I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse

by Lee Gutkind (Editor)

Overview

This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care.

Here, nurses remember their first “sticks,” first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession.

The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more “important” procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients.

What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937163129
Publisher:	Fourth Chapter Books
Publication date:	04/09/2013
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	74,210
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Editor Lee Gutkind has been exploring the world of medicine through writing for over 20 years. He is the author of Many Sleepless Nights: The World of Organ Transplantation, and the editor of multiple anthologies about health and medicine: Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives; Rage and Reconciliation: Inspiring a Health Care Revolution; Healing; Becoming a Doctor; and An Immense New Power to Heal. He is the founder and editor of the magazine Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary journal to exclusively publish nonfiction, and has also published the essay collection Forever Fat and two books on writing, The Art of Creative Nonfiction and Keep It Real, among other titles. Gutkind is currently Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Anonymous, Irreplaceable Nurse Lee Gutkind 13

Foreword: The Art of Meeting Patient Need Karen Wolk Feinstein 21

Hitting the Bone Eddie Lueken 25

The Haunting Thomas Schwarz 35

Becoming a Nurse Laura DeVaney 47

Next of Kin Josephine Ensign 57

Healing Wang Jie's Bottom L. Darby-Zhao 71

Zeitgeber Denise Elliott 83

A Long Night's Journey into Day Theresa Brown 95

Don't Ever Forget Me Christopher Lance Coleman 105

Heart Lessons Diane Kraynak 113

Docking in Togo Jennifer Binger, as told to Ann Swindell 129

I See You Tilda Shalqf 143

Listening and Other Lifesaving Measures Karla Theilen 153

Careening toward Reunion Nina Gaby 167

Nurse Nora at Nineteen Nora Casper 181

Four Sticks Janice Dvorak 191

Messiah, Not Otherwise Specified Janet Gool 203

All Alone and Afraid: Becoming a Person through Nursing Anna German 217

Individually Identifiable Pamela Baker 229

Approaching Death Kimberly A. Condon 243

The Nurses Whispered Patricia A. Nugent 251

Becoming 259 Lori Mulvihill

Editorial Reviews

Booklist Review
March 15, 2013

Expect to be moved by this anthology of tales from the front line, written by veteran nurses and nurses-in-training. One contributor describes her experiences as a nursing student at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when the disease was called gay-related immune-deficiency syndrome, particularly her “nurse’s intuition,” that is, knowing when a patient is going to die. “There was a stigma to the work I was doing,” she writes. “But I eventually got to a point where I wasn’t afraid to say, when someone asked what I did, ‘I work with persons who are dying of AIDS.’” Several of the essayists lace their emotional tales with humor. A University of Pennsylvania nursing student records her friends’ reaction to her job: “So you actually cleaned up poop?” A woman who survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a teen becomes an oncology nurse. And a male nurse recounts watching a person die for the first time. Essayists note that they’re not supposed to get “too close” to patients, but they do it anyway. It’s easy to love these empathetic people, and their beautifully written stories.

— Karen Springen

From the Publisher

Tavia Gilbert’s narration of these essays written by nurses is beautiful and profound. Nurses are the often invisible backbone of the healthcare system. Gilbert delivers all the essays, irrespective of gender or ethnicity, capturing the spirit of each one. They reflect personal growth as well as social and scientific progress. The hysteria of AIDS once meant that nurses weren’t even allowed to enter the rooms of AIDS patients, and now an HIV-positive individual might die of old age. Gilbert translates all the emotions, including fear, gallows humor, gratitude, and empathy. A baby born with half a heart dies shortly after birth, but the nurse treats both the baby and the parents with compassion and dignity. A home care nurse is the only attendee at the funeral of a client without family—and Gilbert does a terrific grumpy old man, too. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

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