As a Christian pediatric ICU nurse who has seen all the terrible things, I can’t stomach platitudes, including Christian platitudes. Those who have followed my writing here know that I have spent a lot of time wrestling with questions like "Where is God in the PICU - cases of injustice" and issues such as the … Continue reading FREE 7-Day E-Devotional: Gritty Gospel-Based Reflections for Nurses in the Trenches
Christian nursing
End of Year Thoughts
Life in this final month of this wild year has been appropriately chaotic (thanks norovirus!), so there isn’t sufficient headspace or time to pen a shiny, well-articulated post of reflection. Instead, just a few thoughts that are hopefully still worth your time and consideration: On our personal medical crises: We’ve weathered significant storms with my … Continue reading End of Year Thoughts
Wholehearted Nursing vs Codependency
How do you know if you’ve crossed the line from trying to be wholehearted and deeply empathetic, to being co-dependent? This was a question that came up in a couple of conversations at the recent (and incredible!) End Well conference. I’ve thought about it quite a bit over the years, as there is without doubt … Continue reading Wholehearted Nursing vs Codependency
Podcast Episode: A Year of Shocking Diagnoses
What is it like to be an average family - parents and two kids - in which your year begins with the mom receiving a cancer diagnosis, and then the dad suffers a severe spinal cord injury just as the mom moves into remission and preventative hormone therapy? This was our year. For the first … Continue reading Podcast Episode: A Year of Shocking Diagnoses
Part Three of Three: Go On Living Together
This is the third post in a three-part series I wrote for my church blog about my spiritual wrestlings as I went through my cancer journey. Who knew that this would then be so pertinent in the second half of this year as my husband now recovers from his spinal cord injury. "Life remains beautiful … Continue reading Part Three of Three: Go On Living Together
Part Two of Three-Part Series: Reckoning with Illness and Death
"In the first post of this series [for my church blog], I shared the story about how I received a breast cancer diagnosis just a few minutes before my friend Susan announced her benign results from her own recent biopsy. I confronted the reality that sometimes, God says no to our prayers for things to … Continue reading Part Two of Three-Part Series: Reckoning with Illness and Death
Part One of Three: Personal Spiritual Wrestlings as a Cancer Patient
I have wrestled with spiritual questions a good deal as the nurse bearing witness to my patients' stories over the years. In that, I have often wondered about the intricacies of how my patients' families process their experience of significant illness in a loved one. This year, with my own breast cancer diagnosis, I learned … Continue reading Part One of Three: Personal Spiritual Wrestlings as a Cancer Patient
Returning to Bedside Nursing after My Own Cancer Journey
As described in previous posts, the first half of this year took me sideways on a cancer journey that I never anticipated. I had my lumpectomy in January, which was followed by a complication with a massive hematoma at the surgical site that had me swollen, in pain, and oozing old blood from my incision … Continue reading Returning to Bedside Nursing after My Own Cancer Journey
Finishing Radiation: Waiting Room Story #2
Because radiation is a therapy that happens every day for weeks, you start to see some of the same people in the waiting room as your schedules overlap. I kept to myself but I certainly did notice a few faces that became a little more familiar, particularly those who would be leaving just as I … Continue reading Finishing Radiation: Waiting Room Story #2
Finding the Story Amidst Technicalities
Today I went for a CT scan to prepare for upcoming radiation as part of my breast cancer journey. I've been posting some reflections about my experiences for friends in my personal social media accounts, but I will share one here because it pertains to the way we can go about the technicalities of our … Continue reading Finding the Story Amidst Technicalities
The Heart of Nursing 