Category Archives: Guest Blogger

Guest Blogger ~ Heather Von St. James

. Guest Blogger, UA Hot Topics

Happy Friday, UA Blog Readers!

Today we have a very special post. Guest Blogger Heather Von St. James has contributed an article about her battle with Mesothelioma, how she overcame the cancer, and how it has impacted her life. Her story is truly inspirational and depicts an amazing recovery. We hope you enjoy her post and are as touched by it as we are here at UA. Thank you, Heather!

Lung Leaving Day

By: Heather Von St. James

My name is Heather Von St James, and I am a 5 1/2 year mesothelioma survivor.

I was diagnosed with the rare cancer on November 21st, 2005, just 3 1/2 months after the birth of my one and only baby girl.

This was not just any cancer; this was mesothelioma. Mesothelioma affects about 3,000 people a year and is almost always associated by asbestos exposure. It is believed that I was exposed to asbestos as a child. The disease manifested within my lungs and appeared almost 30 years later.

My choice of treatment was radical because the mesothelioma life expectancy rate is a matter of months.  I had undergone an extrapleural pneumonectomy with adjuvant intrapleural heated chemotherapy. In particular this surgical procedure involved the removal of my left lung and all of its surrounding tissue.  As well as my 6 TH rib was removed. During the surgery, a heated chemotherapy wash was done inside my chest cavity. A solution of Cisplatin was heated up to 140 degrees, pumped into my chest, left for an hour, and then pumped back out. My diaphragm and the lining of my heart where replaced with surgical gore-Tex and then I was closed back up. It takes radical measures to get rid of a radical cancer.

After 18 days in the hospital and two more weeks of recovery in the Boston area I was sent home to my baby. However, my treatment was not yet complete. The final 2 parts of my treatment consisted of 4 sessions of chemotherapy and 30 sessions of radiation. Keep in mind; I experienced all of this with a new baby at home to love and care for.

Thank God for my family and support systems. They proved to be key factors in getting through such a difficult time. My faith in God and my sense of humor also helped to push me through one of life’s greatest challenges.  Two special people in my life, my sister and my husband nicknamed the day of my surgery “LungleavingDay ” and every year on the first Saturday of February we celebrate “LungleavingDay.” We have a huge party with a giant bonfire and we take dinner plates, write our fears on them, and then smash them into the fire! This is an important way to conquer our fears. It has become a celebration of epic proportions with over 70 people celebrating with us.

We are given but one life, and it does not always go according to plan. Mine certainly didn’t.  In hindsight, I would not change a thing. Cancer gives you clarity in life; it lets you really concentrate on what matters and what doesn’t.  Family, Faith, and humor are all that matters to me.

Guest Blogger ~ Nursing Student, Jodi!

. Guest Blogger, Nursing Topics

We recently had an entry from Jodi, a nursing student at Nova Southeastern University. She wanted to share her thoughts on nursing and going through nursing school!  We hope you enjoy her post!  If you have any comments or advice for Jodi or other nursing students like her, please feel free to leave a comment :) .

Guest Blog Post from Jodi

Critical thinking-aka second nature for health care professionals.  Critical thinking goes hand in hand with all experiences throughout the workday, making its way into every decision and conversation.  But I challenge any healthcare worker to think back to the days when they were novice students, like myself.  Yes, those days filled with noisy lecture halls, expensive textbooks, stern professors, and difficult exams!  Myself, just beginning to slowly learn the “ropes of the trade,” never expected the concept of critical thinking to be so challenging for us new students.

Quickly my peers and I realized that this would be the key to developing into the successful nurses we all are striving to become. So we put away our theories of memorization and cram sessions we had used up until this point, now gearing to truly understand concepts and yes, how to critically think in situations. The importance of this has only been reinstituted time after time once we arrived to our first semester of clinicals. Here we observed that nothing in life is straight from a textbook (but wouldn’t that be so much easier!) Our poor clinical professor had to hear too frequently a variation of the following: “But professor, I don’t know what to do, that patient didn’t respond like the textbook said!” This is where the nurses come in- the very people we as nursing students look up to, admire, and are anxious to follow in the steps of. My biggest lessons and greatest knowledge has thus far come from observing the nurses in the hospital settings. I appreciate every moment the nurses have given to us students, after all, it must take A LOT of patience to deal with us sometimes! Seeing these nurses’ creativity, patience, ability to multi-task, and compassion has only reignited a fire within my soul to continue pursuing my career with this very passion. Amidst their busy days they have demonstrated to us students what can never be explained in a classroom or book.

~ Jodi

**If you’d like to submit a blog post for consideration on our blog, please leave a comment below and we will be in contact with you!