5 million plus dead from the covid-19 pandemic.

World wide.

Personally, I think is a huge undercount.

Cases are rising in Britain due to the new variant, the delta plus.

Very glad my husband talked me out of going in December.

The airline credit will just have to wait.

Cases are rising in Russia, not that the medical community knows much.

Vaccinations are increasing, although I heard that much of it was due to boosters being given.

Hopefully, vaccinations for the 5-12 set will have full CDC approval tomorrow.

Many families are waiting on that.

We have workers re-siding the house right this second.

All the hammers.

The banging.

They are not wearing masks up on the ladders.

And neither would I expect them to.

However, the foremen who want to talk to us?

Absolutely should be wearing masks.

It drives my husband crazy.

Mask mandate is still active where I live.

The test positivity rate has not dropped below that threshold.

Yes, cases may be down where you live.

This does not give you permission to be stupid,

The post-it reads ‘hospitals are great places to watch the human condition…ALL the human conditions’

My sister said this as we were waiting for our sister to come out from visiting our dad in the ICU.

Because it’s a pandemic, no more than 1 visitor allowed at a time.

IN THE HOSPITAL.

I expected there to be no more than 1 person at bedside at a time, because ICU has rules.

But we couldn’t wait, not even in the hospital.

No waiting in the ICU waiting room, which also doubled as their code lavender room.

And no seating for non-hospital personnel in the cafeteria.

No matter, my sisters and I decamped to the corner.

To wait.

And to watch the world go by.

But, really, to watch people go by.

Say what you will about San Francisco.

The people watching is on-point.

So many people.

So many different attitudes in a 30 foot radius.

So many people wearing masks.

Thanks for that.

All the human conditions were on display.

Fear.

Grief.

Rage.

Happiness.

Laughter.

And, it being a hospital at change of shift…

Exhaustion.

Yes, it appears that the case volume is decreasing.

Yes, it appears that the death rate is decreasing.

Slightly.

The FDA has authorized vaccines for children 5-12.

I know some doctors with vulnerable children who are very happy for that.

But people are still getting sick.

But people are still dying.

Just over 2000 in the past 24 hours.

It bears repeating.

Again.

Wear a mask.

Wash your hands.

Stay 6 feet apart.

Again.

Do not let us falter at the 10 yard line.

Until next time, San Francisco.

Take good care of my father, Kaiser Permanente.

Take good care of our mother, sister.

Do I feel guilty for leaving?

Do I feel guilty for flying home when the situation is still tenuous?

Absolutely.

But there are time sensitive things at home for me.

My husband was unable to get the time off of work and so has been batching it for 5 days, 4 nights.

His birthday is in three days.

There is major work to begin on our house on Sunday.

There is a job offer in the wings for me, if I had the mental space to call the recruiter back.

There is a new job title waiting for me.

There are several articles and books to be written.

There is sleep to be in had, in my own bed, with my own pillows.

There is work to be done.

And I am, if nothing else, a worker.

And, apparently the cats have been searching for me.

All of which leads me to be onboard the long flight home to the American South, part of me still wanting to stay indefinitely in San Francisco, even though I know that is not tenable.

Inadvertent peeping is a hazard for nurses.

Everywhere.

As I am walking down the stepdown unit in this hospital far, far away from own, I am making sure to look straight ahead.

For a trained nurse the impulse is to look into every patient room.

Just to make sure the patient is not in obvious need.

Just to make sure the patient is not on the floor.

Just to make sure the patient is still there.

This doesn’t come without a patient sometimes calling out for a passerby who they see peering into their room.

Even if that passerby is not their nurse.

I did not want to be called out.

This is not my hospital.

This is not my state.

I am just here to visit my father, thank you very much.

And the HIPPA violations would be immense.

It is not unlike driving in the Tenderloin district.

I have a strict no eye contact policy.

At lunch I was mentioning to my mom that I had this struggle.

To look straight ahead and not look into rooms.

My mom, a longtime nurse, agreed.

Without question.

In the OR we are very focused on the patient on the table.

Everything we do is for them.

We breathe for them.

We move for them.

We make sure everything is counted before closing for them.

Our entire focus is on them.

But what about the family in the waiting room?

