Mother's Day here in CA and will call mom enroute to wine country. Glad that you are returning to BC and hopefully some upward progress soon! I truly hope to see you by the end of May. Hopefully your Irish luck will hold and the weather will cooperate soon. According to Ice8000 no one was been able to summit yet. I'm hoping my pick of May 23 proves accurate!
Love & miss you so.
Carol

Hi Pat,
I am excited for you as you start back up to basecamp. I look forward to reading your updates and hearing all of your stories. I hope you are feeling better...those antibiotics should be kicking in by now!!
I wanted to let Bonnie's friend know how much I LOVE being a nurse!! I received a BS in Biology and then decided I wanted to go into nursing. I recieved my BSN from USC in 2002. I couldn't have chosen a better career. The great thing about nursing is there are so many different opportunities. How much direct patient care you want to provide will be determined by where you choose to work.
I was in PACU and ICU where I had continuous direct patient contact. Not only did I get a chance to take care of my patients, but their families as well when they would visit thier loved ones. I had the autonomy to provide my patients with the care they needed and took great pride in watching thier conditions improve with the decisions I made.
I recently decided I wanted to continue my education and obtain an advanced nursing degree, so I applied to the Nurse Anesthesia program at USC. I have just finished my first semester and love it!! (and still providing hands on care every day I am in clinical!!) Nursing is a wonderful profession...paperwork and all!! You really have the ability to make a difference in your patient's and community's life. Pat is an awesome example of this possibility!!!! The type of care you provide and amount of contact you have with your patient and thier family is up to you. Bonnie, I wish your friend the best of luck in whatever career she chooses...I hope it is nursing!!!!!
Kelly Grant

Hey Pat have fun going up to base camp. I have been so busy lately. In soccer we played for upperstate champions and we lost to lexington so that sucked but oh well. We have exams coming up for school, i cant wait until school is over. Its getting warm down here I went on the lake for the first time this weekend.
Love Kristen

hey big fella - just got into lax - and are meeting at the Z bar later on ...see you there....??!!
mate thinking of you heaps up there - especialy while around the golf course in nadi etc....
- and remember - "pain is temporary - quitting is forever..." so go hard....!!!
looking forward to a few good stories and beers on our next rocks trip....

cheers mate and all the best - clarky...

Hi Pat,
We are happy that your rest time down in the lower altitude has given all of you some needed rehab! We hope the trek back is pleasant and that everyone will be ready when the weather allows!
Good luck,
Ann and Graham

Hi Pat ..
I hope you get feeling better. I am in touch with all your blogs, very exciting news. Your fans are multiplying as we speak. Don't take any unnecessary risks and look after yourself and your team. I've been flying the Nepal flag for you since your arrival at Everest and will continue until you summit.
Brian

Hi Pat, have a wonderful trek back to basecamp. We leave tomorrow to go out west for 2 weeks (we're going to see several of the national parks). My laptop died, but I'm going to try to find internet cafes to keep up on your blogs! I'm so hooked I would almost rather stay here until you finish the climb! Because I don't know when I'll get back to the blog (and you may summit before then), I'm going to give you the quotes I found for you and Sean and the release of his ashes. Sorry but I like all three.
"Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest." Psalms 55:6.
"Thou art an eagle, thou doest belong to the sky and not to the earth, stretch forth thy wings and fly." Paul H. Dunn
"Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light." Albert Schweitzer
I'll e mail my nursing thoughts to Bonnie in another e mail.
Stay safe Pat!!!! I'll be thinking about you and your team each day and praying for everyone's safety!

Sandra

Becoming a nurse was something I've wanted since I was a little girl. I have enjoyed my profession very much! I have done several different things and really liked them all. I was a critical care nurse in CCU for 18 years. I guess you could say I was a real adrenaline junkie. After that, I was a nursing director for Cardiac Services and Emergency Dept. (separately) for 12 years. Now, I've gone back into Cardiac/Pulmonary Rehab. We exercise both cardiac and pulmonary patients. In addition, we teach life style changes to them and their families. Really in nursing you can do so many things. You can have the drama of the ICU, a less dramatic pace in an outpatient setting, or you can do patient education. This is just a small sample of all the opportunities available to nurses. The best part is that you're always needed:)

Sandra

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish"
-John Quincy Adams

Hope you guys are well and preparing for quite an experience ahead... You all are amazing and individuals who will be at The Head of the Sky before you know it...
Keep on insipring us all...!

