Weathering the storm: persevering through a difficult time

Parse's human becoming theory of nursing and research methodology were used to uncover the structure of the lived experience of persevering through a difficult time for eight women with ovarian cancer. Three core concepts surfaced: deliberately persisting, significant engagements, and shifting life patterns. Through conceptual integration these emerged as powering valuing in the connecting-separating of originating. Deliberately persisting, an active forging onward, was supported in the perseverance literature. The concept significant engagements, a variety of encounters uniquely important to an individual, was further clarified. Shifting life patterns, the changing ways of living as the difficult time emerged, was not addressed in the perseverance literature and represents new knowledge to the discipline of nursing.