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22- bloody bandages

Spooky Cookie month continues on Cookie Thursday is a Thing. Today’s make is bloody bandages.

These are operating room folks, and it is hard to gross them out.

No ick matter here!

Bloody Bandages

Sugar wafer cookies, the ones with the cream filling between thin crispy wafers.

white chocolate Candiquik. This is meltable chocolate that comes in a variety of flavors and colors and here in the United States it goes by that unfortunately spelled name, or some craft stores carry it for candy making. It melts fast in the microwave and smoothly.

toppings- for effect I used a combination of green sprinkles, and freeze-dried raspberries

I had to experiment a bit with technique. The first tray I laid the wafers out, melted the chocolate, tried to make a square of chocolate with a spoon, put the toppings on

This works but it gets messy as the chocolate begins to dry.

The second tray I had the wafer cookies in a stack, picked them up, spread the chocolate using a knife, added toppings. This worked much better and I was able to get a more uniform square of chocolate

What makes these bloody bandages is the rectangular shape of the wafer cookies, and the hopefully white square of chocolate. And the raspberry “blood”.

On some I added green sprinkles to simulate infection.

I think they are adorable, and they were very fast to make. I barely got through NPR morning edition podcast, which is about 15 minutes long. Seriously one of the fastest makes yet.

Cookie Thursday 5/7/26- Chipapalooza

I took stock this week of the sprawling baking pantry. And I came to the realization that I have too many chips.

Semi-sweet chocolate chips.
White chocolate chips.
Dark chocolate chips.
Mint chocolate chips.
Peanut butter chocolate chips.
Salted caramel chip
oh, and milk chocolate chips.
Cherry chips.
Cinnamon chips.
Freeze dried marshmallow chips.
Ginger chips.
Blueberry chips.
Potato chips. Not really, no one here just snacks on potato chips.
There are more chips than this but I got bored.

Let’s just say that I have all the chips.

Someone has to use these up.

Presenting May’s theme of Chipapalooza.

Where I will go through as many of the special chips that I have been hoarding as I can.

These are all stored in rigid sided air tight containers.

The first container that I grabbed had the berry chips.

Don’t mind if I do. Cherry pie is my favorite, after all.

I used the cookie base that I have developed over hundreds of batches and thousands of cookies.

These might be the prettiest cookie yet.

Welcome to the Operating Room. You are Somebody

“Hey, I need somebody to run this to the lab.”

“Hey, I need somebody to help us move in here.”

“Hey, I need somebody to open our next room, check our next case, get some instruments from downstairs, clean my room, find my surgeon, I need someone to give me a break…”

Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you are somebody.

These are quite frequent comments heard when a person not used to working evenings, ie a day person, works pms. Let me explain. The day shift is quite busy, yes, and they run four operating rooms from 0730 to 1700. We on evenings are also quite busy and run two operating rooms from 1700 to 1900 and run one room from 1900 to 2300. Day shift has roughly twelve people to run the four rooms, not including the charge nurse. This allows for free people to run things to the lab, move patients, open the next rooms, clean the rooms, get all the equipment needed, find the surgeons and give breaks. On evenings we do not have that luxury. We have four people until 1900 and two people after 1900, not including the charge nurse. Some nights the charge nurse is one of the two people. So there is no somebody to enlist to help. You are that somebody.

Welcome to evenings. You’ll like it here. You are somebody.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

This was the very first dispatch that I wrote. But I didn’t know it was for Dispatches from the Evening Shift at the time.

This was in reaction to the incessant calls out by day shift for SOMEBODY to get them something they needed.

Well, on the evening shift, we are all somebody.

On the evening shift, sometimes you have to help yourself.

More than that, you have to think 4 steps ahead.

Oh, and answer the phone.

It’s for you.

Happy Nurses Week to us all.

Tuesday Top of Mind 5/5/26- Further bullshit about vaccines

News came out last month that the expected March Covid report would not be released.

Because of joint shenanigans at the CDC, the FDA and the DHS.

They don’t want us to know that the covid vaccine remains safe and is an effective way to not end up in the hospital if you contract covid.

The FDA is also actively blocking the publication of research findings that the covid and the shingles vaccines were safe.

Why?

Who the fuck knows.

Probably because the good news in the report that the vaccines are safe and effective run counter to their fairy/horror tale that they tell themselves that vaccines are bad. The same bullshit they feed to unsuspected people who just want to do the right thing for their families.

This is not the promised transperency.

I wrote recently about how we are not being told the entire story. How you need to read up on what is being missed or delayed or held back or misconstrued. How to find trusted sources. How to not believe what the administration wants you to believe.

Double that.

Hell, triple that.

If you need some sources that I’ve vetted and explored, just ask. I will tell you.

Read the studies that are being blocked yourself. Read the abstract, it contains most of the information that you are searching for.

Or read/watch other’s reactions to the studies. I particularly like Dr. Zach Rubin, the Unbiased Science, Your Local Epidemiologist, and even the Alt National Park Services page on Facebook.

