May this year’s nurse’s week be happier.

And healthier.

To kick of nurse’s week, I stayed up WAY too late last night to finish the cookies for today.

And I took a PALS class and then worked.

I am on call right now, fingers crossed.

Tomorrow I will be vaccinating people from 0800-1200.

This is my first vaccine clinic after the slowdown of patients.

We will see how it goes.

But thank a nurse, will you.

I told my mom about the issues/troubles that were brought up to me last weekend.

You know, the ones that I was too good at call.

At least that is how I am perceiving it.

She said not to listen to them.

There is no shame at being good at your job.

However, she encouraged me to write the president of the hospital, who the MD referenced and ask for a meeting.

To explain how and why the current system we have in place for being called in works like it does.

And in order to satisfy MDs, we should keep it in place.

I have to think about this, and maybe run it past my boss.

She is a currently practicing RN of nearly 50 years experience.

She is my mentor.

More on her later.

Graduation is tomorrow.

And I will be watching the live stream from home.

Because they have the graduation locked up tight.

Tickets were supposed to be sent out this week, just before the event.

And they were sent out 10 days ago.

And the subject line read something about tickets.

And the email was from the event center, not the college.

So I deleted them.

I don’t need tickets to minor league baseball.

Which is what the event will be held at.

When I recognized my mistake, from another email from the college.

The trash function had deleted them.

Apparently I can only keep 1 week of deleted emails in the trash folder.

Who knew?

And then the emails cannibalize themselves.

So I have a plain cap and gown that I had set aside after graduation was cancelled last year.

Because a decorated cap is verboten.

And no tickets.

And my husband received his second covid vaccine on Thursday and he is not feeling his best.

If I had the tickets, there would be no one in the bleachers for me.

I will stay home, put my cap and gown on and watch the live stream from the comfort of my office chair.

My sister was going to go with us.

Maybe I can tempt her to lunch instead.

I will still throw my cap up.

I received my diploma already.

oops.

nearly forgot.

Thursday’s Cookie Thursday is a Thing cookie was lemon lime.

This was entirely my recipe.

I am so proud.

It was also lemony and limey and had rave reviews.

What?

I hardly ever eat the cookies.

This month was the brain wave that since these are donations to my department I should be writing off the supplies.

And today’s flash of the obvious was I should also be writing off my time baking.

Duh!

good thin I haven’t finished my taxes.

(shakes head sadly)

Yeah, I had a rough Sunday.

And a rough start to this week.

I was dreading the “talk” with my managers, about the stress I am putting on my coworkers by being too efficient at call and at work.

So much so that I promptly burst into tears when I was called in to the office on Wednesday.

Damn my over active tear ducts.

They wanted to talk to me about something completely unrelated.

Okay then.

But before that I decided that I, at 45 years old, and a working nurse of 20 years, needed a little comfort in my work bag.

It is not liquor.

I do not drink.

It is not drugs.

I do not do drugs either.

Instead.

I decided to add a little stuffed animal to my work bag.

A little stuffed hedgehog.

So, what?

It makes me smile.

And keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Apparently I am too good at call.

I am too efficient.

I get the cases moving expeditiously.

I come in, schedule the case, pick the case, get the patient, prep the patient, do the case, call the PACU, cleanup after the case.

Rinse, repeat, PRN.

And I intimidate people with my efficiency.

People don’t like to take call with me because I expect them to, you know, work.

At least that is the latest rumor going about.

I ask them to do too much.

So much extra.

Like, their job.

The one they get paid for.

What the actual fuck?

to be continued.

I am too upset right now.

Yes, Thursday was 2 days ago.

No, I haven’t added my Cookie Thursday is a Thing post for this week.

Citrus month is in full swing.

This week I made ricotta grapefruit cookies.

This was interesting.

Ricotta is such a neutral cheese.

By that I mean it can be savory or sweet.

Grapefruit is a citrus.

A strong tasting citrus.

I thought this would be more flavorful than it was.

The grapefruit flavor came through, but it was muted by the ricotta, I think.

I hate making frosting.

No reason, it’s just obnoxious to me when I make it.

This cookie needed a frosting topper.

Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and a lot of powdered sugar.

I ended up using 3 times the juice to even get a spreadable frosting.

And then I put the frosting in a bowel and placed it next to the cookies and let people decide how much frosting, if any, they wanted.

