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 […]

Disconnect

As I walked up the steps to my favorite pub, I exhaled long and steady, relieving myself of complicated work day stress. It was raining sideways, the wind whipping at my neck as I approached the door. I couldn’t wait to get inside where I knew it was warm, where I knew I’d see a familiar face, […]

A Road Less Traveled

April 12, 2015. I sat and held his puffy hand. Just four days earlier I was amid a normal workday on the unit, a student in tow. We took a break, because it’s important to teach student nurses how to take care of themselves. It’s a time when we check our phones to see if we […]

I am the Pokemom

NO, that’s not a typo. I drive my son nuts, I think. He is so laid back and emotionally adjusted that sometimes I think the island-boy attitude is genetically coded in his DNA. And yet, when I talk to other parents of 20-somethings…they, too, are baffled by one word answers and cricket sounds when you […]

Faith

Every day I go to work, the city is lit with twinkling lights until the darkness yields to the sun. On our unit, the sun rises during the changing- of-the-guards in the war against cancer. We, the patients and staff, are lucky to see what we see on a crisp clear day: a gold or […]

Keep Moving Forward

Happy New Year! Officially, this week starts the Chinese New Year. 2015 is the year of the Sheep, or Ram, or Goat…depending on what part of Asia you come from. I prefer to think of it in “sheep terms” and this is why: sheep are impressionable, kind of dumb/peaceful animals, and cannot understand how to […]

Not alone

For this I must explain… Green Tara is known as the Buddha of enlightened activity, representing compassion in action. She is the goddess of liberation. Buddhist illustrations of Tara show her sitting in meditation on her lotus throne, with one leg out at the ready…to jump to the aid of someone in need. Any time a […]