Alexis Brianna

Palliative Nurse Practitioner, Breast Cancer Survivor 🇺🇸

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Palliative medicine is, in so many ways, truth telling.

Not harsh truth. Not hopeless truth. Compassionate, effective truth.

It’s often taking what medicine already knows—or should be saying—and translating it into something a patient and family can actually understand and use.

The disease is progressing.
This treatment is unlikely to get you back to the life you value.
More intervention may not mean more meaningful time.
We may be reaching the limits of what medicine can change.

And somehow, as a society, we have become so uncomfortable with death that we will do almost anything except talk about it plainly.

So we consult more people. Order more tests. Escalate treatment. Speak in vague language. Everyone gets increasingly uncomfortable, fragmented, and exhausted… while the reality in the room remains the same.

It’s inefficient. It’s confusing. And yes, sometimes it’s incredibly frustrating.

Death is not a failure of medicine.

Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is stop dancing around the truth, say what we are worried about, and help people decide what matters now.

That isn’t taking away hope.

Sometimes it’s finally giving hope somewhere honest to land.

#PalliativeCare #TruthTelling #GoalsOfCare #SeriousIllness #DeathAndDying

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

When your mind quits asking
What your heart has always known,
You may find the thing you’re seeking
Was never far from home.

Go a little deeper,
Past the story you’ve been told
There are truths that don’t need chasing,
Only courage to behold.

And if love brings you stillness
Where the questions used to grow,
Maybe wisdom isn’t finding
Maybe wisdom is to know.

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

“Maybe love 💘 will grant you peace ☮️ of mind
Dig a little deeper, and you'll know”

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@disney_magic825 Pinktober is here to stay 💕💗💖💞💓🌸💐🌺💘💝🌷🧞‍♀️🩷👛🩰

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

It’s pink 🌸💕💗💖💞💓💘💝🌷🧞‍♀️🩷

https://t.co/n969Tg0eJi

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@clouse2685_t You should’ve known better than to play Rodgers.

But hey… at least the Steelers scored more than the Eagles did. So there’s that. 💀

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Fuck it. Bench Rodgers.

This offense looks like pee-wee football with a $200 million payroll.

Except pee-wee teams occasionally move the fucking ball.

#Steelers #HereWeGo

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@Nostalgicdisney The best

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

I asked Brielle what her favorite animal was, fully expecting something a little more… familiar. 😂 (hoping for a cat maybe)

Her answer: axolotl.

Which meant I first had to Google what an axolotl even was. A little peculiar? Absolutely. But okay, girl - I respect it.

Then it was Etsy to the rescue for a crochet pattern, and from there:

Challenge accepted. 🩷🧶

Now she has her very own handmade axolotl. Weird little favorite animal and all.

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Some things are harder to capture than they are to feel 🌕

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@clouse2685_t

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Sometimes the questionable fantasy pick is the pick.

The Kicker Incident™ will be referenced all season. 🏈 🦵

@clouse2685_t

#FantasyFootball #NFL #FantasyFootballLife #NickFolk #AtlantaFalcons #EatCrow

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

“The trees do not fear the fall; they trust what comes after.” 🍁 🍂

#fall2026 #firstdayofFall

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Yea that one… by hum only 🤓

🎶 I am sitting
In the morning
At the diner
On the corner
I am waiting
At the counter
For the man
To pour the coffee 🎵

https://t.co/XhLruaeD5y

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Find someone who looks at you the way Wonka looks at Elora. 🥹🤣
#BritishShorthair

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

🎷 Doo doo doo doo… doo doo doo doo… 🎷
“The heat is on…” 🔥

https://t.co/u5TwucK9P7

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@rnbradar 🌫️🍂🍁

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

“And so we finished the Moet
And started feeling liberated
And I surrendered as you took me in your arms
I was so caught up in the moment
I couldn't bear to let you go yet
So I threw caution to the wind
And started listening to my longing heart
And then you softly pressed your lips to mine
And feelings surfaced I'd suppressed
For such a long long time (And I was lifted)
And for a while I forgot the sorrow and the pain
And melted with you as we stood there in the rain”

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@clouse2685_t

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

1 year later and the blanket is in the same condition because repetitive stitches are torture.

