The team of nurses that Tilda Shalof found herself working with in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a big-city hospital was known as "Laura's Line." They were a bit wild: smart, funny, disrespectful of authority, but also caring and incredibly committed to their jobs. Laura set the tone with her quick remarks. Frances, from Newfoundland, was famous for her improvised recipes. Justine, the union rep, wore t-shirts emblazoned with defiant slogans, like "Nurses Care But It's Not in the Budget." Shalof was the one who had been to university. The others accused her of being "sooo sensitive."They depended upon one another. Working in the ICU was both emotionally grueling and physically exhausting. Many patients, quite simply, were dying, and the staff strove mightily to prolong their lives. With their skill, dedication, and the resources of modern science, they sometimes were almost too successful. Doctors and nurses alike wondered if what they did for terminally-ill patients...

Tilda Shalof had been taking care of critically ill patients in an intensive care unit for more than twenty-five years, but taking care of herself had never been a priority. That is, until she could no longer ignore her extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and crushing chest pains. When the results came in, it was time to face the music: Tilda required immediate open-heart surgery to replace a defective valve and to repair damage done to this vital organ. Tilda's story takes readers from the diagnosis through all her fears and concerns, the or, her stay in the icu, the cardiac ward, recovery at home, rehabilitation, and ultimately, her return to work in the hospital armed with new insights on the patient's perspective. She learned more in her week-long stay as a patient than in all her years caring for the critically ill, especially about trust and working in partnership with her caregivers.In Opening My Heart, Shalof expertly weaves recollections...

The bestselling author of A Nurse's Story is back with more insider stories.Tilda Shalof has been a caregiver all her life -- at home for her family, at work for strangers -- but her skills didn't come easily. From when she was a child taking care of her sick parents to her current position on an ICU team in one of Canada's largest hospitals, there have always been daunting challenges and worthy rewards for her work. With her trademark humour, unflinching honesty, and skilled storytelling, Shalof describes her experiences becoming the capable nurse she is today. After graduation from nurse's college, finding no jobs in Toronto, Shalof travelled to Tel Aviv, Israel, to work in a hospital for the first time, finding adventure and young love in the process. A summer stint as a camp nurse came with requests for condoms, strange allergies ("Misty has reactions, but we don't know to what"), and overly protective parents (also known as "helicopter parents" for...

ICU nurse and bestselling author Tilda Shalof learns what nursing beyond the hospital really means. For the 350,000 professional nurses in Canada and 3 million in the US; readers of Atul Gawande's award-winning books and The American Nurse by Carole Jones.In her latest book, ICU nurse Tilda Shalof leaves the hospital behind to accompany the nurses who work in homes, from mansions to shacks to the streets, all across the country. Working with the Victoria Order of Nurses, a Canadian not-for-profit organization that provides home and community care, Tilda meets a wide variety of nursing professionals who offer untraditional care, sometimes in unlikely settings. This book not only describes a personal journey, but it also brings to light new health care issues. North America is on the cusp of change as the needs of our aging population put pressure on our health care system; more people need care in their homes and community supports to stay well. Yet this...

The bestselling, critically acclaimed author of A Nurse's Story and The Making of a Nurse is back to describe her experiences as a summer camp nurse.After years of working in intensive care units caring for critically ill people, nurse Tilda Shalof now turns her attention to healthy patients -- the kids at summer camp. In this reminiscence of six summers at a variety of camps, Shalof opens a window into the world that is a utopia for the vast majority of children, the proverbial "happy campers," but sometimes also a place of intense misery for a few. Throughout the summers, as kids troop through the infirmary with a variety of ordinary -- as well as some quite extraordinary -- complaints, Shalof describes how she assesses, diagnoses, and treats them all, from pesky lice infestations and scratchy bug bites, to broken arms and severe accidents. But Shalof finds that more often than not, she is treating the psychological maladies. She befriends kids...