WordPress notified me today that I started this blog eight years ago. I remember the day precisely. I’d just heard a favorite writing teacher, Helen Gallagher, tell our group that if we had a book coming out, we must start a blog at least six months ahead of time to help establish a platform. I’d …
Category: nurse
Changes in Nursing Since I Retired
Sitting at my husband's hospital bedside recently, I marveled at the changes I saw in nursing since I retired just seventeen years ago. I know I sound really old, but here's a list of what I saw being done differently: The endless use of gloves: I only wore gloves if a patient was in isolation. …
Nostalgia for Nursing
Oh no. That was bad. After being happily retired from nursing for nearly seventeen years, I had a severe attack of nostalgia last week. We were on our way home from AZ to SD and stopped at a niece’s along the way. An RN, she offered me a tour of her hospital where she’s worked …
Caring Lessons Debuts in South Dakota
Thanks to Jason Kurtz for starting South Dakota Writes last spring. SDW has brought together hundreds of writers in South Dakota who meet up on Facebook and at in-person venues. They hosted a Winter Author Book Fair in Sioux Falls on Saturday, December 10, 2016. Caring Lessons was there! A very fun thing that happens …
Meeting My Same Name New Friend
Imagine checking your emails and seeing one from yourself. A similar thing happened to me in September of 2015; I opened my blog one morning to find a comment written on a post by "Lois Roelofs." Imagine my surprise. How could that be? I had not written myself. I opened up the comment and read: …
Writing Essay at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival – 2016
I spent last week at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival taking a class in writing essay, using process pedagogy and taught by Nancy Barry. Look at it this way: the writer explores (writes into) a topic, several iterations, to find out what they really want to write about, and the writer also uses feedback to …
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Growing Older: Fractured Ribs for Christmas
When a title like this comes to mind, it usually means a story is begging to be told. Well, here’s my story. While a child may sing “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” an older woman like me probably won’t sing “All I want for Christmas is a few fractured ribs.” …
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The Truth About Nursing on TV Shows
When I discovered Call the Midwife on PBS a few years ago, I was thrilled that someone in the media finally got nursing right-- nurses as intelligent, knowledge-based, autonomous practitioners. Most TV shows portray us as either bimbos or handmaidens of the physician or both; therefore, I'm happy to share The Truth About Nursing's 2015 …
Growing Older: Getting Use to Embarrassment
I went to a writer’s conference over the weekend. The morning after, I usually wake up filled with ideas about what to do with many unfinished writing projects. Not today. I woke up this morning feeling embarrassed. Why? It took a second to remember. I’d dropped my phone Saturday. More correctly, I’d let it slide …
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Cognitive Multitasking – What Nurses Do
So, last time, I promised more posts about our river tour along the Danube, Main, and Rhine rivers. Well, internet remained sketchy, so I wasn't able to. More about the trip later, though. Now, back in my regular retired life in Chicago, I am pleased to present this review of a book written by nurse, …
Write Along with Me 