In the early evening, I stand in the grocery store checkout line. A young mother in front of me presses a pig-tailed toddler against her hip as she rummages for her credit card, and a man with silvered hair and a monogrammed shirt shifts impatiently b…
Sometimes, the most traumatic events happened when I was young and new and just starting my ICU career. When you least expect it, those repressed memories come glaring at you. Thinking I had tucked this tragedy away forever, and then within a flash — 2…
Where do I begin? Maybe at the beginning. Let’s start with the degradation and devaluation of nurses across this country. For decades, I lived the devaluing of nurses. Daily huddles from our nurse managers, ER nurses, ICU nurses, and behavioral health …
I’m usually good with words. The last year and a half of being a “front line nurse” has left me struggling to find the words. The frustration, anger, trauma, and sadness have so muddied my mind that I find it hard to sort through all of the complexitie…
On the day you die from COVID, many things will happen. A colleague and I will enter the room to carefully prepare and clean your body. We will shut off all the IV pumps. We will turn off the ventilator. We will silence and turn off the monitor that is…
Americans are dying in ICUs in far greater numbers than would otherwise be if not for a newly misapplied 57-year-old rule banning the only American board-certified ICU doctors available in many cities from providing critical care, leaving only nurses t…
He was in his ICU bed without movement or brain stem involvement. His weight was down to 90 pounds. His six-foot frame and skeletal body made me gasp. After countless sessions with the patient’s daughter to make her 92-year-old dad “comfort…
I was looking forward to March 2020. My boyfriend and I had a long-awaited vacation to Aruba we were looking forward to. Everything is packed, plans are finalized, and the world shuts down three days before our trip. Frustrated, we refuse to believe th…
“My children are embarking on their own lives now. While their paths are not taking them into medicine, I see how medicine has influenced their lives. They are committed to investing in themselves to reach their desired outcomes. They understand …
I first met her at the bedside of her newly born son Tyler. Barely hours after her caesarian section, this mother mustered enough strength to get on a wheelchair to visit her little human at the NICU. That was just the beginning of our journey together…
