Get to Know … Janet Metcalfe (March 2007)

There are people who keep track of their lives in moons or sunrises – like in the old days. Janet Metcalfe counts her time in the years she has survived breast cancer -- 10 -- and the years she has been a nurse -- 37. Or, for that matter, by the number of years until she retires form this major role in her life. “July 20, 2012,” she announces, “that is the date. I will be done then.”

So she says.

And so it is anticipated on her new vanity license plate: JOCAR5. It stands for “Janet, obsessive- compulsive, awaits for retirement in five years.” Although Janet whispers with a funny, smart-like drop in her eyebrow, that the “AR” can also be the self-deprecating initials of traits that “cannot be published…” she makes clear.

All who know Janet well fear that self-imposed time-frame for E1, the unit that has benefited from her professional expertise for a little more than 20 of her 35 years as a Stanford employee. “Our medical supplies will go to space the day after she steps out of here,” says Donna Clem, a good friend and fellow night-nurse champion.

“Mission Organization -- that should be her motto,” says Heidi Flores, another close friend within the Blood and Marrow Program. Janet’s intensity is obvious to all who get and give shift report to her. She is engaged right now in yet another major clean-up project after the staff refrigerator was put in order. The target of the day is the staff lounge. Be aware of the dates and rules. Janet is like a mother with a goal in mind: your room. Shoes, cupboards, lockers…nothing will be overlooked.

She is always planning ahead. Getting prepared for what is in store. Looking for her place in the future.

Within the hospital, it means full engagement with the committee working with Epic, the still-to-come better and improved electronic documentation program. On a personal level, the future holds the dream of quarterly visits to her recently-married son and daughter-in-law in San Diego. More time in Florida, with her youngest sister, a new golf aficionado who recently made her first hole-in-one with a pink golf ball, a fundraiser item for breast cancer research, a gift from Janet. “That was pretty special, I would say…Do you now how rare that is? And at the 10^th anniversary of my recovery?”

The baby-sister, who has a twin brother, has been responsible for Janet’s frequent flyer miles lately. “I only like to travel to be with family. I had never made a move to go to Europe or Hawaii,” she said. Janet and her sister are very close. “It was very hard when she moved from Pleasanton to Fort Lauderdale,” Janet explains. “We are the kind of people who had had the same Christmas breakfast together since grammar school.” But they talk on the phone regularly, at set times, so as not to interrupt some of Janet’s favorite TV shows: Survivor, Lost and 24.

Janet is the eldest of four children. She had a quiet and fun-filled childhood in Palo Alto, “biking everywhere,” she says. She was born in Wisconsin, but came to California as a toddler and the Bay Area instantly became home.

Janet’s mother was a nurse at Stanford and her father worked at the Red Barn close to the Hospital. At that time, the Barn was the high-tech site for artificial insemination of Holstein cows. Janet can recall running to tumble on hay where today Nordstrom’s department store is located.

She also recalls being the charge nurse one day and having her mother floating to her floor. “That was weird…But she did well…” Janet says of her late Mom, a woman whom she admired and took care of during a battle against cancer. Janet holds dear memories of her mother and her presence in a middle name: Ann.

With her mother’s gift of a stuffed hippopotamus when she was 12, Janet started a lifetime collection of figurines of the animal. Janet also has an impressive number of Hallmark Christmas ornaments: “About 600,” she estimates.

Two years ago Janet had to have almost half of her stomach removed due to a massive ulcer. A great outcome, she states. The physicians initially thought it was another malignancy. She tells of the event with a sense of humor: “I finally lost the 40 pounds I needed to let go since my pregnancy over 30 years ago.” She only pities herself for not being able to eat popcorn at the movies anymore, “I do not digest it well. I have to watch what I eat.” So she adjusted a few new recipes to accommodate her “weaker stomach,” such as the precise mix of ¼ of regular coffee to one cup of decaffeinated coffee to take her through a night shift of work. Her only culinary claim to fame though, she makes clear, is her expected contribution to unit parties: a warm artichoke dip. “All the rest I microwave. I would starve without a microwave,” she says.

She has an intact stomach for action movies though. “Kill Bill”, from Quentin Tarantino is one of her favorite movies. She likes action flicks. Really. The ones with more blood than what we transfuse at work. That is true also for books. Steven King is a winner on her list. “I would never read those books from the unit’s book club,” she comments feeling sorry for the taste of the group’s selection.

Janet is amazing in her honesty. She can be blunt. But she will say things in front of you, never behind your back. To make people “better, their best,” she says while trying to acknowledge her own intensity. She can be funny too. If you had never seen her tap-dancing with EKG leads on the soles of her shoes to the tune of her Lasix song, make sure to place a performance request. She also has jokes that will be told for generations of Stanford nurses as a Janet classic. Like the one she cracked in a Statue-of-Liberty-like pose with a dinner roll stuck on a fork. She asked, very seriously: “What is that?” to confused, wide eyes all around. She loses her patience and opens a victorious smile over the slow response: “an elevated BUN, people, an elevated BUN.” That is Janet -- in all her glory.