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Nursing and creativity

It’s a rare treat to find a health care provider who puts out their creative work to the world. Today I discovered Julianna Paradisi an oncology nurse who is also a cancer survivor. Her art work is compelling as is her writing about art and science. Her musings about nursing as related to art resonate with me deeply. I keep reading her entries and thinking to myself “Yes, that’s it! That’s right! Tell it sister!”  Take a stroll through her blog and her website to engage in and enjoy her work.

 

Sam

 

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Bringing science to life

I thought this was a  fun way to demonstrate a scientific process.

On April 26, 2012, 200 Boston-area students, MIT scientists and local community members came together to make cutting-edge cancer research come to life in the Bio Flash Mob. This event was organized for the Cambridge Science Festival by the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Learn more at http://ki.mit.edu and http://www.facebook.com/kochinstitute.

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Ultra Sounds Mondays, May 21, 2012

Hello everyone,

It is a lazy Monday on a long weekend here in Canada. I hope you are all enjoying your day.

Today’s poetry submission comes from Margery Hauser. Here is what Margery has to say about herself:

In 1999 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had surgery that, at the time, we all thought had taken care of the problem.  However, it came back for a return engagement in 2008 and again in 2010, now taking up residence in lymph nodes and moving its way up from my pelvis into my abdomen. The poems below were written in response to various experiences during diagnosis and treatment.  I have had work appear in Poetica Magazine, Möbius, The Jewish women’s Literary Annual, Umbrella, and other journals, both print and online.

 

I am delighted to post some of Margery’s poetry for you. These poems reflect back to me my own experiences, in eloquent, elegant language. Look for more of Margery’s work later this summer here at Ultra Sounds.

 

Sam

 

 

Three Haiku

In the waiting room
time snails, stalls, stutters, suspends:
Impatient patient
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Blue hospital gown
prevents exam room gooseflesh
but not chill of fear
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
Clear skies and clear scans
I smile my way along streets
sparkling with sunlight
_________________________________
Before Chemo

Ninja-steeled for battle
black robed
I determine time and place
No victim helplessly shorn
before death march
nor shaven-skulled
shame-branded traitor
not a novice
humbly submitting to God’s will
Rather a warrior
defiant, powerful
who will not mourn
each disappearing strand
in shower or on pillow
I choose the time by my volition
parade my choice
prevail
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The power of literature

 

Check out this fantastic keynote address by Arlaina Tibensky for the National English Honor Society induction ceremony. It will make you swoon with happiness in its recognition and celebration of the importance of literature in our lives.

Here’s an excerpt:

One day you might be 37 years old, sitting in a Laundromat and remember a scene from a book, a stanza from a poem, a line from a play that will grab you by the throat, whisper in your ear, massage your shoulders and it will make you feel more alive than you have ever felt- connected and strong and devastated and engaged with everything in a way that takes your breath away- at the exact same moment everyone else at the Laundromat is watching their towels spin in the dryer.  Or checking their Twitter accounts.

Doesn’t it just set your hearts a fluttering?

Sam

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Waiting room veteran

The other night I had a different kind of waiting room experience. I had to go to emergency for what turned out to be mild pneumonia (no don’t gasp in horror, I will be fine). My point is not to elicit sympathy, but to share my waiting room experience.

I have blogged a great deal about my frustrations with waiting rooms  until more recently when I discovered the “joy” of waiting. Well, maybe joy is too strong a word, especially when you’re feverish or in pain. But I’ve found a certain resignation in waiting and am even able to relax and settle in

Well, I came prepared both with in body and spirit for a good long wait. I know emergency waiting rooms well from Zev’s early years and the early years of my disease. I kicked out my husband and son (I do waiting better alone – the others are too fidgety) and tucked in for the long haul.

Clearly I was surrounded by newbies. I heard more expressions of discontent than I have ever heard “How dare they keep me waiting this long”. “Why is it called emergency? Nothing is happening fast”  ”This is unbelievable having to wait this long!”  There was a community building around the shared sense of injustice over the long wait. I could understand that many of them were in a state of distress, but there was a certain amount of vitriol that was out of my experience.

Despite feeling sick and feverish, I thought the waiting room was quite nice and, for the most part, the nurses were kind and attentive. When I was taken in, I saw the doctors running from room to room. There was no time being wasted, just a large volume of patients.  And, most importantly, not one person in that emergency room was paying out of pocket or would be turned away because they didn’t have enough money.

Of course, it’s easier to see all this when you’re a veteran like me.

Sam

ps. enjoy this link. How was your morning commute?