Again, we only being served the pablum that they want us to eat and swallow wholeheartedly.

It might not be the truth.

They are suppressing the truth and the studies.

But these and other pages and substacks are trying to get the information out to us.

You know, so we can make our own decisions.

After all, that is what they say with their whole chests.

But you can’t make an informed decision with half of the facts.

Cookie Thursday 4/30/26- black bean brownie gems

This week concludes the Unexpected Ingredient month of April.

The results have been mixed.

No one appreciated the white cake “deviled eggs”. People didn’t even try them, thinking they were really deviled eggs. Their loss, they were amazing.

The second week was when I replaced some of the oatmeal in a fudgy cocoa no bake with crushed chocolate chips. These tasted great but people just weren’t into it. This is disappointing because I thought the salt sweet was on par.

The third week was marmite sharp straws and these were a bona fide hit. These went over much better than the first two weeks. This was a sneaker hit. And I have to explore more of using the little bottle of marmite up on toast with butter and cheese.

The fourth week was no cookies because we’d worked all night on a very difficult case.

This is the fifth Thursday of the month and I made what I was going to make last week. Black bean brownies.

I heard that the secret to these is to really pulverize the black beans. And I did. I let the food processor run for 5 minutes as I added more liquidy things like a little water, a little oil, 3 eggs. This was before I added the dry ingredients of sugar, a bit of salt and baking powder.

I would have liked the bites to come out of the pan cleaner but you can’t win them all.

These also were gluten free.

Call Secrets of the OR- You will dream of work

I spend a lot of time planning my sleep. And a lot of time counseling people about how to sleep on call. This is mostly a what to expect when you’re on call.

No, you will not miss a phone call from me. I call back.

Wait. You might miss a phone call. It is rare but it happens. When it does happen, I boot the repeated calls up to the supervisor as I get the room ready. If you still don’t answer the phone after 3 tries, I call the back up call. And if I can’t reach THAT person, I start calling all the techs that I know.

Someone usually says yes.

If not, I start to call management.

But, I cannot stress this enough, this rarely happens.

That is why there are layers of call people.

But I can’t lie and say that it never happens.

I get it, being on call at night might make for a stressful night. And uneasy dreams.

You might work at a “hospital” all night in your dreams, frantically looking for a lost patient, realizing at 1700 that you’ve had an unsupervised patient who has not gotten any of their meds since 0700. Or participating in your own surgery.

You are not alone in this.

At a meeting I was leading yesterday somehow the conversation turned to work dreams and 99% of us had had them.

So, yeah, it is okay to dream about work.

Just like it is okay to be so fucking relieved when you wake up and the nonsense you’ve been dreaming about all night, retained objects during surgery, lost patients, lost instruments has all been a dream.

But the super secret of my sleep on call is that the nights I am tossing and turning and turning and tossing and I cannot get my brain to shut up already, I do a bit of sleep self hypnosis.

I think I’ve written about this before.

I have a certain number that has been pre-selected (748,655) and I repeat it to myself.

And repeat it.

If after the 4th time I am still not asleep, I do tricks with the numbers. I multiple it by ten or 100. This does the trick.

I bore myself to sleep. Which I hope is a dreamless sleep.

yes, I yawned typing the number. And it is still daylight outside.

Tuesday Top of Mind- Flu for thee, not for me

As I am hopefully everyone has seen, the secretary of defense has deemed a mandatory flu vaccine that has been the military standard for decades is no longer mandatory.

Why?

The flu still kills. And kills and kills and kills.

In fact I would hazard a guess that the flu killed more people in the world than the military. I would put money that the flu has killed more people in this flu season of 2025/2026 than the military has done in a decade.

This was decided and announced under a BS concept of “medical freedom”.

Yes, the quotes are mandatory.

Reminder, the flu still kills. But if you are too scared to take a vaccine for that which kills THOUSANDS of Americans a year, you do you. I’m not going to stop you.

But, while we are on the subject of medical freedom, now do women’s health and access to the full gamut of healthcare. Because abortion is healthcare.

Oh, you didn’t mean that kind of freedom.

Freedom for men, but not for women.

Good to know.

Typical of this administration and their secretaries but good to know.

FFS Friday 4/24/26- Next FRIDAY 5/1/26

To keep attention on the absolute fuckwhattery that is happening in Washington D.C. is to go slowly mad.

This is by design.

This is why there is so much chaos. Everywhere. All the time.

This is how flood the zone was designed. And, yes, I did shudder when I typed those words.

Kind of like bread and circuses in Ancient Rome. Keep the masses entertained. Keep the masses fed.

Usually not both at the same time.

This is a classic distraction technique.

And, what’s worse, it has been working on a lot of Americans.

There have been protests over the past year. No Kings marches. The first was on June 14, 2025. With another on October 28th and a third on March 28th. And the turnout keeps getting bigger.

