by Caroline Neal, R.N.* In 1983, I was 23 years old, a college graduate, and had worked as a registered nurse for a year. I moved with my new husband from Georgia to Cooperstown, New York where he began a medical internship. I accepted a job as a home health nurse with the Otsego County Public Health Department. Each day, I drove over 100 miles on back roads in central New York’s Appalachian Mountains visiting patients whose diagnoses and ages varied widely.  Prior to this year, I had rarely traveled out of the South and had seen snow only a couple of times. Everything was different; everything was the same … Continue reading →