Who am I Really?

Ok, enough with the jokes, already.  This is serious!  Yes, I am a nurse, an oncology nurse.  That means I administer chemotherapy to people with cancer.  Cancer's of all types.  The most predominant being the ones that are caused by lifestyle choices.  The one that stands out the most,  lung cancer.  It's a killer.  Some lung cancers are directly related to smoking.  One in particular is caused by asbestos exposure in addition to smoking.  The two are deadly!  Unfortunately, one can also get lung cancer and never have smoked a day in their life!  Too bad.  One should be rewarded for abstaining from such a wicked addiction.

Another one is melanoma.  This is one bad disease.  You know that mole that started to change color or shape?  Well, get it checked out!  I have seen small moles that looked harmless surgically removed just to find huge metastatic disease underneath it.  There is treatment for it, but if it is not caught early, it is not all that effective.  A lot of this sort of cancer can be avoided by sun protection.  But we all luv the beach, right?

Esophageal cancer is just about the worst!  First, there is the disfiguring surgery, then radiation that burns you inside and out in an attempt to get at the micro mets, and chemotherapy to add insult to injury.  These people are likely to end up losing enough weight to look like a scarecrow.  We call it cachexia.  They will not be able to eat, so they have a tube placed in their stomach for feeding.  There is a stigma attached to esophageal cancer.  We try not to look differently at these patients, but we know that a large percentage of them are smoking alcoholics.  Not all, of course.  Some people are just unlucky.  But, since this particular lifesyle is also an addiction, they don't quit.  They come in, get their chemo started,. and go outside to smoke.  The lung cancer patients do it, too.  Only a very few actually quit smoking/drinking.  Hmmmmm.

Well, enough is enough.  So, do I like what I do?  Oh yeh!  I've been doing it all of my adult life, which is a loooong time.  I call it slinging chemo.  But there's much more to it than  that.  I am often asked, "is your work depressing?"  Heck, no!  What we do is celebrate life!  When someone completes their course of chemo, we sing, we dance, and give them a "purple heart award" for getting through it.  And we have a magic wand that we wave over them that plays a magical tune to send them on their way.  It is quite a scene to behold!  We also help those at the end of their lives have a "good death".  What the #*%! is a good death?  Nurses know.  And when your time, or one of your loved one's time, comes, you will know, too.  Morbid as it sounds, we keep a "death diary" to remember the ones that have passed.  We also have days of remembrance for them.  It's all good.

So, even though this may have sounded a little like a rant, it wasn't, really.  I just wanted to let my online community know a little about me.  I like to have fun.   I joke around a bit.  I enjoy my work and saving lives.  And a lot of other stuff that will be for a later time.

Below is a picture of me and a patient that was taken without my knowledge by a doctor friend.  It's in black and white simply because he is old fashioned and still uses film.  Funny!  And he thought black and white would be an effective picture.  I am accessing his port (central IV line located under the skin on his chest).  I really like the picture.  It shows me doing what I do best.