FFS Friday- FDA, blink twice if you are in trouble

Actually, don’t bother blinking.

We in healthcare KNOW that you are in trouble. As you have a bad case of the know nothings in charge of you and your vaccines and your medications.

Some of the Senators could have helped you out but they were too busy bending the knee to a wannabe fascist who is hell bent on wringing all the money they can out of their shitty decisions and actions.

You see, they are in their villain phase.

Where the only thing that matters is the green.

Of course, I write of money, moola, dough, loot, and bucks.

They are too busy stealing from us that they think that making us sick by not extending Affordable Care Act credits for those who need help with the astronomically skyrocketing costs of insurance, shields what they are doing by providing cover fire.

Forget bread and circuses, this administration is about social media lies and villainy.

Why? Because to be the lowest level they can be feels GOOD. To them at least. I would have sent myself to bed without dinner if I acted like they do. Lives are not their playthings. Did no one teach them manners as children? Or even ever told them no?

Today’s latest bullshit is a waving of a “possible” black box warning on the covid vaccine.

Yeah, that one.

The one that has saved millions and millions and millions of lives.

Worldwide.

This black box warning will be slapped on the life saving, lung saving, world saving vaccine by the end of the year, according to reports from CNBC and Reuters and CNN and other news sites.

I think this is a distraction. Of course all the news is covering it.

Of course all the healthcare workers, MDs, RNs, LPNs, CNAs, PAs, and the like are decrying it.

If true, this is big black coal letters the size of Mt. Everest BAD.

This kind of bullshit pulls the wool over the eyes of the people who don’t know any better.

And makes them doubt ALL the vaccines.

Makes them doubt healthcare.

Makes them doubt medicine.

Takes us back to when we were smashing rocks against other rocks and against each other.

I am not sure of their endgame, besides confusion, and lining their own pockets and those of their billionaire handlers.

Or are they spoiled brats who are gleefully pulling the stuffing out of America?

After all, weakening us makes us prey.

Well, I don’t feel like acting like prey. Wanna see my teeth?

We tried to warn you but you didn’t listen.

Cookie Thursday 12/11/25- Triple mint chip cookies

So my oven must’ve heard us talking about replacing it. Because this was the worst performance by my oven in the nearly 12 years I’ve done Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

Each batch as they came out of the oven, was a bit different. Even with the same parameters of temperature, dough, and time.

The first batch was too done and so has not been included in the hospital’s box.

The next batch was crispy on the edges but the centers were cooked but not brown.

The next batch was perfect.

The last batch was back to crispy on the edges and the centers cooked but not brown.

I think my oven is trying to tell me something.

Three of the five burners do not work.

The top oven bleeds heat.

The bottom oven is rarely used an still functional.

I am saddened because this is the best stove I’ve ever had.

I get it, its tired. There have been thousands of cookies and hundreds of meals over its 20 year life.

It is time.

This is the last Cookie Thursday is a Thing that it will ever have to do.

I used the three half bags of mint in this week’s cookies.

Bailey’s Irish cream chips, Andes Mints chips, and peppermint bark chips.

They taste very good. Minty and crispy and chewy.

All at the same time.

Call secrets of the OR- Advocacy

The gown card that sparked this post is “you are the patient’s advocate. Yes, even in the middle of the night.”

Oooh, return of the gown card.

I wrote myself this gown card in the middle of a difficult middle of the night case.

The surgeon had been pushing to get the patient on the table, had been pushing to go home, had been pushing to start the next case.

It doesn’t matter why they were pushing, just that they were pushing you as the circulator to do something you weren’t okay with.

It is important to listen to your gut.

After all the patient can’t speak for themselves.

The family can’t speak for themselves or the patient.

It is up to you to speak for the patient.

Yes, even in the middle of the night when the surgeon is huffing and puffing and threatening.

Be like the Little Pig in the Brick House of Three Little Pig fame and stand firm.

You know what can and cannot be done. You know all the steps to make a surgery safe for the patient.

Know that you know and speak up for them.

They would do it for you, if they knew.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/9/25- Empty stools in empty lab rooms

With apologies to Claude-Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer, and Cameron Mackintosh and the original singers of this adapted song.

I speak of course of Les Misérables.

All of the albums, the 1985 cast album, The 10th anniversary Dreamcast, and the 2012 movie soundtrack, have been on near repeat in my head and in my speakers since the first No Kings protests. I’ve written about it before but something about the failed revolution speaks to me in these WTF times.

My favorite song has always been Empty Chairs at Empty Tables when the survivor of the barricade, Marius, sings to the phantoms of his friends. It is hard to be a survivor of atrocities. I imagine it is harder yet to be among the survivors desperately trying to salvage what they can at the CDC. Because of the grant pulling and the firings and the August 20, 2025 attack on the CDC itself where a police officer died.

