• Not Guilty

    On my last post, I speculated that Betty, the wife of one of my patients, Mr. G, might have been plotting to do him in. Now my friend, co-worker at the time, Jane Van De Velde, writes that Mr. G was admitted to the hospital because his hemoglobin was very low and he died there.……

  • There Are Some Patients We Never Forget

    When you have been a nurse as long as I have there are patients who take residence in your memories and resurface frequently. They could almost be family except they have a short history in your life. What they were like before or after you knew them usually remains a mystery. Mr. G was a……

  • Writing the Book

    I’m writing a book. I’ve been writing this book for the past five years. Longer if you count the time I worked with a friend to co-author a book of nursing tales until I knew I had to take this journey alone. Add the amount of time it took for the book to take form……

  • Getting Older

    I promptly lost my first Medicare card. When I opened the envelope and saw the red, white and blue border, I was reminded of the elderly I cared for over twenty years ago when I was a gerontological nurse practitioner. I ran a not-for-profit clinic in a converted one-bedroom apartment on the tenth floor of……

  • Same Old New Year’s Resolutions

    This year I hesitated to make any New Year resolutions. Why? Because for the last five years, at least, they remain the same: Write the book. Lose the weight. Exercise more. The only thing that changed was the pounds I wanted to drop. They increased yearly. Now it’s 20 pounds! I felt defeated. Depressed. But……

  • A Nurse’s Op-Ed in the New York Times

    I’m putting off making a pumpkin pie for our Christmas dinner to share my delight upon reading Theresa Brown’s Op Ed piece, Looking for a Place to Die, in the New York Times this past Thursday.  It’s a sad story but it shows how one nurse can make a difference. If you doubt the significance……