First Helene Hudson Memorial Lecture: Seasons of Caring

Abstract

This manuscript is the Helene Hudson Memorial Lecture presented at the annual CANO meeting in Vancouver August 11, 1994. The lecture was accompanied by a slide show that provided symbolic interpretation to the analogies. It discesses nursing care during the various levels of intervention throughout a client's experience with cancer. Primary prevention is compared to the spring with the atmosphere is full of the promise of life and health. Secondary prevention is compared to the summer. The autumn of the year, the time of decline in growth and impending death in nature, is related to palliative care. Finally, the winter of silence that follows the death in nature, the waiting for renewal, is likened to the grief and loss that is ever-present in our work. The theoretical framework for caring follows Gaut's (1983) definition of caring.