Published

About 2 years ago an acquaintance of mine at work approached me to see if I might be interested in authoring a chapter for a Pediatric Surgical Nursing textbook; specifically to write about 1 of 2 neonatal surgical issues. After coercing my friend to co-write the chapter with me, I graciously accepted. Emi and I made a good team, I think. She could always motivate me when I felt overwhelmed and she is much more organized than I am. I brought to the table that I had written a chapter before, although about a much less complex and more concrete procedure rather than a complicated and at times controversial disease process. Somehow the deadline managed to coincide with Emi changing jobs and our big move and the birth of Landon. We were able to buy a little extra time, which put Emi stuck coming to the new house on several occasions, while I tended to a newborn and we reviewed our final drafts. The actual publishing of a textbook takes a long time. We submitted our final draft in March of 2011. I have since told Emi, don't ever let me do this again!!
Our editor was a wonderfully helpful woman, Dr. Carmel McComiskey from Maryland, who actually came to speak to the Advance Practice Nursing group at CHLA shortly after our chapter was finalized. I had the pleasure to meet her after she spoke. I stood in line to meet her and said "Hi, I am Karen Rapoport, I just wanted to shake your hand" and she said "No come here and let me hug you, you did a wonderful job." So nice to get that kind of affirmation from a really smart, inspirational lady. The textbook arrived at my house on April 12th; 13 months after we submitted our final draft. Remember Emi, never again :)