Sending all good things,

Jen
Chicago, IL
USA

Pat - Have been following your adventures with fascination. Hope your health will be back to optimum soon, and that the push for the summit won't be too long in following. Article appeared in the State a couple of days ago - how great that your effort (and cause) is attracting this degree of interest. I hope it will continue to generate tangible interest in terms of the scholarship! Convocation and graduation are over - exciting to see "my" students walking for the first time. We all felt you there in spirit! Now it's time for summer and I'm scrambling, but at least some things are consistent :) Be well and much good karma to you. Bev

Hey Pat
I am following with everyone else, knowing you are restoring your health and feeling refreshed as you head back to the mountain.
Thanks to Sandra, Gina, and Kelly for their descriptions about nursing. I will compile theirs with what I get from my colleagues at work and let you know how Cari responds (she may be leaving for Peru as Pat heads for the summit - so it may be a while, but I will be sure to get the message through!). I welcome further comments from anyone else who wants to send their opinions about nursing either from the profession side (of one doing the work) or from the patient side (one receiving the care). I remember being a patient and having a post op bleed complication after surgery and having lots of water retention. There was one nurse from the Middle East (by origin) who came in to see me and said - "We Need to Weigh you!" - that was a nursing intervention that helped to measure the amount of water I was retaining and subsequently lost in the next few days. It was definitely something she initiated that made a difference! I felt listened to as a patient and it helped to measure my success as we went into the next few days after "fluid challenge" and diuresis. There was another nurse that helped explain a "pick line" when my peripheral veins were pretty much gone and other techs came in trying to find something. The nurse was evident in the level of teaching and caring that she brought to me at the bedside. The technicians came to draw blood (and some of them were very good) - but the nurses came to me and taught me and gave a different level of information to me and my family about what was going on.

I will compile whatever else comes in, Pat - as I think testimonials about nursing will help with your Summit Scholarship drive.

All the best to you in your return to base camp, Pat. I thought you were a Pisces - but also thought you had the spunk and outrageous spirit that we Aries have (so there is a bit of things in common with the transition from Pisces to Aries I think - transitioning from one season to another - water and fire energy for sure, and you are getting grounded with your earth energy as you climb!). Astrology is more than just the sun sign (as we know). As we approach another week, we will see the New Moon and that means new beginnings - so stay tuned. We will also see the transition of the sun moving from Taurus to Gemini (boy you have been gone a long time!)
We are all with you for the next chapter and sending your strength and positive energy.
Bonnie

pat and team. have a good trek back to b/c. summit weather still very windy apparently improving late this week.[21 st.--- 25 th] hope you continue to feel better.cheers [ken.nz]

From a very young age I knew I wanted to be a nurse. My aunt, who was a nurse, recognized this and nurtured my dreams by sewing nurse's uniforms for me when I was four and ten. The first was a student's and the second a graduate's. I have pictures of myself lovingly caring for my "patients", the dolls of all my friends. My dream was put on hold after high school and it was in my early forties that I decided the time had come to pursue it...and I am so glad that I did. Nursing has brought me so much joy and satisfaction that another profession could not. Within nursing there are so many different opportunites to explore, it is easy to find where you fit. It is so much more than paperwork, which is also computer work these days. I have worked on a medical/surgical unit with a specialty in orthopedics and neurology. Using your knowledge, skills and intuition to help patients and their families cope with diagnosis, treatment and recovery is tremendously rewarding. I now work in a pre admissions setting as part of the surgical services team and find great satisfaction in seeing that patients are properly prepared for surgery, physically and mentally. After 20 years as a nurse I still enjoy and look forward to going to the hospital each day. Though I'm planning to retire in a few years (which is why we need new nurses coming along!) I enjoy it so much that I will continue to work per diem.
It's been great reading all the different notes on why people are in nursing. I hope Bonnie's friend is moved to explore it fully. As a CNA/LNA , perhaps she has seen and heard the nurses around her complain about the paperwork. This is a good reminder that we should also emphasize the positives and think of what role we are modeling to those around us. It would be a shame to discourage a good future nurse by focusing on what we perceive as a negative.
Jean

Hi Pat, I have a lot of catching up to do on your blog as I have been out of touch since Thursday of last week. I hope this note finds you all well. Darlington was amazing! Yes, as you have seen Jeff Gordon won! I thought of you. Our seats were right in front of Jr's pit but Jeff was slightly to my left so I was able to get tons of pit road footage for you. We were wearing headphones so we could hear the drivers talking. I was listening to Jeff when the decision was made for him not to pit. It was so cool. Clearly that decision was what it took to win the race. Our seats were in front of Victory Lane as well so I took some video footage of Jeff celebrating there too. It was great! We can talk NASCAR when you get back. Stay safe and I am going to catch up on what you have been doing since I have been out. Take care and stay safe! ~ Judy (USC - CON)