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Hoax
Posted on August 19, 2020 1 Comment
In the hoax tent across from me sat Dr. Patel I think. Hard to tell with that mask, but her eyes were familiar, from other days when we wore no masks and huddled together for rounds and codes and could read each others’ lips, not eyes teeming with terror. Like now. When we each caught […]
Nevertheless, She Persisted
Posted on February 5, 2018 Leave a Comment
Many years ago, there was a blonde nurse who was a member at the pool club in my town. She used to arrive in the late summer mornings to relax by her cabana before work. Around 2 p.m., she would change into her smart uniform in that cabana, like a superhero in a phone booth, […]
A Christmas Story
Posted on December 27, 2017 Leave a Comment
While Black Bart was getting his you were getting yours – sodium bicarb calcium gluconate D50 – not with a Red Ryder BB gun, but a triple lumen CVC, ‘as beautiful, as coolly deadly-looking a piece of weaponry as I’d ever laid eyes on.’ Bullets to save, not slay – Mannitol 3% sodium Zosyn. Your […]
A Nurse’s Introduction
Posted on July 25, 2017 1 Comment
There are telltale signs we will meet again – the crumbling dryness of your feet, the purplish opalescence of your shins, the belly – taut with distension, and the hint of yellow in your eyes, from which, even as you’re joking now, a few feet away from me in the grocery store, jovial crinkles surrounding […]
No Pity for Princesses
Posted on October 7, 2016 Leave a Comment
Synchronicity. Meaningful coincidences. There are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. There is a bigger plan. We tell ourselves the events occurring in our lives are connected by meaning. Maybe they are; maybe they aren’t. As I’ve said before, I prefer to believe they are. Things make a bit more sense that way. Not […]
More Than a Paycheck
Posted on May 4, 2015 Leave a Comment
Once again, we find ourselves approaching National Nurses Day (Wednesday, May 6th), International Nurses Day (Tuesday, May 12th) and National Nurses Week (May 6th – May 12th), celebrated throughout our country with employer-sponsored stress-relieving massages, medical-themed tchotchkes, pens, totes, and – of course – bagels and coffee. It’s probably no coincidence that Nurses Day happens […]
Lioness
Posted on August 20, 2014 1 Comment
The prospect of jury duty is not as offensive to me as it is to many people. While it is, unquestionably, a nuisance to interrupt a busy work week with two uselessly hanging, disjointed days, translated into hesitantly accepted free time – since it is nearly impossible to conduct any meaningful work in a jury […]
End of Shift
Posted on August 7, 2014 Leave a Comment
Inflated insensitivity clocks out at 7:30, hoisting its Michael Kors bags on twin, still-painless hips, and smoothly bouncing past a faded blonde, head in her hands, crouched on the curb and muttering prayers to her feet, because death – even when anticipated – is vulgar and unexpected, isn’t it? They cross the driveway to the […]
Hey, Nurses, Happy Special Needs Caregivers Day
Posted on May 2, 2014 Leave a Comment
The evolution of National Nurses Week (May 6, 2014 – May 12, 2014) and National Nurses Day, which will honor nurses this year on Tuesday, May 6, 2014, has been a well-deserved reward for the hard work and dedication of nurses in all areas of the profession. Doctors don’t need any recognition like this because […]
Metastasia
Posted on March 12, 2014 Leave a Comment
One day, when many summers yet remained for me, the cough and phlegm of the starved contemplated its many misspent summers – above the muted hum of an oxygen concentrator, and amid the useless drips of poison – the foggy prognosis hung, floating bland, no more meaning left to its name than, say, swirling summer […]
A Girl by the Bridge 
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