I was driving home from baking Christmas cookies with my mom when I started humming this song. I started changing the lyrics right then. I tried to stay true to the original cadence of the song and I changed some words.

Empty Stools in Empty Lab Rooms
There’s a rage that can’t be spoken
There’s a fear goes on and on
Empty stools in empty lab rooms
Now my friends are fired and gone

Here they talked of exploration
Of possibilities
Here they talked about diagnoses
And the diagnoses never came

From the laboratory in the hallway
They could see a germ defeated
And they rose crying Eureka
And I can see them now
The very science that they had worked
In the lonely lab at dawn

Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me
That I work and you are gone
There’s a rage that can’t be spoken
There’s a fear that goes on and on

The lonely faces on the screen
Phantom shadows on the Zoom
Empty stools in empty lab rooms
Where my friends will work no more

Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me
That I work and you are gone
There’s a rage that can’t be spoken
There’s a fear that goes on and on

What scientific advances won’t be made? What cancers will grow out of control because there is no one to stop them?

How people have to die because this is happening?

FFS Friday 12/5/25- Fox in the henhouse

Could you hear me screaming at the radio on the way to pick up my friend from the airport when I heard the vaccine shenanigans.

I write, of course, of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) who voted today to recommend NOT giving newborn babies a hepatitis B vaccine. Routine hep B immunization for newborns has been on the vaccination schedule for THIRTY years.

Instead they recommend that only babies born to women who test positive for hep B get the vaccination. But what about the women who are so newly infected with hep B that it doesn’t show up on a blood test, a la HIV. What about their babies?

This is not the final vote, this is just a recommendation.

This recommended change was strongly objected to by the actual medical experts in the room, many of whom were not allowed to speak or give evidence. The medical community points out that this 30 year recommendation has VASTLY decreased hep B rates in children. Hepatitis B can lead to chronic liver problems, liver cancer, and even premature death.

The council sounded very paternalistic when saying that parents need to carefully consider whether to vaccinate their newly born child. To me this puts the blame on whatever happens to the infant squarely on the parents. And the verbal poison the parents are being exposed to on social media via “mommy groups”.

How did we get here?

Oh, so many reasons. MAHA, the influencers who want to see the world burn, those who want to control women and babies.

It is a tale as old as time. Control the babies, control the women. But at the black heart of it is control the women because, they, as CIS men, know best. But the 6 men and women on the committee that voted for this monstrosity of a recommendation will be dead when the first babies, who will be born shortly, starts showing the liver damage.

There was a paper written on the “Economic evaluation of delaying the infant hepatitis B vaccination schedule”. The paper was written by Eric W. Hall, Prabhu Gounder, Heather Bradly, and Noele P. Nelson and published in medRxiv on November 25, 2025. Citation at the end of the post.

Each of the delayed vaccination scenarios were modeled on a Markov model to simulate lifetime health outcomes for babies who have the vaccine, those who have a delayed vaccine, and those who have no vaccine, among others. The costs of the attendant liver problems skyrocketed, as did the infections and possible/probably early death.

The conclusion of this paper is that even brief delays in hep B vaccine initiation exacts a wide cost to the person (baby) being vaccinated. The cost cited is hep B infections, chronic liver problems, including cirrhosis, and cancer, decrease in life years (meaning the possibility of early death), and the list goes on. This points a number to what will happen if the hep B vaccination schedule is disrupted.

I found this brief paper very stark and it tells a devastating tale of possible disease and possible death for babies that aren’t vaccinated at birth.

My personal feelings on this are the same as when RFK Jr. came in and cleaned house. This means he fired all the responsible medical type people who were previously on ACIP. It is like when you let the fox in the henhouse and they fire all the roosters who protect the hens and the fox hires other foxes to protect the hens, why are we surprised when the hens all end up dead?

This will end badly and all the culprits will be dead by the time the damage is assessed.

Hall, E. W., Gounder, P., Bradley, H., Nelson, N. P., Hall, E. W., Gounder, P., Bradley, H., & Nelson, N. P. (2025). Economic evaluation of delaying the infant hepatitis B vaccination schedule. bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.24.25340907

Cookie Thursday 12/4/25- It’s beginning to look a lot like Chex-mas!

I think the Chex that I make is more popular than the Jalapeño Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I wonder if the fact that I only make it during December adds to its popularity.

I mean, if I made it monthly I think people would get tired of it.

As the department knows that I make cookies on Thursdays and Chex mix only in December some start asking for it in October.

When I was at the hospital on Tuesday for a half shift I erased the board in the lounge and added 12/4/25 CHEX MIX to it. To hype it up a little.

And it delivered.

Three people asked me when I was there for the nursing awards this morning about it.

Another stopped me and asked for the recipe.

Yay.

