I met 73 year old Bob Nelson at one of our diner stops. Bob started his career as a firefighter in 1949. After suffering a stroke and several other health problems, Bob finanly retired a couple of years ago. But now, becase he cannot afford all of his own meds, he is going back to work to earn enough money to stay on his prescribed treatments. Bob told me he will be teaching some emergency preparedness classes to newer firefighters.
At every stop, we heard from folks like Bob — hard-working, tough-minded people who are trying to hang on to their jobs and homes, their retirement dreams and their lives in the face of mounting pressures and sometimes daunting illnesses.
The nurses seemed to listen and instruct about what they see as reasonable solutions for the healthcare crisis as if laying out a sort of healthcare reform discharge plan for the nation: healthcare for all is the answer for the ailing system. Everybody in and nobody out. It's the plan RNs hope we'll get to if we demand it of our leaders and of one another.
For now, they'll be on the bus, around the corner, in the diners, down the block and in shopping center and hospital parking lots and out among their neighbors and fellow citizens offering a vision that can be trusted as far more free of outside influences or hidden agendas than any other reform positions citizens must wade through during election cycles.