A helluva story

Maybe it just take someone who became Lara Croft onscreen to tackle an issue like prophylactic mastectomy. Angelina Jolie  lit up the internet today with an op-ed about her experience having the BRCA-1 gene, a mother with cancer and her own double mastectomy.

I enjoyed reading it. While both my parents had cancer (one died from it), I am constantly reminded of my own risks. Modern medicine can now present the tests to see if the genie really is in the bottle (inside us.)

Sometimes, it just takes a lot of fortitude to be able to open it.

More to come...

Nuggets for May 12

Here are the latest and greatest goodies I've run into in my various voyages on the internet. Enjoy!

Blind, miscellany

Being blind, 'you have to be adventurous' (from www.cnn.com)

BTW did you know that the VA is one of the leaders in blind rehabilitation? If not, check out the information here at the Blind Rehabilitation Service.

C. diff infection rate rising among US hospital inpatients (from www.nursezone.com)

And from our friends in ED land...

ImpactEDNurse has a great post on mouth-to-mouth resucitation on his blog. I'm so glad our policy forbids mouth to mouth in certain instances, such as this. I'm with you on the compressions, Ian...at least you can dodge the flying bits!

DisappearingJohn is on the way up. Good for you!

Finally, Happy International Nurses' Day May 12

On the birthday of Florence Nightingale, don't miss this op-ed piece by Sandy Summers today on solving the nursing shortage.