Garfield by Jim Davis
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"It's the end of the world as I know it... and I feel fine." -R.E.M.
"The task of medicine is to cure sometimes, to relieve often, and to comfort always."
Ambroise Pare
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"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit."
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7 comments:
i heart garfield! we have so much in common when it comes to dieting:)
I love Garfield, but I'm mostly dedicated to the lifestyle change version of eating. So very difficult to do in the land of supersize everything, but before you do, dump a bunch of salt, grease and sugar on it!
Onehealthpro
I have a question about a nursing resource - can you contact me at laura.gilbert@nursezone.com? Thanks!
I would love to get your opinion on a program I am thinking about. Could you email me at mmarsani@gmail.com.
Thanks!
love garfield! :)
I was wondering if you'd be interested in posting any articles from the Nursezone.com website. There are lots of relevant articles for todays nurse. The great news is that using nursezone content on your site is no cost. We'd just like to have a link back to our site for those of your bloggers interested in finding a community of nurses, CE opportunities, travel nursing and other relevant nurse aids. An example of a nursing article is below:
Nurse Overcomes Cancer—Twice—to Provide Care to Others
By Nancy Deutsch, RN, contributor
Many people yearn to make nursing their career, but few have to battle the odds like Valerie Bush.
The Independence, Kentucky, woman, who was a medical technician for six years and a nurse’s aide “on and off forever,” waited until her children were raised to return to nursing school. When she finally entered the Gateway Community and Technical College, it was unbelievably stressful. Not only was the single mother dealing with her course work, but her father died, and her youngest daughter was dealing with medical problems, including bipolar disease.
Bush, now 42 years old, was “disgustingly healthy when I started” school in 2004, but quite overweight, and she started to lose a lot of the extra girth.
“I lost massive amounts of weight in just a few months,” she recalled. “I was a pretty big girl. I lost 100 pounds.”
At first, Bush chalked up the weight loss and constant belching to stress, but when she shed all the weight, she found a lump in her breast. “I decided to see a doctor over break.”
Bush was diagnosed with DCIS, and beneath that, metastatic breast cancer.
“I lost everything in a week,” Bush said. The diagnosis sent her daughter off the deep end, upset her boyfriend, and meant she had to stop the classes she had waited so long to take.
“As a nurse, you think you know what a cancer diagnosis entails,” she said. “But you don’t. It affects every single thing in your life.”
Bush was determined not to have treatment, after seeing patients suffer from the effects of chemo. She felt “chemo was a much worse death than cancer” if she was going to die anyway. Her children “convinced me to do it one time.”
It was November, and Bush told her physician she would have treatment if it could be done by August so she would only miss one semester of school.
Her physician figured Bush would need heavy-duty drugs to cure her disease and meet her deadline, so he enrolled her in a special study.
“I was involved in a protocol study to see if a pretty healthy person could survive all those drugs,” Bush said. “I was so sick.”
In addition to the chemo, Bush underwent a lumpectomy, an exploratory surgery that resulted in the removal of some lymph nodes, and an oophorectomy. “I lay on the couch for nine months,” Bush recalled.
She was also financially devastated. Although she had received a small scholarship for school from St. Elizabeth Medical Center, she could not pay living expenses without working. A local charity called the “I Have Wings Foundation” gave her considerable support.
But Bush made her deadline for school, graduating this past spring with her associate degree in nursing. She also had a PET scan in December that did not reveal any more cancer.
“With cancer, you’re not considered cured until you’ve passed five years (cancer-free),” Bush noted. But “my oncologist is as sure as can be.”
That doesn’t mean life is easy for Bush, who has shoulder pain in the arm where her lymph nodes were removed. She is also taking an estradiol inhibitor that “makes me sick on and off. I’m having super menopause” and will have to take the drug for five years.
She is also studying for the NCLEX, which she hopes to take in August, after working the requisite 120 hours as a floor nurse (a Kentucky state law).
Despite all this, Bush is ecstatic. She has been hired by St. Elizabeth Medical Center on med-surg. “I’m so excited, you can’t believe it. I want to learn it all, see it all and do it all. I think that’s the way I serve my God.”
She is not interested in working oncology right now, but would like to one day work in patient advocacy. “My plan is to see if I can find a need.”
Nursing has always been her calling, and Bush would next like to get her Master’s degree. “I’m a natural caregiver,” she said. “My kids call it Mother Hen syndrome.”
© 2007. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Let me know what you think.
Tracy (nursezoneportal@earthlink.net)
Garfield is the best. i'm a phlebotomy technician and I always use a Garfield band aid wth the kids
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