Author Archives: Amy Getter

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About Amy Getter

MS, RN, CHPN

HUSH

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Amy Getter

You are most powerful when you are most silent.” — Alison McGhee, author Brian was now mostly quiet. He’d been a man in charge, working and amassing a fortune in the corporate world until his terminal cancer marched forward without … Continue reading →

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WHAT WE WORK FOR

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Amy Getter

Someone reminded me of a note I wrote a number of years ago, working for a hospice agency that was struggling with staying true to the ideal of hospice in the midst of growth and financial burden and government regulation. … Continue reading →

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EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Amy Getter

The phrase, “as simple as the air we breathe”, runs through my mind when I see Dennis, with his ribs and lungs moving with great effort, each labored breath a testimony to his will to survive. Makes we wonder, how … Continue reading →

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DYING, AND LIVING DELIBERATELY

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Amy Getter

With a look of confusion and uncertainty, she asks me “What’s next?” And Sandy wants to go outside. Though the fog lies heavily over the ocean waves, masking their beauty, we can hear the pounding surf sounds and scattered faint … Continue reading →

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DYING GRACEFULLY

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Amy Getter

I read the quote on my candle that says: “Grace. How you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain, and, so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one … Continue reading →

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DYING WITH YOUR BOOTS ON

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Amy Getter

Something I love about my job as a hospice nurse: there are many opportunities to be surprised.  One of my daily mantras is “expect the unexpected”.  As I drove down a switch-back gravel drive in the middle of nowhere, I … Continue reading →

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DANCE TO THE BEAT OF YOUR DRUM

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Amy Getter

Some people’s lives are noted for their activism, their ability to inspire all of us.  Not everyone hears the drum in their soul.  And not everyone is recognized in their life as overcoming or possessing a fighting a spirit that can’t be kept down.  … Continue reading →

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BREAKING BAD

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Amy Getter

Reuse.  Recycle.  Right? As  I counted the 258 tablets of Oxycodone that a patient’s elderly spouse brought to the adult foster home where he was now dying, I couldn’t help  but think of Walter White’s doomed catapult into corruption and greed, (I admit, … Continue reading →

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A FAIRY TALE?

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Amy Getter

Once upon a time there was a man who lived with his two daughters in a lonely clearing in the woods.  They had moved in and cared for many of the things that their mother had always done, after she died and … Continue reading →

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GIFTS OF LOVE

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Amy Getter

Before setting out on my lengthy road trip to an outlying area of the county, I had received the warning that the spouse was a“curmudgeon”.  He had been overly harsh and grumpy with the staff that only yesterday had him signing forms … Continue reading →

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