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Nurse's Notes--Should I Become A Nurse?
"I want you to--tell mama. All about it. And I'll make everything all right..." ~as sung by Etta James "Tell Mama" We are less than one month into the new year, and already our newest team member, "the swear jar," is getting no respect. Filled to...
- 40
With Regards to My Mother
Image origin: Pixdaus.com "I shall love her all my life, shall be to her a faithful friend, and if I can not remain loyal to both God and her, I shall renounce her and never see her face again. You'll call this folly; to me it is a hard duty, and...
- 20
First, Do No Harm--On Unconventional Treatment for Cancer
Alternatives exist to standard cancer treatment. Is it time to question chemotherapy?
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They Tell Me It's Nurses' Week
Photo entitled: Hi MOM! "We go deep, and we don't get no sleep, cuz we stay up all night, 'til the early light." --Janet Jackson "Go Deep" "HAPPY NURSES' DAY, BABY!" My mother, who has yet to learn her time zones, has called me at still-dark...
- 29
Hand to Hold
It was a slow night on the labor and delivery unit, and under dim lights in a Northern California hospital, a young mother planning an unmedicated birth breathed evenly through painful contractions,subsequent her husband by her side. The couple...
- 29
Spiderman--The Musical (God Help Us All)
"Shrewd is the one that has seen the calamity and proceeds to conceal himself..." (Proverbs 22:3 NWT) I need to build a case here. Growing up, Spiderman was easily my favorite superhero as a kid and remained so until this day. And when I lived...
- 27
What is a Traveling Nurse?
I get this question a lot, and I want to answer it, but part of me wants to first answer the question 'what is a nurse?' Many people have the image of nurses as angel-faced girls in white uniforms, offering sponge baths, and mouth-to-mouth, and...
- 79
Ten Things I've Learned From Facebook
I was booking it through an airport headed east to start a summer in Europe with more luggage than a person should ever have, and a man, in his generosity, offered me a luggage cart for which he had paid. In an act of blinding idiocy, I declined. ...
- 140
Ten Things Women Love About Men
I love a good man. I have had good men as friends, boyfriends, and I was reared by one. As it turns out, the good women in my life, both married and single, tend to love good men also, and we started discussing some of the things we love about...
- 19
The Graveyard Shift Diet--How to Get to Your Grave Faster
"SJ! Are you gonna wash your vitamins down with a coke? Really?"--asks my co-worker at whatever o-clock in the morning, during the graveyard shift at the hospital. Expressionless, I open my vitamin pack. "I'd wash them down with bacon juice. But...
- 13
Love Tap--An Essay on Domestic Violence
Daylight--and the boldest coffee available is brewing on the Labor and Delivery unit. Irene (name changed), the charge nurse, is cleaning up the assignment board, as the phone rings. It's the ED (emergency department). They want a labor nurse to...
- 12
The Silent Treatment--And Other Ways Not to Handle Your Problems Well
It's a fascinating fact that these days we have more ways of communicating then ever before, and yet we have not made any social advancements in handling problems of communication. For all of our technology, important social...
- 10
Welcome to the Jungle
If I wasn't already a twisted individual, my fate was sealed once I became a nurse in Labor and Delivery. At some point in my nursing studies, I wanted to be a person who helps people, saves lives, makes a difference---crap like that. Today, I want...
- 39
God?
My mother, the poet, says that even as a child, my awareness, and appreciation of God was mildly creepy. As a believer, I've had doubts, questions, frustrations--and there have been a few days I wanted a nice helping of atheism with my pancakes. A...
- 13
Adult ADD--"You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?"
This hub is a commentary on the subject of Adult ADD and the book, "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy," by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo. I'm partial to this book on the subject of ADD, because it's written by women and does a wonderful job...
- 14
Twenty-Five Things About the Storyteller
I wrote this on Facebook in March. No one believes number 16, but it's true. 01. I can laugh with almost anyone, about nearly anything. 02. I sing. I use to do so in public. My most embarrassing role was as a "Follie's Girl,"-it involved a lot of...
- 26
Why This Can't Be Happening
All names changed. It is night shift, and the lights are low. The labor and delivery unit is filled with the smell of Seattle's Best brewing, and slightly suspicious garlic hummus someone found raiding the fridge earlier. It's a mercifully slow...
- 27
A Hostage Situation
I grew up being part of an obnoxiously happy family. If we weren't such jokesters, we'd bore the crap out of everyone with our tales of my parents' long and happy marriage, all of us getting along as a family, helping each other out, and missing...
