If you live with a chronic illness, you know that nothing surprises you. You are used to new symptoms arising out of the blue, and you are accustomed to doctors' visits, diagnostic tests, and hospitalizations. About a year ago, I swore off doctors for treatment of my fibromyalgia. Weary of chasing a cure and reaching …
Category: nurse
Patient Activation – Nostalgia for Dorothea Orem!
Last week I read an article about “patient activation” with some amusement. Activation sounded like batteries. Did patients need a couple of Triple As inserted into the soles of their feet to get involved in their own health care? The article defined patient activation as “understanding one’s own role in the care process and having …
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Unwelcome Itchy Visitors
I wish I had something more soothing to write for you today. But last Monday, after a three-day hissy fit of prickly-burning body-wide itching, a dermatologist looked at the tan line on my back and asked, "Where's this tan from? And how long ago did you get it?" “Aruba. Three weeks ago,” I said. "Then …
Nurse Shares Her Experience of Dying
As she lay dying from pancreatic cancer, Nurse Martha Keochareon wanted to do more than plan her funeral. So she called her alma mater and offered to become a “case study” for nursing students. She reasoned she could help students learn about the dying process while, at the same time, it would be a way …
Aging Gracefully at Seventy
When I first read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1970, I cried with relief. Friedan had interviewed suburban housewives and found many were not fulfilled as homemakers. That was me. And like others in these first waves of feminism, I, after some painful soul-searching (chapters 5 and 6 in Caring Lessons), ventured out of …
Pray for Meaning and Peace
The New York Times reported yesterday that people in Newtown, CT, do not know the right thing to do now after the tragic loss of lives. But, as I thought about this last night, I knew the right thing for me to do today, on this primarily weekly blog post, was to extend my sympathy and …
BSN to Doctoral Degree Programs
As a retired nurse educator, I’m excited about the trend in nursing to prepare nurses at a younger age for research and, particularly, academic careers. As we older nurses like to say, “in my day” as a new diploma grad in 1962, I never thought about a full-time career in academia. In fact, in those …
Nursing Reunion Becomes Spiritual Retreat
"If only" runs through my mind as I remember our 50th reunion of a week ago. Twenty-nine of forty classmates (three have died) met at Camp Geneva in Holland, Michigan, from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. Many of us, as proud members of the Blodgett Memorial Hospital School of Nursing Class of 1962, had not …
A time to be born and a time to die…
We buried my nurse-mentor sister on Saturday, and we bury a beloved cousin tomorrow. As I sit at my desk overlooking Chicago's Millennium Park, the trees remind me that fall is a time of changing seasons, when greens turn to red to yellow to brown. And the colors remind me of the changing seasons of …
My sister’s obituary – Kathleen Korthuis, PhD, RN
As I worked on my eulogy last evening, I became more and more impressed with how much Kay, as the oldest of us Hoitenga Sisters, had unassumingly jammed into her life. Enjoy her efforts, efforts she would call modest, with me in her newspaper obituary. Meanwhile, before I attend her services this weekend, I'll be …
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