And technically… the Steelers had the stronger win this year by margin. 😌
But I know, I know… Eagles 🦅 fans hate when math gets involved. 😂🏈 @clouse2685_t

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

It only took me 18 rows of 140 hdc stitches to figure out I dropped 2 stitches 18 rows ago
Had to frog 🐸 it… because perfectionism
That’s what I get for taking short cuts and not actually counting every stitch

🤬 u Eagles 🦅 ur going down today
Might I add #Steelers had better score than you last week
But who’s counting?

This blanket is going to be the death of me
You know what? It’s probably a sign I should just abort
13 rows done, 154 rows to go
If 140 st in each row that’s a total of 23,380 stitches 🧵
Ewww yea screw this project

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

If MDMA can help people with PTSD approach traumatic memories with less fear and overwhelm, could it help terminally ill patients who are intensely afraid of dying approach death the same way? 🤔

Palliative care is already studying psilocybin for existential distress.
MDMA deserves a serious trial here too. 🤓 just saying….

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

I forgot to ‘chin up’ before walking through the door this morning… and walked straight into Charlotte’s web.
🕷️🕸️
Salutations! 👋
She even had a little breakfast burrito 🌯 wrapped up for later. 😂

🎶 “Twinkle! 🌟
Sparkle! ✨
Let a little fun begin! 🤩
You'll be on the right side
Looking at the bright side ☀️
Up with your chinny-chin
Chin up!” 🐖
https://t.co/7ocN3TXjzz

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

I only recently realized Jennifer Rush was the OG 👩🏻‍🎤 Power of Love singer 🤦‍♀️… and then thought it was kind of funny that her official page posted a version where she is very obviously lip 👄 syncing 🎤😆

But listening to it again, what stands out most is how overwhelming love can actually be.

Not gentle. Not tidy. Just this force that picks you up and takes you somewhere you’ve never been - beautiful, frightening, and bigger than you thought you could hold.

Sometimes it doesn’t change what happened.

It just changes you. 🤍 🫧

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

Grok speaks on what the power of love is:

The power of love, you ask? Well, it's like the universe's own brand of superglue! It can mend hearts, bridge galaxies, turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, and make people do the most ridiculous things—like marathon karaoke sessions of Céline Dion. Love has the strength to:

- **Transform**: Turn a cynic into a poet, or a couch potato into a marathon runner if it means chasing after the one they adore.

- **Heal**: It's the best kind of medicine, with side effects including but not limited to: excessive smiling, sudden bouts of dancing, and a significant increase in text message frequencies.

- **Connect**: It can link souls across continents or even just across a crowded room, creating invisible threads that tug at heartstrings.

- **Motivate**: Love inspires everything from sonnets to skyscrapers. People have built monuments, written symphonies, and even ventured into the kitchen to attempt cooking for love's sake.

- **Endure**: Love can outlast the fade of youth, the trials of time, and sometimes even common sense. It's got more staying power than a space probe in the void.

However, remember, love's power isn't just about the grand gestures. It's in the everyday moments: a shared laugh, a comforting hug, or understanding silence. It's powerful enough to make you believe in the impossible, like the idea that socks don't actually disappear in the dryer, they're just off on a romantic getaway.

Now, if you're asking for a scientific or metaphysical breakdown, well, love activates regions in the brain associated with reward and pleasure, floods you with feel-good chemicals, and might just be the most pleasant glitch in human programming. But isn't it more fun to think of it as the universe's way of saying, "Let's see how wonderfully weird you humans can get"?

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

@clouse2685_t …what I meant to say is, thank you for putting up with all my rant sessions so I can wake up and do it all over again tomorrow.

[Alexis Brianna @PalliativeCRNP]

“I don’t know how you do your job.”

I hear that from doctors and nurses all the time.

The truth is, I don’t do it without feeling it. Every serious conversation still takes courage.

We got into this mess in medicine partly through avoidance…. softening prognosis until the meaning disappears, postponing conversations about dying because we’re afraid of taking away hope, or because we simply hate being the one who has to say the words.

Avoidance doesn’t protect patients.

These conversations should feel heavy. You’re sitting with another human being and talking about their life, their future, and sometimes their death. Feeling that weight means you understand what’s at stake.

The goal isn’t to become so practiced that you feel nothing.

You’ll stumble. You’ll wish you’d said something differently.

Try anyway.

Serious conversations require courage, not perfection.

The discomfort is human.

Willingness to enter it is the work.

#PalliativeCare #SeriousIllness #CourageInMedicine