Their loved one is back behind closed doors.

They have to trust that the medical team will do their job.

On keeping them breathing and their heart beating.

On moving them in a safe manner.

On positioning them safely for a case that needs positioning.

That the OR team will do their counts.

When I am prepping a patient for urgent surgery on call, I have a specific talk I give the family that will be waiting.

If the phone rings, it will be for you.

It will be the update from the OR team that you are waiting for.

It will be the update from PACU with their room assignment.

It might be the surgeon to go over the surgery with you.

All very important updates that we want you to have.

But you have to pick up the phone.

I know, it’s creepy to pick up a phone that is not yours.

But do it.

Waiting is the hardest job in the OR.

Don’t make your wait longer by not answering the phone or being in the waiting room.

The post-it states ‘bitchcraft-the art pissing people off by telling the truth’.

Truer words have never been put on a post-it note.

One of my favorite memes about an INTJ is ‘expect blunt, honest answers. If you don’t want the truth, don’t ask’.

When I talk people, especially at the hospital, often ask if I am kidding.

No.

No, I don’t kid.

I was heading to the emergency room one day.

To pick up a surgical patient.

Because, you know, I like to spoil ACU.

This was near the height of the latest covid surge in the hospital and gurneys and beds were lining the halls outside of the emergency room.

I passed an unmade stretcher.

Stopped.

And went back to the stretcher.

On gurneys there is a slot specifically made for an oxygen tank.

And this gurney had an O2 tank hanging out the side.

Most decidedly not in the O2 slot.

I took a picture to show the plant engineering people that we do know how to fix glaring problems.

And I put the O2 back in its slot.

And continued to the ED to pick up the patient.

I ran into the plant engineering head yesterday.

And I stopped him to show him the picture.

I told him that I had definitely fixed the problem.

He thanked me and asked if I had any other pictures of such examples.

Because he uses them as a what is wrong with this picture visual interest on his slides.

I laughed and said ‘do I!’

He may be sorry he asked for picture.

Which one should I send him next?

I’m thinking of the one where there is a step blocking the return grate of the air handler.

I have no problem tattling on the OR.

Not if it leads to solutions.

Say the name of this week’s cookie 3 times fast.

It is quite the mouthful.

Spooky cookie month continues.

And I promised the department a surprise ingredient.

Shh, don’t tell them quinoa replaces some of the oats in the traditional fudgey cocoa no bake cookies.

Plus the addition of freeze dried raspberries.

An experimental cookie if you will.

To quote Dr. Frankenstein of what he called his abomination “It lives!”

That is a tad over-dramatic.

There is nothing living about this cookie.

The spooky story of the week is about my very first hospital.

Well, not a hospital, definitely a nursing home.

I was brand spanking new to any kind of nursing care as a job.

As my previous experience had only been as a nursing student.

I clutched my newly obtained certified nursing aide certification as I started night shift as a CNA.

This particular nursing home was set up as a wheel with 3 spokes.

There was the red wing.

There was the yellow wing.

And there was my wing, the blue wing.

I had 16 double rooms.

Which means I had 32 nursing home residents that I turned and cleaned and turned again and rounded on nightly.

We worked 4 nights on with 2 off.

My wing gave me the willies.

There was something about the shower room that I did not like.

I hated organizing the shower room so I did it when I first came on shift.

The residents were nice.

I like Amethyst.

She had a neuro degenerative disease that left her seriously disabled.

She was only in her late 50s but confined as a resident in the nursing home.

Her father was on the memory care wing.

They did NOT share a room.

She was the one that told me that the nursing home used to be a psych hospital.

And the blue wing was the lock down room.

And the shower room.

The one I hated.

Was the rubber room.

This was the 1990’s.

And she told me that this story was from the 1970’s.

When rubber room was a socially accepted word.

The rubber room means that it was where they put people to calm down.

She told me the shower room was the lockdown calm down room on the lockdown ward.

Creepy.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I had the realization that she was pulling my leg.

And that was mean.

But at the time the shower room gave me the willies.

And I avoided the room when I was alone.

Less a spooky story, more a creepy story.

Like all of the best horror movies.

There’s a reason the shower scene in Psycho was so effective.

And now I’ve creeped myself out some more.