A Stoma Named Stanley

Upon completing my nursing degree and gaining employment, what followed was truly a humbling and horrendous learning experience.



The train wreck that was the start of her second career was far from anything she had experienced. The author, a software engineer, took a decade detour into nursing. Her perspective is unusual because she didn't begin her nursing career quite like other nurses. This novella was developed from a handful of journal entries while working in a regional hospital. It is a short memoir with stories of triumph, despair, integrity, and much self-reflection. Unlike software engineering, her nursing career placed her central to the core of the human condition.



The author went into nursing thinking, "I cannot wait to see blood and bones poking out." That was one of the attractions to nursing and she encountered this in the emergency department. Then again, the stress of some of the trauma was so intense, she struggled. Even if she chose the career under false pretences, she learned an incredible amount. The stories in this book were selected because they are interesting medically, but more so they gave the author a deeper insight into human vulnerability and trust.