25-of course babies are being thrown away in TX

SIX babies have been found abandoned in dumpsters in this last year in Houston, TX, alone. According to reporting by Fox News 26 in Houston, this is a 500 increase since 2022. In that year ONE baby was abandoned.

What else happened in 2022? The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, dooming more than half of their constituents to fear and the possibility of death if pregnancy doesn’t go 100% right.

This sounds like the natural consequences to their actions. To be clear, the government and the legislature are not the ones facing the consequences or death.

The worst part of this story is that 2 of the babies were found dead.

The other worst part of this story is that it is not just Houston.

The other other worst part of this story is that sometimes it is a ditch.

Reminder, Texas has one of the strictest abortion laws in the US.

And they are surprised? No, of course not, this is just expected fallout of their control issues. Acceptable casualties such as these have probably already been calculated and their concern level has not been breached.

There is another way. There are safe haven laws on the books in Texas. It just comes with an eensy, teensy catch. The mothers (it is always the only the mothers, have you noticed?) might not even know about them as the powers that be in TX certainly don’t advertise the laws. To do so would burst their happy little bubble that this is fine, everything’s on fire, but it is fine.

Dead women if you do (abysmal women’s maternal mortality rate, worst in the nation according to the state rankings), dead infants if you don’t (allow abortion rights, fund women’s healthcare, give a damn about your constituents, allow ).

And the women who have the money and the support to go out of state to seek their very much needed healthcare? Texas and Indiana and possibly Idaho would very much like to know where women go when they flee the state for needed healthcare.

A law called HIPAA prevents them. But that doesn’t stop them from trying. From battering down the walls that are protecting women from creeps like them.

Are you paying attention yet?

Or are you pleased this is happening and the dead children and dead women are acceptable losses?

Post-it Sunday 1/5/24- You get more flies with honey than vinegar

The post-it reads “Killing the coworkers with carbs/kindness.”

This made me laugh when I re-read it.

This is another Cookie Thursday is a Thing story.

I did not start the behemoth that is Cookie Thursday is a Thing to kill my coworkers. We started it because a coworker had told us in the lounge that they’d never had a homemade cookie. Many pearls were clutched as we all inhaled in indignation.

However, not everyone is privileged enough to have someone who can bake or money to buy ingredients. This is a fact that was not lost on us. However, righting this wrong absolutely could happen. And did, every week for 10 years.

I had this brand new pretty kitchen that I was itching to use. Why not make homemade cookies, weekly for 10 years.

The new kitchen was put in during the entire year of 2014 and the countertops, which were back ordered for a month were installed in November. But that is a story all on its own.

I am not sure that my coworkers know the hows of CTIAT, yes that is the acronym I use. It has to fit in with all the other acronyms in the OR and there are many.

The entire thing is done on my and my husband’s dime. We earn the money to buy the ingredients that I use. We earn the money to buy the utilities that I use. That’s it.

Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. I have had a couple of pinch hitters when I was away or sick. I also have received $55 and a bag of flour over the course of those 10 years.

My sister would ask why I don’t charge a fee. She made me charge a drive-the-detachment fee for gas when I was in university and the only person in the detachment with access to a big enough car. We had to go between 2 universities for Air Force training. Funnily enough, they stopped asking me for rides when she did that. And the relationships cooled mightily.

I don’t want to charge a fee for people to eat the CTIAT cookies. It is not in the spirit of the thing. I have seen surgeons ask for repeats of certain cookies. I have also had people ask for specific cookies for their birthdays or last days. I happily made them all.

Kindness begets kindness, no matter how or why or who.

Being self-funded makes me feel better about experimenting on my coworkers with new cookies. I have had some real success. And a couple of duds. If I asked for money, I fear that I would lose some of the control. I set the schedule and decide on the monthly themes.

Imagine what it would be like if that had to happen by committee?

School Me Saturday 1/4/2025- The to do list is yesterday’s productivity hack

I was tooling around on the internet like you do when a post caught my eye.

It claimed that the to-do list was dead. I love a good to-do list. Nothing more satisfying than making a list and crossing things off.

Yeah, I can see it. Especially for today’s young adults and teenagers. Heck, even the older adults.

It introduced the concept of a bingo card instead of a to-do list. The idea is that you populate the card with what needs to be done and you cross the squares off as you do them.

Genius.

That can be an exciting adjunct to a student’s portfolio of items to encourage productivity.

I used Canva to make the Spring semester 2025 bingo card and it was easy and free. Both of these things are important to a student’s life. I would make a bingo card for each class, filling in the squares with the details of the class. This includes reading, tests, quizzes, and papers.

The beauty of this is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Each row can be a type of thing for the class, or it can be staggered.

In the bingo card that I mocked up as an example, I staggered all 14 weeks of reading, added the 3 tests, the quiz, and the midterm and final. I left a line to be filled in for exact dates.

I also added a second free square, just because.

My personal Spring Semester 2025 bingo card looks a bit different as I have finished with classes and now all I have left are tasks. I have already mapped out my spring semester, including all the tasks that need to be done for the dissertation.

