Florence Nightingale

May 11, 2018 20:55

“Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone. Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have 'no time in the day to themselves.' 1852”

Florence Nightingale

More of her quotes HERE. Recommended.

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820. She was contemporary with the American Transcendentalists and later Abolitionists. Truly one of the first progressive social activists in modern history, she existed for the benefit of the sick, and for the duty to her God. Her story is as gruelling and as rivotting as that of Anne Frank. The movie, "Florence Nightingale," made me cry.

But I have special connection to her. Florence Nightingale has become a kind of patron saint to those who suffer from CFS / ME, and Fibromyalgia. I, myself, started a non-profit organisation in honour of her name. Because she worked so hard during the Crimean war, besieged by toxins and stress and pollution - and because she not only helped those who fell to war, but because she also fell, herself, to an illness resembling today's CFS/ME, Florence Nightingale is now the emblem of CFS advocates everywhere.

May 12 was her birthday - and now May 12 is INTERNATIONAL CFS AWARENESS DAY.

A great hero to me, she exemplifies what can be accomplished through stubborn, dogged persistence in the face of vast social ignorance, doing what one must do SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT. Not for the money. Not for anything else but humanity. What would one gain in a career marketing a new drug, or such, the patent gone with you to the grave, pretty much - versus a career in doing what the deep common love in one's heart demands one do?

We are a pathetic fluff of dust fleeting off and away in a blink. But, oh, within us, despite this dire sentence, there can be genius and love, for what it's worth.

nurses, nightingale - florence, health - cfs awareness / day, my heroes

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