So many people have asked what I am doing now, that I decided to go ahead and put it on a page. I am a Registered Nurse. I learned to love traveling in the Navy, and I also learned the ability to merge respectfully with different cultures.
As a nurse, I started in acute cardiac care. That is when the patient comes to the hospital clutching their chest, and nitroglycerin is the name of the game. It's a high stress job, and it causes hair loss. I did my time in the Cardiac Intensive Care Units, in the ER, and then I moved on to community nursing.
I now do complex wound care in the home. These are wounds that have muscle and/or bone involvement, or foreign object involvement. I will spare you the details. Dirty job, but someone's got to do it! It's a lot less stress, better pay, and thankfully I still have some hair!
I do plan to leave for the third world again, with Doctors Without Borders. I hope to be able to get back to Zaire, or even Tsavo in Kenya. The people I work with laugh and call me "The Bush Nurse". I guess that's fitting, because even now, I take the patients in the worst condition, with the least means to care for themselves, and either way off the beaten path, or in the worst parts of town. These are the folks that nobody cares about, and by helping them, I may be able to make a small change in the world, hopefully for the better this time around.