To my Western Christian brothers and sisters, I come to you as a fellow Christian and as a pediatric ICU nurse with a burden and a plea. I come to you as someone who knew in theory and through some personal experience before I became a nurse, that this world can be cruel and unfair. … Continue reading A Letter from a Christian PICU Nurse to the Western Christian Church
compassion
Grief and the Good and Hopeful Life
In my last blog post, I took a birds-eye view with some thoughts on why we don’t know what to do with grief. I’m not trying to talk us out of grief by rationalizing. It only makes sense that we don’t readily know what to do with grief. It can hurt like hell. Its existence … Continue reading Grief and the Good and Hopeful Life
How to Prevent a Code as a Nurse (and it’s not the way you think)
Hers was a story that would make you shake your head in disbelief just to hear the background, never mind what all actually went down on my shift with her. An unstable family, a turbulent social life, clear signs of personal distress. As the nurse, I listened to the story, and like a good nurse, … Continue reading How to Prevent a Code as a Nurse (and it’s not the way you think)
The Messy Untangling: On Sorting Through the Hard Feelings after a Rough Shift
Today, I’m feeling it. The untangling after a particularly intense shift on all levels. I walked into a shift with a family whose child had taken a big turn for the worse and they had no guarantees that moving forward with certain procedures and therapies would turn things around for the better. We could only … Continue reading The Messy Untangling: On Sorting Through the Hard Feelings after a Rough Shift
A Shared Sense of Rest: On Therapeutic Presence and the Power of Quiet
She was not my patient, but I had briefly met her earlier in the day, and my co-worker asked if I might be free to go in her room and just be with her awhile while my co-worker caught up on charting. The patient was having an anxiety attack, and the Ativan we had given … Continue reading A Shared Sense of Rest: On Therapeutic Presence and the Power of Quiet
The Small Unforgettable Lesson: On Feeling the Gap Between the Nurse and the Patient’s Family
Disoriented, exhausted, and almost slightly embarrassed, she emerged from her dark room and blinked. I was the nurse for a different patient a couple doors down and had occasionally glanced at the photos she had taped on the front of her son’s door throughout the day – photos of her infant son in his healthier … Continue reading The Small Unforgettable Lesson: On Feeling the Gap Between the Nurse and the Patient’s Family
The Heart of Nursing 