you ever been caught in the rain without an umbrella, raincoat or a nearby shelter? Since I’m a city girl and don’t hike, camp, bike over mountain trails, I rarely get caught unprepared. There is a lot going on in my life right now. I am in the process of publishing my first book,…… Continue reading Keeping “To-Do” Balls in the Air.
WHY DO WE WRITE?
Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted:
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…
What is a Student Nurse?
Carol Ann, a friend of mine from nursing school, recently came to visit. She and her husband live in California. They cruised the Panama Canal over Christmas, drove to see friends in Clearwater, Florida, toured both Savannah and Charleston and traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to stay with us for a few days. Immediately, we…… Continue reading What is a Student Nurse?
Dad and the Bride Doll
In memory of my father’s death 50 years ago.
Cardiac Advances Versus Patient Benefit: A Moral Dilemma
My story, Closing the Door, recently published in Stories That Need to be Told: A Tulip Tree Anthology, tells of the emergence some fifty years ago of cardiac catheterization, artificial heart valves and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how I, as a young nurse, had to make sense of the advancement of technology versus patient benefit. This…… Continue reading Cardiac Advances Versus Patient Benefit: A Moral Dilemma