- 4
The Exodus (part 2)
The plagues. When I was little, my mother would play a dramatic interpretation of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt on tape, mostly so my brother and I would stop talking. We loved this, and it sounded so real to me, it was easy to believe. The...
- 6
The Exodus (part 1)
Written in Aswan, Egypt after a lecture on the subject. Many see the bible as a book of fables to teach children, and to occasionally help adults be better people. I am not one of those people. It seems that many with the strongest anti-bible...
- 19
The Forgetfully Submissive Woman
I have to start this with the disclaimer that I am no feminist, and I think the majority of feminists would have my head for what I have to say on the subject. I've found a lot of what I've read and heard in feminism to be self-defeating, but that's...
- 6
Man of Consequence
Today, the Mount of Olives is one of the worst places in Israel to have your wallet stolen. Of course this is sad, but it isn't really that surprising. These days, the Mount of Olives is a crowded place, with lots of tourists carrying money, ripe...
- 6
Leavin on a Midnight Train in Egypt
After a day of touring Giza, seeing the pyramids, some temples, dodging camel patties, and taking in all the dust a nation had to offer, it was time to travel to the next city on our tour. This was to happen via sleeper train, and we headed to the...
- 2
Shout Louder
This is told, in part, as it was related by a Jewish tour guide in Israel named Isak, on the way to the international airport in Tel Av-iv, Israel. As we passed Mt. Carmel, Isak related this account that he says occurred on this mountain. The...
- 8
Tongue Tied
It was already evening when my group of 89 tourists arrived at the base of Mount Sinai, and we were given the option of making the trek up the mountain on foot, or on camel. I wanted to walk it, probably just for the sake of saying I did so, but I...
- 6
Midway (part-1)
I hate layovers, except when they occur at airports like Midway International in Chicago. I don't know if it's the food, or the pubs, or the sheer unairportness of this little rest stop that makes me wander patiently. Midway feels less like one of...
- 7
Frequent Flyer
I am, without a doubt, a very seasoned traveler, and I love traveling, but it is certainly not for the impatient, nor the faint of heart. I can spot someone new to traveling a mile away. Everything to the travel novice is a raging catastrophe, but...
- 5
Disaster Supplies
I had been warned about the Big Earthquake, long before I ever moved to the bay area. My dad took a business trip here once when I was a kid, and he was considering moving our whole family here. My mother mentioned at that time that if he planned...
- 16
Moving Violation
My mom tried to teach me as a child that police officers were my friend, which I never believed, and once I started driving, I had mixed reviews of police officers. It was clear to me that the officers that gave me the warning were indeed, new...
- 10
Child Protective Services
Most know me to be a zealous protector of children, but in my travels in nursing, when I heard of a woman who had decided to name her unborn child "California," I realized, that I was not doing enough. In obstetrics, I work with both Social Workers,...
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Oil Can Henry's
Not long after I moved to the bay, I awoke one morning remembering that I really needed to put windshield wiper fluid in my car. The pollen was terrible that year, and though what my car really needed was to be washed, I was satisfied with just...
- 7
Fight Tiramisu
Many people don’t know that I’m a member of and also the founder of a coalition against tiramisu, aptly titled “Fight Tiramisu.” I’ve really tried to let bygones be bygones with tiramisu, but its crimes really shouldn’t be ignored any...
- 19
Go the Distance
I was always determined not to be a coffee drinker after I watched my mother be coffee's unapologetic slave my entire childhood. I wasn't about to let that happen to me. I was above coffee. I planned to get my boost of energy from determination,...
- 20
What A Girl Wants (part-1)
I was on my way to work on Saturday, and I was listening to MC Lyte, a female rapper from the 90's, brag to the world about how she's "gotta what, yo? gotta have a ruff neck!" Now, I don't listen to much rap, but what she was getting at was that...
- 3
Therapeutic
--This hub is an excerpt from the non-fiction book I'm writing about my experiences in childbirth as a traveling nurse. This hub may be disturbing for some. All names have been changed. In medicine, abortions are defined in one of two ways, either...
- 0
Our Little Phoebe
Typically, I only like cats in Chinese food. I know, I won't win friends by saying that, but it is what is. For all those that don't know they're ordering Kitty Lo Mein when they head to the corner Chinese joint, I hope I broke this news to you...
