On Christmas Eve 1993, I pulled into the garage bringing my son Ian home for the very first time, and Bing Crosby's "I'll be home for Christmas," was playing on the radio. We thought it was so appropriate, and let the car run, finishing the song before taking him out of his car seat and bringing him into the house for the very first time. Not a Christmas holiday seasons passes without my hearing that song at least 100 times, and remembering that moment every single time it plays. Last week, Ian came home for the weekend, and I knew he'd been planning to propose to his girlfriend, and I was so excited for him as he shared all of his ideas. Saturday night we went out to dinner and on the way out, he excitedly hopped into the front seat and said he wanted to play the song he thought ... View Post
Who do You Want to Look like?
This morning, I took my grandkids for a walk. They are almost 3 and 5, and I only see them every few weeks, so their growth in so many ways always amazes me - especially their vocabularies. We talked about the word "difficult" this morning, and I told them to use it instead of saying "hard" when describing things that are challenging. And so then we had to talk about the word "challenging," and what sorts of things are difficult. A little while later, they saw a lizard in a book, and Owen said it changes colors, so we talked about the word "camouflage," and how the lizard, and other animals can make themselves look just like the environment they are in very quickly. But so can people. In fact, it can even be said about me, as much as I hate to admit it. If I get around someone ... View Post
The Tired Nurse
It's almost 10 p.m., my 3rd load of laundry is in the wash, and my weeks' worth of scrubs are hanging on my new clothesline thingy in the garage so I can avoid making my little condo too heated up on this sweet summer night. My shoes are out on the porch with their tongues hanging out to dry after having walked through 18 different houses and nursing homes this week. My car's been cleaned out, my rolling suitcase cleaned up and sorted out, my trunk reorganized (sort of), my box of binders transferred from the back seat "office," to my desk in the basement for updates and purging before Tuesday, and my next week's "hopeful" schedule all planned out. I'm currently sitting with my foot in an Epsom salts soak because the pedicure I was so looking forward to on Monday night went bad and now ... View Post
Guilty
In 1982 while stationed in Panama, my friends Debbie, Edna, Darlene, and Sheila and I were hanging out in the barracks. Four of us lived on the Pacific side of the country, but Sheila lived on the Atlantic side of Panama, a couple of hours drive away - (not an easy drive either). She needed to leave early evening or late afternoon, but we were all stuck up on the third floor scared to death because for some odd reason, there were a lot of bats flying around in the hallway. Sheila needed to leave, and we had to find a way to get her out of the barracks. We kept yelling out the window to anyone who would listen, but no one would listen, so we threw a huge blanket over all five of us, tip-toed out into the hallway, and one for all, and all for one, together we pulled the fire ... View Post
Because God…
Back in February, just a few short months ago, my sister and I laughed about the number of masks I owned, and the number of rolls of toilet paper we transported from one place to another. I moved just 12 miles north of the home I'd lived in for 22 years. We laughed and said something about how years from now, the generations behind us will know we lived through the pandemic by the things we collected, just like we could tell our grandparents had lived through the depression. A work friend recently said to me that she'd love to get a room full of healthcare workers just to share our stories of what we've seen, because we all just "get" each other like no one else. I know that everyone experienced COVID, whether you were in the healthcare field or not, and I know we will tell the ... View Post
It’s Just “Stuff”
I'm still not sure what the heck my friend and I were stuck behind headed north on Hayes Road today on our way home from church. Bumper to bumper we sat for 20 minutes, when we spotted an "Estate Sale!" sign, and decided that checking it out was a good idea. Maybe the traffic might even clear up by the time we hit the road again, we figured. Cars were lined up on both sides of the road, bumper to bumper just like what we thought we'd just escaped, and to our surprise, the estate sale was at the home of a patient we'd both cared for. "Should we go in?" we wondered between the two of us, and finally decided we'd go in to say hello to the family we'd come to love. But the family wasn't there. A young gentleman who worked for an estate sale company sat at a table with a small cash ... View Post
Dementia Ponderings
It's Sunday night, and mentally I'm preparing for work tomorrow. At 9 a.m., I'll see my first patient, and hopefully by the time 5 p.m. arrives I will have seen five or six of my patients. Most of them have dementia. Most of them don't remember me from week to week. Most of them don't remember where they are, or who the president is. They can't remember what they ate for lunch five minutes ago, or even how to brush their own teeth. They don't have a clue what is going on in the world, all of the division, the hatred, the violence, or the ugly political climate. Thank God. Sometimes, I think that is nothing short of God's mercy. But other times, when a moment of clarity miraculously (and I mean - miraculously), comes along... and someone is able to express that they hurt ... View Post
It Probably Doesn’t Matter
It baffles me sometimes what people lose sleep over. It baffles me even more what people will pull over on the side of the road to post about on social media. (Actually, it baffles me even more, what I've lost sleep over). An old friend of mine used to suggest that if something won't matter in five years, then it isn't worth worrying about today, (and it certainly isn't worth pulling over on the side of the road to make a FaceBook post about either). I've gotten pretty good over the past few years at not letting stuff that won't matter in five years keep me awake at night, but I'd be lying if I said I never fail miserably at that. Last night was one of those failure nights :/ But, leave it to an afternoon patient to remind me of what does and doesn't matter. After sharing a ... View Post