Category Archives: You Can Find Me Here Too

New This Week at TheONC & at Scrubs Magazine

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This week for TheONC I blog about nurses helping patients stuck at anger in their grief process. These nonviolent patients are difficult to bond with because the anger is often expressed as dissatisfaction with their caregivers, sometimes disruptive of work flow.  Staying engaged in their care is challenging, but not impossible.

TheONC is an online community for oncology nurses and care teams. Join the conversation. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @The_ONC.

Yes, that’s me talking about my fear of “big, hairy adult patients” while transitioning from pediatric intensive care nurse to adult oncology nurse in Theresa Brown RN’s article, Field of Dreams published in the summer 2012 issue of Scrubs Magazine. (By the way, I found I enjoy adult patients more than I ever expected!) Theresa interviewed several nurses about how they arrived in their specialties. She explains her own journey too. Scrubs is available at uniform stores, and by subscription.

Gate Keepers: This Week’s Post for TheONC

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In oncology, nurses are often faced with hanging chemotherapy, assisting with surgeries, or radiation treatments for grim diagnoses most likely to result in death anyway. Sometimes we wonder why treatment is offered. This week for TheONC, I ask these questions from nursing and artist perspectives in the post Gate Keepers.

TheONC is an online community for oncology professionals. Follow us on Twitter @The-ONC, and Like us on Facebook.

Nurses Week: New Posts For TheONC

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From Cradle to Grave: The Color White, Charcoal, ink, watercolor on paper by jparadisi

Whether you’re an aspiring artist, writer, or cancer patient, support groups can offer encouragement and resources to help you on the journey. This week at TheONC, I write about unexpected pitfalls of support groups, and how to spot a healthy one in my post Support Groups: In Sickness and In Health.

Last week, TheONC posted my blog, Controlling Our Own Image. Identity is a theme I work with often both in paint, and words. I have some strong thoughts that it’s time nurses create the image we want the media to portray. The post received a flurry of well thought out comments. If you’re not a writer or artist, it’s worth thinking about how you can improve the image of nursing in your own practice.

TheONC is an online community for oncology health care providers to share information and resources. Follow us on Twitter @The_ONC and Like us on Facebook.

Happy Nurses Week!

What Drawing Has in Common With Nursing

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Self-Portrait. Pencil on paper 2001 by jparadisi

Telling Our Stories to Benefit Others is my latest blog post for TheONC; the online community for oncology care teams. Registering for TheONC is free for oncology nurses.

Having the opportunity to write about creativity and its place in the oncology setting allows me to blog out loud the internal dialogues about painting, writing, and nursing I’ve had ever since I came out of the closet as an artist over a decade ago.  I have found these words of Goethe’s true:

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

In my pursuit of living creatively, I frequently find magic in the convergence of science, humanity, and art. For instance, take this passage written by Peter Steinhart:

To draw anything you have to find a connection with it. You have to turn off the noise that keeps you from focusing. You have to let the object stir you to empathy or ennoblement or joy or compassion-even to fear. You must see that things are a part of your world in some special way before you can attend to them.

Now re-read the same passage, with a few simple changes:

To be a nurse, you have to find a connection with people. You have to turn off the noise that keeps you from focusing. You have to let patient care stir you to empathy or ennoblement or joy or compassion-even to fear. You must see that your patients are a part of your world in some special way before you can attend to them.

When making art, or practicing the art of nursing, it all boils down to focus and connection. Whichever you are doing today, find that focus and connection. Someone’s life will be better, because you did.

The Rise of Blogs in Nursing Practice

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Joni Watson presents blogging’s validity as a useful tool for the professional growth of nurses in her article, The Rise of Blogs in Nursing Practice, published in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing (CJON, April 2012, Vol. 16, No. 2). In the article, Watson guides nurses through integrating blog information into their practices.

Joni Watson authors the blog Nursetopia, and contributes posts for the ONS blog Re:Connect.

Joni opened her article with paragraph from a JParadisiRN post (used with permission). Citing blog posts in journal publishing indicates the growing legitimacy of the medium.

Other blogs noted in the article are Emergiblog, Nursing Center’s In the Round (Lisa Bonsall), The Nerdy Nurse, and of course, Off the Charts, the blog of the American Journal of Nursing.

Knitting for Communication This Week at TheONC

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This week, I blog about Knitting and Communication for TheONC. It’s a confessional post about lacking the right words for a friend with cancer, and finding a way to communicate through the craft of knitting. Sometimes pushing through frustration is necessary in creativity and relationships.

TheONC is an online community for oncology health care teams. Follow on Twitter @The_ONC and Like us on Facebook!

Stains Update: Share Your Advice

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Yesterday I wrote about efforts to remove yellow Easter candy dye stains from my favorite pair of white jeans. Today I’m happy to report after four washings, heavy doses of Shout, and gentle touches of bleach, the jeans are restored to pristine status.

Had my efforts failed, however, I had a back up plan. I received this advice from a reader and pass it on to you:

Mix some laundry detergent with white vinegar and rub on stain.  Let set – like over night.

Soak the stained area in white vinegar over night.

Wash.

Do not dry.  Check stain. 

Repeat.

If you have helpful stain removing tips,  please share them in the comments. Stains of an unusual variety plague nurses regularly. We can use all the help we can get!

By the way, Visualizing Your Creative Life is my latest post included among this week’s blogs at TheONC. The suggestions are easily adapted for use by oncology patients too.

New Creativity Blog Post Up at TheONC

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This week’s blog for TheONC is The Art of Subtraction: More Thoughts on Clutter. The topic is based on my experience of watching a professional sculptor make a likeness of a model’s face, by removing clay, not adding. The experience opened up my eyes to a new way of living a creative life.

I am the guest at the baby shower who always wins that game where you shove a bunch of bubble gum in your mouth, chewing and chewing until you get a big, pink glob, which you are required to mold into the shape of a baby. The best sculptor wins. Here’s my secret for winning: put a tiny butt crack in the back of the bubble gum baby; it is irresistible to the woman judging it.

Clutter Be Gone! Mental Clutter Off Switch at TheONC & AJN Releases iPad App Tomorrow

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Shutting down the mental clutter of work after your shift is over is the topic of my post for TheONC this week. Included are Ideas for creating a “mental clutter shut-off switch,” and readers are responding with their own methods too. You can follow TheONC on Twitter @The_ONC and Facebook.

Going digital cuts down on physical clutter, and I am excited the American Journal of Nursing releases its iPad app tomorrow on iTunes. Tomorrow only, April 28, the app is free!

Commitment Makes You an Artist (or Nurse)

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If you aren’t reading the blogs at TheONC, you should. I’ve incorporated much new information from my blogger colleagues into my nursing practice. If you haven’t created a login and joined this lively online community, today is a great day to do so!

pencil on paper by jparadisi

Commitment Makes You an Artist (or Nurse) is my contribution this week’s discussion. Creativity, like nursing, requires time and practice. In this article I offer some practical advice to get you started.

While I’m on the topic of commitment, today is Certified Nurses Day. I hold OCN certification as an oncology nurse. In the past, I was pediatric CCRN certified. Specialty certification is a powerful way for nurses to commit to their practice. Congratulations to nurses who have taken this extra step in professional development and providing excellence in patient care!