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Confronting the New Normal: A Family Caregiver’s Perspective

By Kay Patterson, MA. The author is a retired licensed mental health counselor from Buffalo, NY. Before her career as a counselor, she was a newspaper reporter. Recent essays, profiles, and travel pieces have been published in the Buffalo News and other publications.

fork-in-the-road“All I wanted was a cortisone shot,” my wife moaned as we left the doctor’s office after an MRI investigating several falls she’d taken. Her dazed look reflected my feeling exactly. She was one hip surgery down, another one to go, and now . . . back surgery?

The neurosurgeon had been breezy but concerned as he showed us the results on his tiny iPhone screen.

“The lumbar MRI caught a small area of your thoracic. Good thing. You’ve got a stenosis and if we don’t decompress it right away, you could lose all function in your legs.”

What?

He said he needed another MRI for a closer look. We had just enough time to buzz home for a sandwich and some frantic research. Thoracic stenosis, Google told us, is a compression in the middle of the spine that cuts off messages from the brain to the lower extremities. It’s rare and potentially dangerous.

Potentially. Was the neurosurgeon rushing it? “He’s like Hawkeye on MASH,” Susan groused. “A hot shot.”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, struggling to remain in helper mode after two months of watching her mysterious wobble. My heart […]

2017-05-05T17:23:16-04:00September 26th, 2016|Patients|0 Comments
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A 40-Year Red Cross Volunteer’s Ongoing Quest to Learn More

Sue Hassmiller, on left, as American Red Cross volunteer following 2011 Alabama tornado strikes.

By Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) senior advisor for nursing, and director, Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, American Red Cross volunteer national ambassador. (Second post of ongoing Clara Barton Study Tour series.)

The ‘Red Cross lady’ on the phone.

Earthquake hits Mexico City! said the news flash on my television screen 40 years ago as I sat in my childhood home. I was a college student, house-sitting for my parents, who were in Mexico City for a long-deserved vacation.

I had no idea what to do. There were no cell phones in those days, no Internet. I hurried to the yellow rotary phone on the wall at the end of the kitchen cabinets and dialed 0 for the operator. I implored her help. She said she couldn’t help me, but would connect me to an organization that could. It was the American Red Cross. […]

2016-11-21T13:00:57-05:00September 23rd, 2016|Clara Barton 2016, nursing history, Public health|1 Comment
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Their Story: Each Patient is Someone’s Family Member

By Amy S. Jacobs, BSN, RN, CCRN. The author works as a critical care nurse in Tampa, Florida.

hospital corridorWhy does it usually take a personal experience of having a family member become a patient to make us see our patients in a new light—to see them as someone’s grandmother, father, sister, or spouse and not just a room number?

I’ve been a nurse in critical care for the past 10 years. Three of those years were spent as a travel nurse working short-term contracts in intensive care units across the country. And most of my ICU experience has been in trauma units.

I’ve watched a family come to grips with the fact their son is now brain-dead after a car accident.

I’ve comforted the husband and children of a patient who suddenly developed an infection and died after an apparently successful two-year treatment for cancer.

I’ve witnessed a daughter realize her dad is never going to be the same after a stroke takes away his mobility and speech.

I’ve seen a patient realize that, while he’s lucky to be alive after his motorcycle accident, he’s going to have to learn to navigate a new world without one of his legs.

As nurses we see these situations. We have sympathy for our patients and their families. We try to keep in mind the emotional support our patients need while also taking care of their physical […]

2016-11-21T13:00:57-05:00September 20th, 2016|Nursing, patient experience|3 Comments
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To Boldly Go . . . In Search of Nurses

By Beth Toner, MJ, RN, senior communications officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Nurse Christine Chapel, original Star Trek series/via Wikipedia Nurse Christine Chapel, original Star Trek series/via Wikipedia

Inaccurate Representations in Popular Culture

Many critics and fans delighted in the release of the “reboot” Star Trek in 2009; the film, after all, breathed new life into the franchise, and introduced a whole new generation to its beloved characters—including Kirk, Spock, and the inimitable Dr. McCoy, better known as ‘Bones.’ A lifelong Trekker (I was born just weeks after the series launched in 1966), I was delighted, too. Yet I was exasperated at the notable invisibility of a minor recurring character: Nurse Christine Chapel.

Many of you may be asking: “Really? What does a fictional science fiction nurse have to do with real, professional nurses?”

Symptom of Broader Invisibility

The lack of emphasis placed on Nurse Chapel’s character is symptomatic of what I believe is a larger problem: the absence of nurses’ voices in key positions—not just in pop culture, but more importantly in boardrooms, community and nonprofit organizations, and in policy making. Furthermore, where nurses are present, there is a general misunderstanding of what it is nurses do every day—and how our presence is vital to building a society in which all have […]

2016-11-21T13:00:58-05:00September 8th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|1 Comment
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Sent Back: Imagining the Real Costs of a Family’s End-of-Life Decisions

Evelyn Simak/ via Wikimedia Commons Evelyn Simak/ via Wikimedia Commons

Editor’s note: This is a work of fiction. The characters are invented; the situation explored may be all too common.*

Beep. Beep. Beep. There’s a slow, rhythmic sound next to my head. I’ve never heard a sound like it before. I hear a whoosh on the other side of me, and at the same time I feel pressure in my chest, like a balloon that on the verge of popping.

It only lasts a few seconds and the pressure is gone. My chest returns to normal and I immediately feel better. Something squeezes my left arm tight—so tight that I want to yell. But I can’t make any words come out.

Then, just as quick as the pressure in my chest came and left, so does the pinch around my arm. I don’t know where I am, but I feel like I’m being tortured.

“I know that it’s cold in here, but I’ll use this warm blanket to keep you warm,” says the strange voice, belonging to a person I can’t see.

Who are you, I try to ask. But just as the darkness around me persists, so does my inability to speak. I have no idea where I am, and I’m scared.

The voice comes back, “Ok, it’s time to roll […]

2017-07-28T10:06:11-04:00July 12th, 2016|Nursing|4 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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