Crumbled Walls: A Transformative Caregiving Journey

Confronting fragility: a perfectionist father’s illness.

“Nurses make horrible patients,” my dad’s words echoed in my mind as I stood beside his hospital bed. Confined to this cold and sterile room, he, once a seasoned nurse, now teetered between worlds, fighting to maintain control of his crumbling body and the walls that had always surrounded him.

My father took pride in his immaculate exterior wall. He kept a well-manicured lawn and showcased three exemplary children and a life partner we referred to as our “uncle” when outside the wall. The inside structure was sharp and less forgiving. Within the confines of his perfectly controlled life, I was subjected to restrictive diets and forced to starve myself, all in pursuit of fitting his external vision of a perfect 16-year-old girl. I didn’t match his mural, but at least I had “a pretty face.”

In this hospital bed, my father’s wall became brittle and translucent. Machines whirred, extending their tentacles, both charging him with life and subtly stealing it away. Weakened by the long-term use of prednisone, his body bore the weight of cancer’s progression, leaving him moon-faced and unrecognizable. His once unblemished mural, now in ruins, left him dependent and vulnerable, requiring nursing assistance for basic tasks like toileting and bathing.

In his time of greatest […]

2023-06-13T07:28:49-04:00June 6th, 2023|end of life, Nursing, nursing career|4 Comments

December Issue: TikTok’s ‘Dancing Nurses,’ HIV-Associated Kaposi Sarcoma, More

“As an ICU nurse, I have vivid impressions of the adrenaline-pumping moments of a code blue. Now, after being an ICU patient who experienced a code purple, I still more vividly remember the caring nurse who calmly made me feel like a human being . . .”—Alison Cusmano in her December Reflections essay, “Shift Change: From ICU Nurse to ICU Patient”

The December issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

Guest Editorial: A Tribute to Dr. Fauci

A nurse honors her husband’s legacy as he retires from a nearly six-decade career in public health.

Original Research: TikTok’s ‘Dancing Nurses’ During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Content Analysis

The authors examine the use of TikTok by nurses who incorporate dance into their videos—with a focus on understanding how nurses’ use of social media might be violating professional ethical standards.

CE: HIV-Associated Kaposi Sarcoma in the Combination Antiretroviral Therapy Era

This article provides an update on the incidence, characteristics, and management of Kaposi sarcoma, and outlines nursing considerations in the care of people living with HIV who have the disease.

[…]

2022-11-21T09:11:24-05:00November 21st, 2022|Nursing|2 Comments

‘An Epidemic Transformed’: Where Are We With HIV Today?

“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” [the patient said] to the nurse as he watched the last few drops of his chemotherapy drug infuse into the port implanted in his chest… The nurse caring for him smiled while preparing to disconnect his IV tubing and flush the port….   What distinguished [this patient] from the nurse’s other patients was that he had been living with HIV for 32 years.”

At the very beginning of the HIV epidemic, a friend of mine worked on one of the first HIV units in New York City. The nursing staff followed Standard Precautions in their work with these patients, as we do today. They weren’t particularly concerned about risk to themselves, because it was already clear that this disease—as little as we knew about it then—was not easily transmitted to caregivers.

Remembering fear.

Yet many who worked in other parts of the hospital were not convinced of this. One of my friend’s stories always stayed with me: She relayed how dietary staff would take the elevator to the HIV unit, shove the meal cart out of the elevators into the elevator lobby, and quickly step back into the elevator and close the doors. Many times the nursing staff […]

September Issue: HIV Update, RN-Performed Bone Marrow Procedures, Debriefing Methods, More

“One day—and I remember distinctly that all I was doing was setting up [my mother’s] pills and preparing a few bites of food that I hoped she’d eat—a clear small voice inside me said, ‘You could do this for other people.’”Linda Beall, author of the September Reflections column, “A Clear Small Voice”

The September issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new:

CE: HIV Update: An Epidemic Transformed

This article describes the current state of HIV treatment and prevention—including HIV risk reduction strategies such as PrEP and PEP—and highlights the common comorbidities often seen in older people living with HIV.

Cultivating Quality: Bone Marrow Aspiration and Biopsy Performed by RNs: A Review of Clinical Practice

The authors discuss the policies and practices of their program to train RNs to perform bone marrow procedures, its clinical and diagnostic outcomes, and the opportunity for nurses to work to their full scope of practice.

Teaching for Practice: Using Debriefing Methods in the Postclinical Conference

This article examines various debriefing methods and describes scenarios in which clinical instructors can use debriefing to turn daily events into teachable moments.

CE: Original Research: Are Milk and Molasses Enemas Safe for Hospitalized Adults? A Retrospective Electronic Health Record Review

The authors of this study evaluated the safety of milk […]

2019-08-26T10:09:33-04:00August 26th, 2019|Nursing|0 Comments

Tragic Plane Crash, Truvada Concerns, Changing Infection Rates: AIDS/HIV Issues in the News

Truvada Truvada / via Wikimedia Commons

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

There have been a number of recent high-profile news stories as well as some notable new research related to HIV/AIDS and its treatment and prevention.

First, AJN would like to add its voice to those expressing heartfelt regret at the deaths of a number of prominent and widely respected HIV advocates and researchers in the Malaysia Airlines jet that appears to have been shot down over Ukraine last week.

The Truvada controversy. Those who who died on the plane had been heading to an international conference in Melbourne, Australia, where one of the hot topics under discussion would be the pros and cons of the continuing expansion of the use of the antiretroviral drug Truvada beyond the treatment of existing HIV infection to long-term prophylactic use by the uninfected.

The topic is particularly timely here in New York where Governor Cuomo last week announced that New York State would make Truvada a centerpiece of its HIV-prevention strategy. The drug, taken every day, is more than 90% effective in preventing infection, but, as an NPR story recently described, a number of experts have raised concerns about widespread long-term use of Truvada for HIV prevention, noting

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