As with many things, I wish I or someone else had thought of this when I was actively in classes.

Because this could be a game-changer. Gamification is exciting.

I am going for a blackout on my bingo card.

FFS Friday 1/3/24- Un-Fancy

Life in the hospital continues to be a struggle with the increase of covid patients and the increase of flu patients and the increase of RSV patients and, unsurprisingly, the increase of whooping cough patients.

The holidays, the gift that keeps on giving to the hospital.

Also a gift/burden to the hospitals? The anti-vaccination movement. That someone made up because it made them feel powerful and popular and the political right seized upon the idea and started preaching anti-vaccination propaganda to their followers. The man who would be president in 17 days said it best in 2016, “I love the poorly educated.” And that was before the 2016 election.

If you are going to be on the side of anti-vaccination that does increase the supply of sick patients in the hospitals. If they can afford it. Otherwise, they are out there spewing germs and viruses everywhere. Because no one can afford to call off sick.

It can go back further all the way to Christopher Marlow and his 1604 work Doctor Faustus. This is where the man sells his soul for pleasure and knowledge. Being excessively educated leads to his eternal damnation. So the war on education started back when books were horribly expensive because the printing press had only been invented less than 150 years before. And printing presses were banned by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire upon pain of death.

Wow.

This post took a marked turn. From the trials of the hospital during the holidays to anti-vaxxers, to the war on education, to keeping people stupid is the point. This post was a wild ride.

I write this so often, this was not the post I wanted to write. But I do free write a lot.

I wanted to write about how un-fancy the hospital culture is during the holidays when it feels like it is every healthcare worker for themselves. We are surrounded by glitz and glamour of the holidays, and hospital-based providers are holding the burlap sack, begging for some more.

To bring it back to the Friday theme of FFS, this has definitely been an un-fancy post.

I just don’t have the energy to make it fancy.

Cookie Thursday 1/2/25- CTIAT Turns TEN!

When Cookie Thursday is a Thing began in our operating room in 2015, I was not the only baker. There were a group of us, committed to making and bringing in cookies on Thursdays.

One by one the others dropped out.

Along the way there were a lot of discussions on what to name the cookie day.

A couple of people wanted simplicity and said Cookie Thursday.

This didn’t feel complete enough to me. Thursdays happen every week.

In those days Thursdays were the heaviest day of the week. Both case wise and difficult case wise. There was a lot of heavy ortho on Thursdays. By that I mean total joint replacements galore. And the hospital had just gotten its first robot with its steep learning curve.

No, the name had to be distinct and special.

The evening tech and I were discussing in the hallway, just outside of the lounge. They were one of the ones that wanted Cookie Thursday. I interrupted them and said emphatically, “No, because cookie Thursdays are a thing.”

And the name was created.

The word thing is deliberate.

A thing can be many, well, things.

It can be making coworkers feel special by having specific treats in the afternoons when it is so often day shift that is celebrated.

It can be making coworkers feel seen by making what they suggest. This was in the early days, when the themed days hadn’t been settled on.

It can be sharing the load. Yeah, this one didn’t last.

For me, it can be a way of marking the days.

It can be an acknowledgement that yeah, Thursdays are bad but at least there are cookies.

In fact, that was also almost the name- It’s Thursday but at least there are cookies.

I think that one is too long. It can be shortened to At Least There are Cookies but that didn’t acknowledge that Thursdays were the bear of the week and we just had to get through Thursdays to get to Friday.

The cookies were meant to be special because it was Thursday and special for the evening shift because the hospital did not go out of its way to make evening shift feel special and special for the morale boost that having home made cookies can give a department.

This 10th anniversary month I will be making favorites. I asked a bunch of people to choose their least favorite out of a list of 6. There are 5 Thursdays in January 2025.

Stay tuned to find out the top five cookies.

I am starting with an easy one because yesterday was hard. Out of the 12 hours I was on call yesterday (0700-1900) we worked 12.

We did 2 lap choles, 2 hip fractures, an open belly, and a D&C. I kind of felt like I was in my 12 Days of the OR Christmas song.

The cookie of the week is the crust cookie.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/31/24- criminalizing miscarriages

I am sure I have written about this before. When it happened in South Carolina, when it happened in Ohio. In fact, there have been at least 7 states that have prosecuted women for failing to seek medical care. Well, what they considered prompt medical care.

But what is happening in South Carolina is another swing at the apple of declaring that life begins at conception. Whatever your creed or not creed when life begins has very different answers. According to Genesis 2, life begins at first breath.

Reminder, the bible is not necessarily truth. It is a truth that was written by men. And I use the term truth loosely. It has been translated many, many, many times and we all know what happens when you play telephone.

By declaring that life begins at conception this opens the door to naming miscarriages and abortion as murder. Since South Carolina is a death penalty state, this potentially means the death penalty for women who suffer a miscarriage. That’s 25% of all pregnancies, straight off the top. This leads me to wonder “Can they math?”

