Back Again

[The following is an excerpt from the blog of Lee Folk, RN, BSN, who graduated from the Robert Morris University School of Nursing in May of 2010. He was the recipient of the highest undergraduate award at RMU, the Presidential Transformational Award, given in recognition of his documentary journalism in Managua, Nicaragua. He is currently employed as a staff nurse on the trauma medical-surgical unit of West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia.]


NOTES FROM THE FIELD

Follow along on the journey of a small group of nursing students from Robert Morris University as they travel to Managua, Nicaragua, providing nursing care to some of the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. We're in for an adventure, and it's great to have you along for the ride!

Back Again

How to begin?

That nagging question flashes over and over in my mind, synchronized with the pace of the blinking cursor on the blank screen.

How to begin….how to begin…..how to begin….

Well, I suppose I should begin by saying hello to all my readers out there. Thanks for stopping by. I hope this blog entry finds you all happy and well.

At the moment, I’m sitting amidst a chaotic scene in my bedroom. My mother will tell you that this room is always a chaotic scene, but tonight, my surroundings have reached new depths of devastation. My fourth trip to Nicaragua looms on the horizon, and I am in the throws of preparation for another trip south. Once again, to my amazement, my passport hasn’t collected nearly as much dust as I always anticipated it would. Four trips to Nicaragua. Four stamps in the passport. In my mind’s eye, I can see many of my friends and family just shaking their heads.

Four trips to Central America in fourteen months?

I know. I’m shaking my head too.

So how did I end up in this wonderfully strange position? What in the world happened during those fourteen months to create all this commotion? That’s really an excellent question. So before I set out writing the next chapter of this crazy story, I think all of the new readers out there, and perhaps you veterans too, deserve a bit of a recap.

Don’t worry, the recap has illustrations . . .

For more, visit Lee's blog, Notes From the Field.