- 10
Aushwitz
My grandfather, who is dying, is an atheist due to the fact that he helped clean up concentration camps after WWII. He will spend his last breath denying that there is a God, because of the remnants of the horror he witnessed there. Hopefully, I am...
- 2
Ralphie
When I was 5, a pound puppy was a must have, and I wanted one desperately. I can’t be certain, but I believe nails were broken, eyes were gouged, and feet were trampled all in the name of motherly love in their quest to acquire these gilded toys...
- 7
Would I Lie to You? (Part-3)
Being young, sheltered, and definitely naive, when I began obstetrical nursing, I truly believed that babies came from families, or at the very least from doting single mothers who couldn't wait to hold and nurture their little offspring, planned or...
- 2
Waiting for When
Prison Tour in Dublin, Ireland When I was starting to try to get the hang of living life, I lived my life in the frame of mind that 'my life starts when.' When I declare my major--no, when I graduate--no, when I go back to school. No that isn't...
- 0
Would I Lie to You? Part-2
Upon the awkward return to work a few days later, Jimmy, my Texan manager, and self-proclaimed cowboy, decided he wanted to give me some sales tips. I wondered then, if he was planning on damaging our unspoken arrangement of me doing schoolwork and...
- 3
The Good Junkie
The first hospital I worked in was affectionately known as "the heroin addict's graveyard." The experience I had at the time with substance abusers whom I knew was limited to recreational marijuana users, who occasionally dabbled in harder drugs at...
- 0
Shirley L., RN
While I was sick in February with some sort of ancient plague, my very good friend Shirley decided that she absolutely had to come over with, you guessed it--soup, and see how I was. I was starting to regain my voice at that point. Out loud, I...
- 11
Write Bravely
Hostage I was reared to play my hand close to the chest, and though I do still consider myself a pretty discreet person, I realized recently that in order to write, you have to show your hand sometimes. Non-writers want to impress others, but...
- 6
Would I Lie to You? (Part-1)
At present, I scream at vaginas for a living, but prior to this little calling, I had many, many jobs. At one point, I sold cars, and by sold cars I mean I sold one--to my mom. I had the counter-productive habit of talking people out of...
- 7
Old Country Buffet
I can't hide the fact that I'm a food snob any longer. What's the point? I will eagerly try new things, but I am very sure of what I like, and what I don't. I know that there are starving children everywhere, and that I should be grateful for...
- 4
life support
My mother would buy a coffin if it were a "today's special" on the Home Shopping Network. Being an avid bargain-hunter, whether or not she could put said bargain to use, my mother couldn't resist a deal. I expected any one of my trips home to be the...
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Drive-Thru (cont'd)
I named my hoopty Reggie, it spoke to me. That name was unassuming, simple, and trying its best. There was something very "Little Engine That Could," about it, and I think in Greek Reggie means, "hey I know I'm not cool, but I'm handling it well."...
- 2
An S on His Chest
My overprotective father was the one who taught me how to ride a bike. It needs to be said that I had some coordination and balance issues with just walking, so no one was looking forward to taking on the task of teaching me to ride a bike. I was...
- 2
My Trader Joe's
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I hate Trader Joe's because that is in no way the case. I'm quite dependent on them actually. And it isn't that I hate friendliness, because it has it's place. But I'm just not sure what sort of Walt-Disney-themed...
- 16
Electronically Ever After
What is it that makes a person so much easier to love in paragraph form? I have had lunch with a person or two that I know, and care about, and still thought, ‘you would be so much better as an email right now.’ I have even allowed myself to...
- 5
Drive Thru
hoopty If someone would've mentioned to me while I was eating my tootsie pop at 6 years old in the backseat of my parents' Toyota corolla, that one day I was to be the proud owner of that very same machine, I really would've paid more attention. I...
- 22
Tricks of the Dominatrix
I really don't know enough about the subject to truly make the call, but I'm pretty sure I met a dominatrix when I was 22 and working as an extern at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital in Baltimore. Her name was Miss Ursula, and I could not make that...
- 1
To the Olympic Committee: A Request
Tonight I made the decision that people who are performing dangerous and highly distracting tasks behind the wheel are simply not getting enough credit or attention. I believe that the nation has been way too caught up droning on about war, and...
- 0
Stand Up and Be Counted2010
Stand Up And Be Counted Until I graduated from college...the second time, I had so many different types of jobs while I was in school that it should be a misdemeanor. I had a friend once tell me that she thought of me whenever she saw a "help...