The last tic tac

When I was a little girl, orange Tic Tacs were the best. They tasted a lot like baby aspirin…but you could eat a bunch of Tic Tacs and not die. It wasn’t until years later that science discovered that giving aspirin to kids was a bad idea and can cause liver or brain damage. Yeah, […]

The weight

A few weeks after my husband passed away, I went back to work. The world (and bills) still begged for my attention. As I walked down the hall to see my first patient, I could feel my nerves boiling under a calm exterior. Can I still do this? I stopped outside the exam room door […]

Nurturing the Eye

Not so easy, taking care of ourselves. That said, there are a lot of us out there that ONLY look out for ourselves. Finding the balance between self-love and being self-ish is an ongoing battle of the mind for some. Lately, I’ve felt a lot more negative energy swirling around me. Family of origin issues […]

Screaming Eagle

As I started down the skinny trail, it dawned on me that I had followed a bunch of twenty-somethings into an area I did not know. You idiot, I muttered. Twenty-somethings are invincible. I am not. I looked back. Going back was a long way back up the narrow cat track. I looked left and […]

Hold the Phone

I was talking to a student today about medical futility and the ethical dilemmas that sometime crop up in caring for patients in the hospital. Sometimes patients are so sick that it appears there is no cure, no fix. It can be patient driven, a product of the patient’s environment, or progression of disease and […]

Dirty Vets

In my first year of nursing school, we spent time doing a rotation at the VA. Being that it was Memorial Day today, I recalled how much I enjoyed working with the veterans. Most of them were WWII vets with a few Korean War and Vietnam vets mixed in. The WWII vets were in their […]

Thick Skin or Solid Foundation?

I’ve had several folks tell me lately that I must have thick skin to work in the field that I do. The heartbreak, sadness, and loss that is faced every single day in the 30 rooms on our unit… and likely in the 576 beds at our hospital…is phenomenal. Heartbreak isn’t just oncology. It’s everywhere. […]

Why are you?

I am. I need not be no other. A friend recently commented on how adventurous and free my life seems to be. This, I say, is the fruit of my labor. The years of not knowing who I was until I found me. The relationships I found my way out of in order to […]

Boundary Issues

It’s the obnoxious person at the party that no one invited. It’s the silent terrorist plotting it’s next move. It knows no boundaries, Has no prejudices It is not kind, compassionate, or loving in any way. It sees no religion. It has no empathy. It is cancer. It does not know that we are […]

On Holiday

Every day is like Christmas to me. Gifts. Love. Music. Appreciation. Gratitude. Every morning when I am blessed with waking up, I think of the people in my life and I feel as though I’ve been given a warm holiday for my heart. Everyone I know has lost someone close to them…someone that cannot be […]