The next protest scheduled will be next Friday May 1, 2026.

It is going to be called May Day Strong National Day of Action.

No work.

Keep the pocketbook closed and the credit card in your wallet.

This is a stand for the families, for the public schools, for the workers, and for our communities.

Even if they are not paying attention because they are dazzled by the circus.

And life in the United States these past 15 months has definitely been a circus.

Hopefully this is enough warning to you to be able to participate, any way you can, in the May Day Strong protests.

Get involved and raise your voice and tell them “NO MORE!”.

They can’t ignore all of us forever.

Call Secrets of the OR- Do not assume that the case will be less than posted

There is a universal truth for charge nurses. MDs might be less than truthful to get what they want.

A surgeon might whine and complain and complain some more that they absolutely need to be out by 1400. Never the six cases.

I’ve written about that before.

It is usually about flights.

Of fancy maybe.

The inverse is the surgeon who spies a very very very very minute gap in the schedule. And bluffs the charge nurse that they can absolutely do a 2 hour case in 20 minutes.

Balderdash.

It’s giving desperate. It’s giving Druzilla and Anastasia as they chop off bits of their feet to fit inside the glass slipper. Because their mother told them to to snare the prince.

The only prince around here is the sweet sweet spare time that I imagine all surgeons desire.

99% of these cases run over. And tee time is missed. And TEA time is missed. And flights that never existed are missed.

Mostly because the doctor doesn’t want to wait.

I say put them to work. Give them a mop or a wiping cloth for the room that the last patient vacated 30 seconds before. Show them how to bag trash. Show them where to put the trash.

And watch their head explode when you say that the products used have a 10 minute dry time.

Most importantly, remind them that the consent for the surgery that you both know very well will take longer than the 30 minutes promised. That consent must be signed. And the H&P written.

Or, you know, make them answer the phone that is ringing every 5 seconds. You could do.

We’ve had Epic for more than 10 years now. That is a lot of time for the computer to learn average case times and also be more truthful about how long a surgery will really take.

Surgeons don’t like being told no. But the downstream patients will appreciate you not letting them squeeze in a case that is going to take 10 minutes max.

Notice how the time goes down with each iteration.

Yeah, so do the charge nurses.

Tuesday Top of Mind 4/21/26- One hand gives and the other hand looks through your pockets looking for loose change

Yes, this is a Princess Bride allegory. When Miracle Max says the only thing to do for someone who is fully dead is to go through their clothes and look for loose change.

It reminded me of something.

It reminded me of Joann fabrics. This was an amazing craft store that was bought by private equity and liquidated and sold. RIP Joann’s. My friends bemoan the loss weekly.

It reminded me of Party City, which met a similar fate. Of course they did.

It reminded me of the trouble that Red Lobster is in. Because of private equity.

Talk about going through their pockets and looking for loose change.

It also reminded me that in 2025, RFK Jr. and the department of DHHS cancelled five hundred billion dollars in grants. Some of those grants were for cancers.

Because they thought private equity would be able to do it cheaper.

Have they ever met private equity?

Whatever gave them that idea?

I bring this up because a positive mRNA story is all over the main stream media. They are heralding the use of an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer. This is one of the most deadly cancers. You can’t turn on a television without it playing somewhere.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a big win, one of the biggest.

However, with the short sightedness of the DHHS, what other wins are going lacking? What other possible wins are dying on the grant tree?

We may never know.

How many people could’ve been helped?

We will never know.

There is a phrase that I use to describe a lot of hospitals- penny wise and pound foolish. To me this describes the entire situation. Don’t be too quick to save a penny, to lose a pound for the want of the penny.

But then, private equity and pharmacy benefit managers and hospital CEOs are only out for the money. It isn’t about the little people who could’ve been helped by a new kind of drug therapy. It is all about the cost savings. The savings isn’t for the normal everyday people; it is for the rich who don’t understand the concept of having enough.

Hooray for the positive news about the pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine that has helped a few people.

What about the others who died in agony?

Wasn’t cost effective, was it?

Cookie Thursday 4/16/26- Marmite cheddar cheese straws

Crushingly, the cookies last week were NOT popular. Half the batch was left in the drawer. Which is disappointing. Perhaps I need to scale back Cookie Thursday is a Thing in the operating room and expand to other departments the other weeks.

New week, new make.

The Unexpected Ingredient theme continues. Today, I put marmite in sharp cheddar puff pastry cheese straws.

Marmite, the fermented yeast you either love or hate or hate on principle.

These were unexpectedly yummy.

Marmite isn’t as bad as they would have you believe.

Is it strong tasting? Yes.

Does it smell strong? Yes.

Is it worth it? Yes.

Do I want to explore more taste sensations with marmite?

Yep. Next I will do a butter and marmite on toast.

After I pick up the CTIAT leftovers at the hospital later this evening.

By the way, marmite is an excellent source of B vitamins. But it is also very high in salt and should be eaten sparingly.