People seemed to like it.

An anesthesiologist was disappointed when he didn’t get a cookie.

But he didn’t check the drawer they live in.

So he didn’t get a cookie.

We had a late case and I had to call in the call PACU nurses.

One of them was unfamiliar to me and I introduced myself to her.

I had given report and was about to leave and I turned back and told her about Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

She said that she had the cookie this week and it was awesome.

She also said no one told her about the cookies. That she thought it was a joke.

Until she noticed, on Thursday, someone opening the cookie drawer.

And there were fresh baked cookies in there.

And now she checks the drawer before she leaves on Thursdays.

I told her that the cookies don’t get there before 1430, because that is the time I get to work.

And she asked, shocked, “The cookies are yours?”

This tickled me.

And I told both the PACU nurses that next week’s cookie was going to be a lemon-lime flavor.

Finishing citrus month like a boss.

I double booked myself.

I was signing up for vaccine clinic spots.

I’m kind of worried about the decreasing demands for vaccines.

But that’s a story for another time.

I was happily signing up for vaccine clinic slots.

I was checking my calendar.

I KNEW May 1st had something on it but I had not written it down.

So I signed up.

And then when I was in the middle of prepping a leg for surgery it hit me.

May 1st was graduation.

You know, from grad school.

Damn.

And I has already told the college I would be attending.

I had to cancel on the vaccine clinic slot.

Which I feel badly about.

But, graduation!

I hope I can remember where I put the gown.

I know where the cap is.

Tonight we had a spot of busy.

Within 20 minutes there were two add ons.

Surgeon A calls them in.

One critical who was in the ED, and one urgent who was in the office.

But the surgeon who called me was not going to be the surgeon of record as their call was ending in 19 minutes.

Okay, I said, send the urgent patient over and we’ll get her registered and we’ll send for the critical patient and have them ready to go within 50 minutes.

They ring off.

As I am coordinating this, the surgeon of record calls and tells me he has an appy.

Okay, I tell him, but what about these two other cases, one critical and one urgent.

He had no knowledge of the two cases that were already on the board from surgeon A.

Surgeon B says well, I will talk to the off going guy and get the information. But I want to do the appy first.

Okay. This is actually sound reasoning as it is the quickest of the three and the easiest to prep. I think the critical patient will take the longest to prep and can be done during the appy.

The line up now looks like appy, critical patient, urgent patient.

I am writing these up, posting them, calling the anesthesiologist and the CRNA, normal stuff.

I go and get the patient from the ED we have a chance of making the critical patient within the hour.

I get the appy to the pre-op drop them off.

I check in with the team in the room.

There is a resident who is assisting surgeon B. They inform me that critical case is cancelled as they are no longer critical.

Sigh of relief.

Now there is an appendix and an urgent case.

Cool.

I undo some of what I already did.

They finish the appy, I was making sure that the new nurse in the appy does not feel abandoned and I was backing them up from the core, trying not to do the entire case for them.

Appy is done.

Urgent case shows up and is done.

Dropping the urgent case in the PACU, surgeon B comes in looking sheepish.

I squint at him suspiciously.

There is a second appy.

I look at the PACU nurses, both of whom have their own patients to recover and discharge.

I know there is no reason for me not to prep them, rather than wait for the PACU nurses to recovery and discharge.

I tell the anesthesia team and go off to the ED to pick up appy #2.

I prep appy #2.

I text and call the tech with no response.

The CRNA comes in and tells me the room that we are going to be doing the appy in is still dirty.

I excuse myself from the patient and go to find the tech, who was finishing up his lunch.

The tech is dumbfounded as both surgeon B and the anesthesiologist have walked past him.

And said NOTHING.

sigh.

Nothing like being welcomed back.

Yay!

Back to work.

People seem disappointed when I express glee at being back to work.

They ask me about my vacation.

I read.

A lot.

Many books.

I played computer.

A lot.

In the current ‘season’ of the game I play I leveled my new character through four chapters in the game.

This means I went through 30+ levels that got progressively harder.

No I didn’t go anywhere.

My husband is between vaccinations, with 10 days until his second one.

So, no I didn’t go anywhere.

I didn’t do half of what I planned.

Oh, well.

This week I will work on trying to finish what I started.

You know, in between call and work and the vaccine administration clinic I am volunteering for.

Not sure what I will pledge to do.

I’ll pick something.