Small Stones:

crisp light from couch side lamps
yellow with warmth and glow
reflected off night
through glass

~~~

hammocked cat
purrs with sleeping breaths
her rib cage holding a roar

~~~

book pages tented over the couch-back
waiting my return

Happy National Nurses Day/Week!

What is the definition of "nursing"?

1. The profession of a nurse (Webster's Dictionary)
2. The protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations (American Nurses Association)

Which definition do you think most people are more aware of?

I often have a hard time explaining what I do as a nurse. I tell those who inquire that, "well, I take care of people." I know what that means, and my fellow nurses know what that means, but I fear that I'm not doing my profession any justice by explaining nursing in this way to others. My focus on "caring" might lead people to assume that "caring" is all we do. The inadequacy of my response is clear, but put on the spot, nursing can be a hard thing to explain.

Nursing is amazing. It's so much more than caring. As a nurse, all of my actions have a very real medical purpose. I know how to ask the right questions. I am the one collecting and interpreting the raw data at the bedside, from which physicians rely on to make medical decisions and treatment plans. I can make my own nursing diagnoses and plans of care as well, that focus on prevention, optimization, comfort, education and well0being. I use my knowledge of physiology and disease processes to interpret physical assessment data and lab values. I am the one to catch early warning signs, to detect and prevent crises. As a nurse, I literally have the ability to save lives.

Being a nurse means that a very real part of my job includes assessing a person's physical health and wellness. However, I also carry the knowledge and skills that are crucial to working with a person as a whole. People aren't just diagnoses, they're human. My actions as a nurse reflect this knowledge. I want to know what a patient is feeling, doing, saying, thinking, and how and why they are feeling, doing, saying, or thinking it. I ask about depression, anxiety, family issues, financial issues, emotional issues, and I can help patients through these. Nurses are teh ones who monitor, educate, clarify, comfort, reassure, support, advocate, empower, listen to and look out for those under our care. I am an advocate and an interpreter for patients, their families, doctors, the dietitian, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, the wound care specialist and everyone in between (I mean, how often have I gone into a room and re-explained to a patient something the MD just told them? Many times). I am able to recognize the need for these services and coordinate care. Not only are my assessments and data-gathering constant, but they are also a very necessary part of providing patients with what they need to get well. Nurses help patients be the best they can be considering whatever health situation they find themselves in. We help them adapt, physically and emotionally, to some often very difficult life-changing diagnoses. Nurses help people reach their best potential given their life circumstances.

I'm not an angel. I work hard and I expect to be respected. I have spent five years on a college education for this job, but the real fact is that I'm not done learning yet. Technology changes, diseases change, new evidence-based nursing interventions are found through nursing research, and as nurses, we are asked to take on more and more responsibility all the time. My expertise will continue to grow.

So, no, nursing is not just "caring." Nursing is necessary. If there weren't people like me in the field of health care, the health of millions would suffer, and that's a fact. I'm proud of who I am, and I'm proud of what I've chose to do with life. It is expecting the unexpected, it's learning something new every day. Thank a nurse today!

Happy Poem in your Pocket Day!

Numbers

by Mary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And mulitiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folding cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mother's call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

Razor

i have straight edges
they cause no friction
no need for

concern

but i would love
to learn
how to carve
myself into a
razor edge

create a scrape
in this world -- an
uneven wonder
that people would
admire

Poetry Backtrack

Augh, I swear that I've been writing a lot...but it's hard to put stuff on here that I'm not COMPLETELY happy with...I've been writing but I've also been looking back at all the past stuff I've done from high school/college. I think it might be fun to re-write/edit some of my older stuff. It brings back a lot of memories, but it's not relevant to me now, so I'm not sure if I should post that too or not. My goal with this was to get stuff out there, so out there I shall get it. Soon, promise!

My Mocha Pool Life

First, I'm new to this blogging thing, so forgive me. Second, hello! Why did I start a blog? Not that I really believe any of you have the interest or the time to follow me and my blogging, I figured I'd at least give you the option (haha). Back in my freshman year of high school, I started writing. Mostly poetry, mostly about my teen-age angst-filled woe-is-me my-life-is-falling-apart stuff. Actually, I probably started in middle school, but that stuff is just too embarrassing to even mention. High school was when it got, if not good, at least meaningful to me. It helped me get through a lot and it helped keep me sane. When I started college, for the most part I quit writing. Blame it on what you want (too much studying, too much partying...) but there really wasn't a whole lot going on creativity-wise in my life. And then I ESPECIALLY didn't have time when I started my first real-adult job, probably the most stressed I've ever been in my life.

And then all of the sudden, a year and a half into the Real World, I had time to realize that I was missing something. I think this is it. I really, really, love to write. I learn a lot about myself, I learn a lot about the world around me. I can lose myself in writing and then come up out of the water, read it and think "wow, where did that come from?" It gives such awesome satisfaction to use words to create. I don't use rules in my writing (I guess they call that contemporary poetry?). In fact, I don't know much at all about the rules of poetry. I just write. I like to play with words, the format, the order. And it's cool to see what comes up.

I don't really know my reason for sharing this. I do think poetry is personal, but I also think it's an art. It's a way to paint my world and the world around me, so to speak. Poetry has a purpose. Poets can have a message to send, and they write to evoke a certain image, thought, emotion. And really, if i were just writing for myself, what would be the point of trying to make it look or sound "pretty"? Why labor over word selection and format if only I was going to see it, and really, I guess I would know what I was trying to say or what I meant. The challenge is to create something that makes an impression on others, that is memorable, different, speaks to them, makes them think. To inflict something so realistic the reader goes "wow. i can see it. i just felt that. weird. she's good."

I write for myself, but I also hope that my words have an impact. The only way for that to happen is to create a space for them to be seen. So here we go.

PS. Why the title? A couple of months ago when I realized that what I really needed in my life was to start writing again, I started going to coffee shops, where I always (without fail) get a mocha. So there I am, with a mocha, a book on creative writing, and a notebook. One of the first ideas in the poetry prompt book was to create a "wordpool." The author suggested listing tons of random words, phrases. First I created a wordpool (revel, reap, yellow death, cadillac, angora sweater, slither, concrete, swallow, fathom, clenched fence, elastic slap, etc etc etc). From my wordpool I created this:

i am a
crinkle crazy
mocha pool, slamming
dunks of basketball
dreams

creates an image? yes. makes no sense? yes. fun? yes. do i have more? yes

i am
reliving lovely
down ladders of flame

Let me tell you, wordpools really get those juices flowing.