Debbie Moore-Black is a nurse who blogs at Do Not Resuscitate.
In this small town I live in, a funeral procession is a big deal. The hearse is followed by several black cars turning into an array of family and friends cars. All of them roll slowly and sadly to the final destination.
I knew all about this funeral.
A bright, college-educated woman. Six months pregnant. She had immense faith in God. God granted immunity from COVID. God would protect her from COVID. …
Sometimes, the most traumatic events happened when I was young and new and just starting my ICU career. When you least expect it, those repressed memories come glaring at you.
Thinking I had tucked this tragedy away forever, and then within a flash — 25 years later, I see that little four-year-old boy, holding his daddy’s hand.
Watching doctors and nurses work on his mommy.
This mother. This wife.
After countless code blues, her …
My youngest daughter just got married to a fine young man. She was beautiful and radiant.
As I gave my daughter away when the minister told me to, I sat down next to a picture of my deceased husband. He passed away four years ago.
Lisa was our last child. Most likely, she saw the truth.
She saw the way my husband treated me after the other two children had gone off to …
It was my turn to sit for the next 8 hours in the middle of the night at the mental health crisis center that’s run by a team of therapists and social workers with the community mental health center. We regularly collaborated with the local police department and EMS for people experiencing a mental health crisis.
We never knew what to expect, and every day was something different.
We were a good, …
Where do I begin? Maybe at the beginning.
Let’s start with the degradation and devaluation of nurses across this country.
For decades, I lived the devaluing of nurses. Daily huddles from our nurse managers, ER nurses, ICU nurses, and behavioral health nurses. Emails and huddles about downsizing. Nurse-patient ratios. Decreasing nursing staff and increasing patients. ICU nurses typically had a 2:1 ratio and, depending on the patient’s acuity, a 1:1 ratio. But …
You know that if you don’t get vaccinated and you don’t wear a mask, you potentially will die.
You go to super spreader events, big groups at beaches, football games, baseball games … loads of people laughing and clapping, and shoulder to shoulder.
Your refusal of the mask and COVID vaccination almost seems like a passage. Beating your chest. The survivor. It won’t happen to me.
Until you can’t breathe anymore. Delta doesn’t …
I go to the hospital cafeteria to unwind from this night — another unpredictable one with irrational patients that randomly attempt to assault the staff.
This time, they missed. Behavioral health. Land of the psychotics and schizophrenics. But an incredible staff to work with.
This song blares out. “Easy Like Sunday Morning.” And I know that nothing is “easy” anymore.
I’ve heard it all about COVID vaccinations:
“It’s my body.”
“It’s not FDA-approved.”
“I have natural …
Maybe we can take a deep breath — and breathe out slowly. Perhaps we can check our pulse. Go on that vacation far away or visit a beach and watch the crashing waves. Listen to the seagulls, the breeze, the blue skies. And turn our cell phones off.
But as an ICU nurse who loved this speciality, having COVID patients in the ICU was a war zone.
One ICU room would now …
He was in his ICU bed without movement or brain stem involvement. His weight was down to 90 pounds.
His six-foot frame and skeletal body made me gasp.
After countless sessions with the patient’s daughter to make her 92-year-old dad “comfort care,” the intensivist sadly hung his head down low.
The daughter insisted on doing everything for her daddy.
It was my night shift, and I knew what was to be expected. Another endless …
Today. Finally, a day off.
I could oversleep, roll out of bed, then make a pot of coffee — and prepare for a “do nothing” day.
But today is the day.
After dealing with more electrical problems on this 160,000-mile-plus car, I will say goodbye, turn in the keys, and walk away.
This car holds memories: Taking the kids to the beach. Driving to our last trip to the mountains. My best friend’s Miami …
She was listless in bed with agonal breathing — only 63 years old.
Before stage 4 colon cancer claimed my mother, she chose to come home to her house … her bedroom, where she’d stare out her window at the dogwood trees that symbolized the blood of Jesus.
A once-vibrant Italian Catholic and mother of four, she was the perfect wife of an IBM executive. But it was all for show — …
I have dedicated 35 years of my life as a nurse: in the ICU for 33 years and behavioral health/intensive management for the last two.
I thought it would be time to take a break from ICU nursing. Surely behavioral health would be a lot easier — kind of a slide into my near-future retirement.
I entered into the land of psychotics and schizophrenics, bipolar, homeless, dangerous patients from prison, like those …
Mom wept silently as she stared at her dead daughter — quiet, near catatonic. I was prepared for a sharp scream.
But she sat there quietly. She was staring at her beautiful but lifeless daughter.
Young with long black hair and 21 years old. She was mom’s pride and joy.
The daughter got into yet another fight with her boyfriend. They were both in college dorm apartments. She couldn’t stand the screaming anymore.
As …
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Recently, a former NFL football player, Phillip Adams, murdered Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife, his two grandchildren ages 5 and 9, an air conditioning appliance man, and critically injured a second man. The NFL player had gunned down these innocent people. And then, he left and went to his parent’s house (who lived on the same road), and after hours of the SWAT team begging this man to surrender, he …
At an early age, Tasha remembered looking up to her mama dressed in a crisp white uniform and a nursing cap placed perfectly upon her head — one bobby pin at a time. Tasha learned what sacrifice, responsibility, and dedication were all about.
She also knew her mama’s love for the nursing profession.
When Tasha was four years old, she used to say: “One day, I will be a nurse just like …
Everyone loved Mrs. Maria. She was everyone’s mom, grandma, teacher.
Maria grew up in poverty. Though her family was poor, she knew her parents and siblings loved her and loved each other. But the one thing she knew her passion was at was school. Every morning she couldn’t wait to go to school and learn more. And she knew one day she would be a teacher.
Throughout the years, Maria excelled in …
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Her son went to visit her at her house of 52 years. The sound in the bathroom indicated that the faucet in the tub was running and overflowing onto the floor. A series of events piled one on top of the other. A totaled car, candles burning in the house haphazardly, repetitive questions mentioned five minutes apart. The same questions over and over again. Hugging her granddaughter but not remembering …
The emergency department.
A haven for cardiac arrests and gunshot wounds and respiratory distress and overdoses and auto accidents and children’s sniffles and fever and coughs that won’t go away. The ED was easy access to many. And at times, it was an easy fix not to pay the bill upfront or to be anonymous with your problem.
As much as I loved emergency nursing, it was always the children that left …
I was an assistant nurse manager (ANM) in a 24 bed ICU in my younger, energetic years. Before that, I was a manager in a very small emergency department. I must say, I loved it. I loved the thrill and the challenge. I was able to work with the Joint Commission; I ordered EKG monitors and defibrillators, any equipment needed for the emergency department. I worked with the health department …
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As I take the pups on their daily walk around the neighborhood. I come upon eight adults outside their houses, near the street, laughing and coughing and sneezing and smoking their cigarettes and huddled up close together.
They didn’t say hello to me, nor did I to them.
But I listened: “I ain’t gettin’ the COVID vaccine, I ain’t going to the hospital. If I get the COVID, I’m staying at home …
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