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He couldn’t let his wife go peacefully. Even after death.
No break for 12 hours. We beg to go to the bathroom just for a nano-second. You know, in between not skipping a beat to hang life-saving IV drips, assisting with central line insertions and arterial lines and intubations of the sickest. We pretty much …
When a wife won’t let her husband die
We were told to wear masks before entering this patient’s ICU room. Entering his room, you could smell his rotting flesh. He was 92 years old. His skin would slough off if you dared to bathe him. His decubitus ulcers were raging with infection. As long…
This nurse was hiding the truth behind social media
She was new to this ICU. She was young, smart, funny, and considered one of the “cool” nurses. Before we could really get to know her, she exposed her wonderful, fantastic, perfect life all over social media. Their perfect two-story brick house, their …
The brother I never knew. The mother I never had.
The brother I never knew. He was buried in an unmarked grave with other dead babies. 1960. I am now the age my mother died. She was 64 years old: colon cancer. She was a vacant, negligent mother. During one of my psychology classes in nursing school, w…
Don’t want to wear a helmet? Sign up as an organ donor.
I walk out my front door today to do my obligatory walk around the block with my pups. Two police cars with blue lights flashing, lead a caravan of over 100 motorcyclists to a funeral for one of their fallen brothers. They revved up their motors in the…
Denial and rationalization will not save you from a heart attack
Smoking was cool. And he started smoking at the age of 15. Two packs a day — every day. When he was 32 years old, we had our first-born son. And he decided to quit cold turkey. But the damage was done. Somehow, someway, it would catch up with him in de…
That’s why I became a nurse
My anger rises when I see the TV “nurse” with her short white dress and her breasts spilling over her pronounced cleavage and her submissive voice speaking to this muscular male MD. Her quick giggle and pretentious demeanor is a stereotype …
The patient with a pocketful of IDs
All of us nurses and physicians in the ED and ICU knew him well. He was a young, 21-year-old. A smart, articulate guy who kept going from one hospital to the next. He had a system down … almost. This young man was a drug seeker. He knew all about…
Perfect nurse. Perfect manager. Perfect puppet.
Perfect nurse. Perfect manager. Perfect puppet. An ICU physician once told me: Nurse managers have a life cycle of a mosquito. Fast and furious And then gone. Deleted until the next one shows up. It was the perfect ICU. Twenty-five beds. Dynamic intens…
Remembering a physician, suddenly taken away
Our 20-bed ICU finally captured 10 intensivists — all board-certified in critical care medicine. We were fortunate enough to have one of these doctors in our ICU 24-7. Of course, they all practiced professionally with expertise. But I remembered this o…