And here, I thought they were concerned with the declining birthrate and, by extension, the declining population numbers that do not match what is required to take care of the elders.

The thing is, South Carolina tried this before in March of 2023. In a bill that went nowhere. In fact, the reason it went nowhere is that several republicans pulled their support of the bill. Perhaps when it started getting a lot of publicity.

I am sure that some of this stems from a genuine concern for the unborn by a small amount of people. But not most of it. The rest are concerned with the federal money. Missouri told us that.

At heart, and I have definitely written this before, it is about controlling women.

Full stop.

But I don’t think it sends the message they want to send.

If a woman fears the death penalty for getting pregnant, she can take birth control. And not get pregnant.

Do you see where this is a foolish idea?

Good job scaring a lot of women, South Carolina. I hope you DON’T get what you are after.

Don’t worry, criminalizing birth control is next on their pretend outrage docket.

After they finish dumping crappy bills into December when no one is paying attention.

School Me Saturday 12/28/24-it’s your break, enjoy it

The week between Christmas and New Year’s has been known by many names. The between times, twixmas, and the dead week to name a few. Last year I called it the liminal time.

Adult students and children know it as Christmas break. This refers to the two weeks off at the end of the year. Most adult students have it a little better and have a longer break. My university doesn’t start back until January 15th. Other colleges and trade schools and community colleges may have differing times off.

The point is that this is the time we’ve earned through our hard work in classes and, for most of us, on the job. It is our break and what we do on this break time is up to us. It is the time that we get to decompress our brains for the next class and the next semester. Or the Big Write, in my case.

See all the movies that you want.

See all the television that you want.

Become one with the couch if you want to.

Eat all the leftovers from the family gatherings last week.

It is all okay.

Some will be planning the next semester or even their resolutions for the next year. Let them. That doesn’t mean that you need to be productive at this time.

This is your permission slip to do whatever you want, within reason, during this break.

Just be ready to hit the ground or the keyboard running in the new semester.

But, for now, let your mind breathe.

FFS Friday 12/27/24- Fake it

The word of this FFS Friday is Fake.

Well, the phrase that sparked the idea for this post was Fake it.

Double well, the Facebook memory post that prompted me to spark the idea for this post was, in its entirety, “You’ve got to know certain truths about yourself. One of mine is doesn’t play well with others but fakes it real good.” That’s it, end of inspiration.

And truer words were never typed.

I am an introvert.

I love my own company.

I love quiet.

I love solitude.

I love my books.

I love writing.

I love learning.

I love baking.

I love my husband.

I love my family.

I love my work.

I love movies, even the ones where they beat up on the poor, unsuspecting town. Although, I will complain about that.

I love my remaining cat.

The rest I tolerate.

The rest, I mostly fake it.

I think that most people are faking it, to some extent. We need to normalize that.

Believe me, not every surgeon is the best surgeon I have ever, ever, ever, in my long career as a nurse seen or worked with but I can fake admiration, at least a little.

A good OR nurse is a mediocre surgeon’s guardrails.

And if I have to smile and laugh at their jokes, or pretend to care about their sports team, I will do it.

The truth is that familiarity leads to less faked responses.

I have genuine conversations with other geeky types. And, let me tell you, most surgeons are a little geeky. Fake it until you make it, indeed.

This post can also double as a Best Kept Secret of the OR.

Cookie Thursday 12/26/24-candied? cranberries

Cookie Thursday is a Thing is taking the day off from delivery to the department. Because Christmas was yesterday and CTIAT is tired. Not to mention I am sure that the entire department overindulged and there will be leftover treats available on the lounge tables.

But I am not idle.

Today is my sister’s birthday and I have been making her birthday cake for YEARS.

She always asks for the same thing- a Tres Leches cake. The cake is more of a sponge that three milks are poured over and smothered with whipped cream. That is already chilling in the fridge.

However, what I wanted to write about and experiment with is the viral candied cranberries that are everywhere! A bag of cranberries is soaked in a liquid for 2-24 hours (or more if you just didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it yesterday), dried, coated in powdered sugar, and baked at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought ooh, an experiment.

I used Prosecco because that was the first recipe I saw but you can also soak the cranberries in Sprite or orange juice. Or you can go the Inception route and use cranberry juice like I just now thought of as I was typing. That would be funny.

I used Prosecco, which is another reason not to bring these to the hospital, because let me tell you, the resulting powdered sugar-coated cranberries pack a wallop. I can definitely taste the alcohol and I don’t think this would go over well at work. Would they be popular? Yes. Would people have to go back to work BuZzEd? Also yes. And I don’t want to contribute to that.

The department is just going to have to be satisfied with their own leftovers.

Next Thursday is a new month!

Cookie Thursday is a Thing turns TEN and I have exciting plans to celebrate.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/24/24- no time

Today is Christmas Eve and the only thing on my mind is prepping for the evening meal.

In our family, we traditionally have cheese soup and dough babies. These are pieces of dough that are stretched and fried and used as a spoon or a dipping device.

So no time to write.