A Memoir
Still Showing Up
A Memoir of Nursing, Service, and the Long Work of Care
Kenneth L. Dabbs
Still Showing Up is an inspiring story of resilience, purpose, and the quiet courage it takes to keep moving forward—through change, challenge, and every unexpected turn. It is a celebration of a life shaped not by giving up, but by showing up.
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From the Book
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Honest, compassionate, and often surprising, Still Showing Up is more than the record of an extraordinary nursing career. It is a firsthand account of how healthcare changed across nearly half a century—and a reminder that no machine, policy, or institution can replace the person willing to enter the room, pay attention, speak the truth, and care.
Still Showing Up
From some remote place in my memory came the voice of one of my ICU educators talking about children with increased intracranial pressure and high-pitched cries. Amanda was not crying, but that sound cut through the routine rhythm of the exam. Something in the visit shifted, and I could not ignore it.
· · ·
A tight shirt, a thin, high-pitched sound, a head-circumference line at the top of the chart, and a mother’s confirmation all pointed in the same direction. I trusted the pattern and acted.
Still Showing Up
Another crisis happened while I was both working on the psychiatric floor and completing clinical rotations there as a student nurse. A patient who was hallucinating struck her hand and wrist against a small wire-glass panel and severed her radial artery. Another student saw it happen and yelled for help. The whole team moved toward her, but I reached her first. I secured her wrist, applied direct pressure, and stopped the bleeding.
About the Author
Kenneth L. Dabbs
MSN, FNP-C
Kenneth L. Dabbs, MSN, FNP-C, is a nurse practitioner, educator, veteran, and lifelong advocate for compassionate care. Over more than four decades, his work has taken him from locked psychiatric wards and intensive care units to military flight nursing, NIH research, underserved communities, veterans’ care, and the front lines of COVID-19. In Still Showing Up, he brings readers inside a remarkable life in healthcare—sharing moments of courage, grief, humor, discovery, and grace while tracing medicine’s transformation from paper charts to artificial intelligence. Through it all, Dabbs returns to one enduring truth: skill matters, but so do conscience, curiosity, and the willingness to enter the room, pay attention, and care.
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