I use a turkey roasting pan

1 box each of the Family sized corn Chex and rice Chex
1-2 cups mixed nuts (I don’t like brazil nuts so I don’t get that one)
a decent amount of gluten free pretzels, I eyeball this
2 and half sticks of butter
new this year, 1/2 c oil (I wanted to see what this would do. Thumbs up)
Worcestershire sauce 4 good shakes

But the secret sauce is the spice mix.

2 tbs garlic powder
2 tbs onion powder
2 TSP seasoning salt
2 tbs Worcestershire powder (yes this exists and can be used in other things)

Melt the butter in a small pan. While it is melting, put all the dry ingredients into the turkey roasting pan and mix well. After the butter is melted, add the oil. I add the dry powders first and stir well. Once it is incorporated I add the Worcestershire sauce to the mix. Yes, 2 kinds of Worcestershire.

I use less seasoning salt because, well, salt. But the rest you can go ham on and add as much or as little as you want.

Pour the butter/spice mixture over the cereal etc. and stir well to combine.

I stir carefully because the cereal etc. completely fill my roasting pan.

Bake at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring every 20 minutes, for 2 hours.

Let cool. If you taste test before cool the cereal will be bendy and not taste done. Once cool, the cereal will be crisp.

I used to take it in the roasting pan to the hospital but now I use the giant Tupperware covered bowl that I have. Because I would rather replace the Tupperware than the roasting pan if it happens to walk off.

This is the most vibes centered recipe that I make. If you want more pretzels, add more. If you want less nuts, add less. But the double down on the spice mixture stays.

Call Secrets of the OR- FOUR years I’ve been doing this gig

It was the beginning of December in 2021 when I started the night call nurse position.

Let me back up. In the spring of that year my manager pulled me aside. She knew that I picked up the vast majority of the call and she wanted to warn me that the corporation was doing a pilot call team position at a sister hospital. If the call team was successful, the idea would roll out to all the hospitals in the market and then the corporation. If that happened, all my call hours would go away. The pilot was successful and they were going to roll it out to the market hospitals.

When the position opened I took a deep breath and applied.

There were various reasons for this. It was mid pandemic and the dark scary 2020 was over and people were surviving and the schedule was open to all surgeries again. Vaccinations were in full swing in the population. It felt like time to breathe.

More than that, it felt like time to step back from being so involved in the hospital.

I could have stepped away from call and only done my 1430-2300 Monday-Friday shifts. Without every night and all weekend call I would gain 88 hours back. 40 of night call hours, and 48 of all weekend call.

That would have been good. I would get my nights and weekends back.

But the call that I enjoy so much would have been wildly reduced.

Call is my favorite. Have I mentioned that?

I had been working so hard for so long that I felt that I needed to step away from my workaholic tendencies.

I interviewed and received an offer. After a counter offer to keep the ability to maintain my clinical ladder, I accepted.

My new journey as the night call nurse would commence in 30 days.

It was time and this was a good stopping point.

I had been the evening charge nurse for 10 years.

I had been leading shared governance in most of its levels for 6 years. I had been on four hospital committees with their attendant meetings which was about 2 hours per week. I stepped back to 1 committee and from the corporate shared governance levels.

It was time for this workaholic to try to remember who she was without the hospital.

I have maintained the Cookie Thursday is a Thing and I am proud that there hasn’t been any store bought cookies for 3 years. Its popularity is waning and I have to consider what that is going to mean for the future CTIAT. But more on that in the new year.

Carving out a 50 hour workweek out of 128+ hours I had been scheduled was going to take some time to get used to.

But first a nap.

And then maybe I will look around and see what I can do with my new free time.

Since this all happened in the past I can tell you that I spent the next six months applying to a PhD program and I’ve been doing that for the past three years. But that is a story for School Me Saturday.

Being a recovering workaholic is hard. Especially one who jumped straight into another long term commitment.

I assure you that this is slowing down for me.

I regularly tell other operating room nurses that I encounter at conventions or online that I have the coolest job in the world.

And I still feel that way.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/2/25- Kant have it both ways

Forgive the pun.

Immanuel Kant is a central figure in modern philosophy. One of the key tenets of his writings is the pursuit of enlightenment. Enlightenment is defined by him in his 1784 essay What is Enlightenment as the “Thinking for oneself rather than letting others think for you.” He was for individual human reason above all else.

He doesn’t really have a lot to do with this post. I just thought it was interesting.

Yeah, right.

It is interesting and a lesson that more of us need to take to heart.

Don’t let others think for you. You never know what kind of trouble that will lead you to.

For those who are not following the train wreck around the sinking of a “drug boat” off the coast of Venezuela on September 2, 2025, there are lies aplenty.

And an illegal order. That someone who should’ve known better followed.

There were survivors from the first attack on the “drug boat” and a second strike was ordered by the secretary of “war” and these survivors were killed.