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Ultra Sounds Mondays, May14, 2012

Today’s submission, a personal essay,  comes from writer, Eularee Smith of Eugene, Oregon.  She is a cancer survivor of 20 years. Her Dad survived stage 4 melanoma for over 30 years. Her younger brother was not as lucky. He died of brain melanoma. Her writing reflects a personal perspective of hope and the joy of living. You can read more about Eularee at www.eularee.com

A Sacred Place

 by Eularee Smith

My younger brother Barry, passed away unexpectedly on July 1,, 2011, from melanoma of the brain. From diagnosis to death was less than three weeks. He leaves behind a wife, five children, six siblings and both his parents. And a garden.

After the memorial service, complete strangers told me stories of my selfless brother. From being an elderly neighbor’s on call handyman to offering his home to a homeless family for three months while they got back on their feet, Barry’s life resounded.

At one point, my sister in law and I found ourselves standing by my brother’s vegetable garden. Surrounded by a chicken wire fence with a gate adjacent to the chicken coop offering easy access to the free fertilizer. A common thread in our lives was the garden and our chickens. He and I would eat, breathe and talk gardening.

Together we stood silently staring at the hoe leaning against the gate where he last left it. My sister in law shared with me that she didn’t know how to garden.

“That was Barry’s sacred place. He would let me sit and watch but I was never allowed to do anything,” she said tearfully. “I don’t know what to do about the garden. It’s dying.”

I told her that was what it was supposed to do. The gardener was gone. Mourning the loss of its caretaker, the tomatoes were curled with withered blossoms, most of which had fallen to the ground. The peppers were stunted. Lettuce gone to seed and all were thirsty and sad looking.

It made sense to me that the garden was reflecting the tragedy of my brother’s death. At one point during the last weeks of his life, he said he knew he would never go into the garden again. Unable to leave his chair, let alone pick up the hoe, he looked at the garden through the window. If pain medication dulled the physical symptoms of the cancer, I believe that seeing his garden, even if through a window, eased the pain of the gardener’s soul.

When I had breast cancer, I planted an area of my garden with alyssum, a small white flowering creeper, shaping the letters G R A C E. I spent hours in the summer of 1992 in daily radiation and chemotherapy treatments. And just as importantly, I spent hours in the garden, keeping the weeds out and the growing letters trimmed neatly to spell out the blessings of my garden. It was as necessary to my fight as the chemo cocktails dripping into my arm. There were five women who I came to consider friends as we battled cancer together during the summer of 1992. Of the five women, I am the only survivor. I am a gardener.

I believe the garden reflects the gardener. Each is dependent on the care and the nurturing of the other. A simpatico relationship that grows and dies not only in seasons of the earthly calendar but also in the heart and soul of the gardener who tends it. I thought about taking the standing hoe to the weeds that flourished while the gardener was away but somehow, that didn’t seem right either.

I will give my sister in law a few books on gardening and she can take her time reading them. She can browse and wander through the pages and perhaps she will see my brother, the gardener, between the chapters on tomatoes and peppers. And then when the season is right, she may pick up the hoe and introduce my brother’s garden to a new caretaker. When the winter frost gives way to the new buds of spring, the gate will open and new life will bloom once again in my brother’s sacred place.

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Tuesdays at the Chemo Unit, Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Today I began my “waiting project” with great earnestness. But perhaps I was trying too hard . I was antsy and fidgety. There also seemed to be more traffic crossing in front of me and I felt self-conscious  sitting there cross-legged on the floor with my shoes off.

A person without purpose is suspect. I even read in one blog about “those people who “just sit there” while they are waiting”. I decided to hold my notebook and pen as a “cover”. Not everyone can understand the enlightenment of waiting.

One nurse worried over me, believing that I had not been able to find a chair. Some people smiled, others just stared. One woman looked quite pointedly at my abandoned shoes as she walked by.

So the magic wasn’t there today in the waiting area. However my blood pressure was still low and I lucked out for my treatment. Today my nurse was Manny, one of the nurses about whom I have waxed eloquent before.

One of the best parts of getting Manny is that we talk about food the whole time. I asked him what he was cooking and he described the incredible shiitake/leek risotto that he made the other night. He gave me all the details (4 cups raw risotto to one box of chicken stock – he uses Campbells). He gave me some directions:

“you have to stir it for 20 minutes… not just stir, you have to be with it, you have to  love it”.

He told me about the incredible fish he ate while on vacation in Hawaii. We drooled together over the picture on his phone of the thinly sliced sashimi that he had at one of the fanciest restaurants in Maui.

Before I knew it, the treatment was over and I felt as if I had been visiting with an old friend. I came away happy and hungry. A good day.

 

Sam