The Afterlife of Trauma, Near and Far

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, is an oncology nurse navigator and writes a monthly post for this blog.

Mixed media illustration by Julianna Paradisi Mixed media illustration by Julianna Paradisi

The alarm clock rang noisily. I wasn’t ready to surrender the cozy cocoon of my bed and venture into the emotional turbulence of this particular day: The 14th anniversary of 9/11.

The week leading up to it was rough. My stepfather had quadruple coronary bypass surgery in another city. Although it was successful, and his children were there to help and support my mother, I’ve felt guilty for not being there myself, because I’m the nurse in the family, and I feel responsible for every medical problem that arises for the ones I love—even if I’m not really needed.

Besides this, at work we’re in one of those cycles where every patient gets bad news: The cancer has invaded the borders of another organ, or the patient is incredibly young for the diagnosis that’s been received. Six months into my career as an oncology nurse navigator, I realize the emotional toll from secondary trauma is often more related to a previous job as a pediatric intensive care nurse than that of my more recent position as an oncology infusion nurse.

Because of all this, I decided to minimize my media exposure to the trauma of 9/11 this year. I stayed off of Facebook, and instead of watching the morning news I listened to Lyle Lovett croon the delightfully […]

2016-11-21T13:01:58-05:00September 28th, 2015|career, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|2 Comments
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A Little Levity to Ease the Family Caregiver’s Burden

Illustration by Hana Cisarova for AJN/All right reserved. Illustration by Hana Cisarova for AJN/All right reserved.

According to the CDC, almost 21% of households in the U.S. are affected by family caregiving responsibilities. The pressures and costs of this unpaid labor of love have been well documented.

This month’s Reflections essay, “Swabbing Tubby,” is written from the family caregiver perspective rather than that of a nurse. It’s about the wife and two adult daughters of an ailing older man as they are coached in one of the skills they will need to care for him at home.

It’s a tough situation, but one in this case leavened by the ability of these three women to laugh a little at the more absurd aspects of their predicament. Here’s the beginning:

In retrospect, I can’t help feeling sorry for the earnest young woman who tried so hard to show my mother, my sister, and myself how to hook up our brand-new, at-home, IV feeding device. She was all of 25, with the freshly scrubbed look of a young schoolgirl. Her youthful perkiness was no match for the trio of exhausted, crabby women who faced her across the empty hospital bed. Dad was down in X-ray having yet another CT scan, and the three of us were […]

2016-11-21T13:03:06-05:00February 2nd, 2015|patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|1 Comment
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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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