This is against the Law of War Manual from our very own Department of Defense.

In Chapter 7, which is titled Wounded, Sick, Shipwrecked, Dead, and the Medical Services, what should have happened is that the survivors should have been taken into custody. This could have been done by our own military or a relief society, or the inhabitants.

But it wasn’t was it?

What’s the matter? Kant keep the lies straight.

Okay, I’ll stop.

What’s the matter? Can’t keep the lies straight anymore? Letting someone else do your thinking?

There are two stories that the secretoy of war bandied about. That the secretoy of war gave the order for the second strike.

Oh, wait, there was no second strike.

Okay there was a second strike but it was in self defense of the US. (hard to square this one)

Okay there was a second strike but it happened when the secretary was out of the room. And it was the admiral (who the secretary has complete faith in) ordered the strike.

Well.

Which is it?

Or do you not remember/care? Those who serve under the secretary of war will remember this kerfluffle. And the lies. And the admiral that was scapegoated for it.

That’s what happens when you can’t keep track of your lies. Lies are never a good foundation of truth. Americans deserve the truth. As do the families of the survivors you had killed.

By the way, the secretoy typos 8 sections ago? Was no typo. Deliberate typos, deliberate philosophy puns.

Because I think for myself.

School Me Saturday 11/29/25- The realized cost of college is not what it used to be

The latest October 2025 NBC News poll about the value of a college degree, nearly 2/3 of registered voters say that a four-year college degree is not worth the cost of attending college. That means that 33% of those polled thinks that a four-year degree is worth the cost.

In June 2013, the spread was much different. Then 53% of those polled said that a 4-year degree was worth the cost and 40% thought that college wasn’t worth the cost.

I have two thoughts about this.

TWELVE YEARS is all it took to destroy the idea of furthering your education. This was not done in a vacuum and certain people have been working toward this for a very, very, very, very, very long time. All the way back in the 1860s when the department of education was first created by President Andrew Johnson. And people railed about it enough then that the department was decreased to the office of education. (I think this is a genesis point of people realizing that LOUD makes right).
This is a problem of the education purveyor’s own making, in part. College has skyrocketed each year for as long as I’ve been a college student.

My final thought is that y’all are playing right into their hands.

They want Americans dumb. A less educated populace asks fewer questions that they don’t want to answer.

They want Americans without education to realize hey, this isn’t right.

They want Americans without education to realize that there is no way to rise above their station so they should just give up and become a corporate drone.

The questions you should be asking yourself are who is pushing the dumbening of America?Which corporations and billionaires stand to profit from keeping us dumb?

It also isn’t too late to ask yourself “how do we stop it?” Nearly but no.

As always follow the money.

And then read a history book and get ready to fight.

My final thought is to caution wariness about the make up of the poll. Who was their sample? How did they know their sample would be representative of the population? Who is asking these question? What is their angle?

Lastly, who is paying for the poll/study? And how do they profit from it?

FFS Friday 11/28/25- Feckless administration denies human trafficking concern for made up BS reason

Feckless is a fabulous word. It means incompetent.

In yet another broadside to others that the administration does not wish to recognize, on November 15th the “administration” removed a vital report on missing and/or dead Native Americans. This was a mandated report from the department of justice’s website.

This was a report that was mandated in 2020 by the Not Invisible Act.

They disappeared the report in FEBRUARY. After the debacle of the executive order declaring there are only 2 sexes. This was the DOJ’s way of complying with the order.

With a dash of also complying with the anti DEI executive order.

According to the Missing American Indian and Alaskan Native Persons Data 2024, there were ten thousand, two hundred forty eight entries of missing American Indians or Alaska Natives in 2024 into the data base. Of that 10,248, 233 cases are still active as of April 25, 2025. This data is pulled from the FBI Documents.

The vast majority of them are under 18. 7077 under 18, both female (4,179) and male (2,898) to 3,151 over 18. That is the only way the report marks age; over 18 and under 18.

Obviously human trafficking is a concern.

As well as violence.

The missing American Indian and Alaska Native persons has been simmer for a long time. Which is why the report was mandated in 2020. Finally.

Our media is more concerned with the white kids, you see. Especially if the perpetrator is not white.

More sensational.

More eyeballs means more money for the media company. We truly live in an attention economy.

More missing and exploited American Indians and Alaska Natives doesn’t have any juice, you see.

More missing kids that aren’t white or male, the government shrugs. The families are left to wonder why their loved one is gone. The families are left to wonder who took them. The families are left to wonder where their loved one is.

This is agony for them. And the government shrugs and obscures the report for BS made up reasons.

So many executive orders, each one a slap in the face of a woman or a minority or, to put plainly, anyone who isn’t a straight white man.

Reminder, an executive order is a wish.

A wish to put women firmly back in their place.

A wish to roll back the years of hard won progress.

Not a law.