When My Alcoholic Uncle Died As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Tumblr. I follow many nurses, physicians, EMT’s, nursing students, and other healthcare professionals. I am a fan of the short posts with great images and rarely sit down and read long posts. However, when I started reading this nurse’s […]
death and dying
When Your Patient Starts Crying
One of the first questions you may ask yourself in your nursing career is “How to comfort a crying patient.” Everyone has their own forte’, and for some, providing emotional support to people in crisis can be an OMG WHAT DO I DO moment. It can be uncomfortable. It can be weird. It can be […]
Guest Blog Post: A Mother’s Goodbye
Just like I’ve done one hundred times before, I recently held a young patient’s hand while we withdrew life support and they passed away. We have to stay in the rooms throughout the passing in order to administer the pain medication and anti-anxiety medication, and to ensure they are comfortable and calm in their final […]
Assisted Suicide: A Nurse’s Perspective
This is a guest blog post written by fellow nurse author, Susan Allison-Dean, MSN RN. This can be a pretty emotionally-charged topic and was interested to hear about her research during graduate school. Check out her post below and please comment with your thoughts and if you’ve personally done research on the ethics of this! […]
Why I Can’t Cry With You
Since my post I Wish I Could Cry With You, But I Can’t went up, there has been quite a large response. I felt the need to write a follow-up post to further explain myself. I think that a lot of nurses really understood what I meant with my post, but those that either aren’t nurses or […]
I Wish I Could Cry With You, But I Can’t
This post contains affiliate links Author’s note: I believe many people misunderstood what I meant by I can’t cry with you. I think many assumed that I was trying to communicate that I am not allowed to cry, rather than I emotionally cannot handle your pain right now and therefore must distance myself. Please check out my follow-up […]
Something You’re Dying to Talk About
Being a critical care nurse, I’ve witnessed quite a few people pass away. I’ve assisted in taking people off of the ventilator to allow them to pass naturally. I’ve cared for patients that are donating their organs. I’ve been there for people when they take their last breath because their loved ones could not bear […]
You’re a Life Saver. Literally
I don’t know if any of you nurses out there struggle with what I’ve been fighting over the last year or so. Whenever I’m in a large crowd and see elderly people or someone not looking so hot, I play the worst-case scenario out in my mind. They collapse. I run over. Start CPR. Yell […]
Sitting Down for Your Patient
I went to NTI in Denver, Colorado this last week. For those of you that don’t know, it’s an annual national conference for critical care nurses. And it’s awesome. I went to a lot of sessions. Some on brain death, some on vasoactive drips, on sepsis, and hyponatremia.. but the ones that hit me the hardest […]
The Death of a Heart
I recently saw this video on YouTube and thought it was necessary to share. Nurslings, new grads, nurses new to telemetry.. check out this 1 minute video of a cardiac arrest:
Guest Blog Post: A Wedding in Intensive Care
A few days ago, a Twitter bud of mine, @Terimedwards tweeted: Y’all. We had a wedding in the ICU so a man could see his grandson get married before he dies. #beautiful @NurseEyeRoll And this immediately made me emotional. And immediately made me want her to tell us the story! Teri was gracious enough to […]
A Nurse’s Confession: Sometimes I Hate My Job
But not in the way you’d think. It’s not the hours or the pay or the poops. It’s how keenly and constantly aware I am of our precious and fragile lives. Today while I was driving, I came up behind a car with an “organ donors save lives” bumper sticker and I immediately thought, that […]
Our Nursing Reality – Part II
Back in November, I posed a question to my nursey Twitter buds: If you were on a reality show.. what moment in your nursing career would you want the world to see? #nursingreality The response was jaw dropping. Every single tweet I read moved me to tears… either from laughing so hard or being so […]