24- anti public mask law proposed in NC

Um.

Are they trying to kill people?

Or is this a desperate cry to their base and the millions of people who HATED to wear a mask in the worst public health emergency in 100 years?

Masks save lives.

Full stop. End of story. Masking to save lives was true in the Middle Ages and the Black Death. It was true in 1918 during the Spanish Flu Epidemic and it is true today.

But, but what about the masked fiends who are protesting? Or who are breaking laws? What about them?

Increasing penalties for committing a crime while wearing a mask I can kind of understand.

But protesting is not breaking the law.

And neither is going out masked because someone is medically vulnerable.

This bill would make it illegal to wear a mask out if the wearer were medically fragile.

Consigning them to house arrest.

That is not a good look for the NC legislature but they don’t care. Doctors and other health professionals (hello, I’m right here) have spoken out against this proposed legislation.

Make no mistake, this is mostly about the protesters who wear masks.

And control. It is ALWAYS about control.

But what about the white supremacists who are trying to hide their identity.

What about them?

Post-it Sunday 5/19/24- Easily amused

The gown card reads “I need a tee shirt that says Easily Amused.”

Yes, please. I would like that tee shirt.

I have lots of tee shirts. Because I find them amusing. They run the gamut of “save the bees…or else” to “Be Prepared.” This last is a Lion King reference with Scar on the front of the shirt, surrounded by green wafts of smoke.

I have pandemic tee shirts. I have vaccination tee shirts, I have two “Practice Safe Science” tee shirts.

Recently I bought a bunch of Star Wars tee shirts. What? They were on mega sale because of May 4th.

Most recently I bought several so-called women’s issues tee shirts. I have a “Roe, Roe, Roe, Your Vote” one, and a “They Won’t Stop at Roe” one. The ones that kicked off the protest tee shirts were an Alan Turing one I bought in 2020 and two different Ally tee shirts that I bought to volunteer last May for Pride. My current favorite is one that proclaims “He Who Hath Not a Uterus Should Fucketh the Hell Up”, attributed to Fallopians 19:73. I have 2 of that one, one a tee shirt and one a tank top.

The newest one is one with a rooster on it that says “Regulate Your Cock”.

I’m going to wear these for Tuesday Top of Mind posts. Or maybe, all week long. Until the November election.

To get me in the correct mind space.

So much about life in these United States these days is not amusing.

Far from it.

From the culture wars around LGBTQ+ and the rot of women’s reproductive health, and the book bans. These issues are ALL helped along with jerry-rigging of the states by the Republicans to ensure that they and they alone control the state houses and the governorships. All the while making it harder for people who are citizens to actually get out and vote.

So, yes, I will take several of those “Easily Amused” tee shirts. My sense of humor needs all the help it can get.

If you want to know how I am feeling, just read my shirt.

Or my head. My mowing hat says “Fuck These Laws” with reproductive health pins all over it.

But mostly read my shirt.

School Me Saturday 5/18/24- Brown v Board of Education

No, this is not an Alice in Wonderland School Me Saturday.

This is to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the landmark education case that was the Brown v Board of Education. This was to end the forced “racial” segregation of the black students and the white students.

This has been hailed as the start of school desegregation. And is known as a very good thing (literary reference).

Now, some people definitely thought this was a bad thing. They rioted and threw several fits over the very idea that the schools be desegregated.

They are still fighting. In my home state of North Carolina, the super majority legislature decided that it wasn’t fair that wealthy parents have to pay the entire cost of educating their precious children in a private school and they decided to start a school voucher program that does allow some disadvantaged students to attend a private school but mostly is a give away to the wealthy. After all the school voucher program, which is already out of money and holding their hand out for more, doesn’t cover all the cost of the private school. The parents of those who win have to pony up the rest.

It does further the interest in undermining public education which has been on the wishlist of those who don’t like public education. You know, the ones with the test scores, and the oversight. Especially the oversight.

I wonder how that will go.

As I tell my fellow operating room folks there is a reason for a policy and a rule. This does away will all the rules. Except for the ones that you can break with impunity because your daddy or mommy has the money to buy you out of whatever scrape you find yourself in.

I also wonder what Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren would make of the rollback of our rights.

I bet he would be disappointed in the current Supreme Court.

With their Originalism and their desire to control women.

By what means necessary. After all, have to ensure the continuation of the White Male Race, even if they have to steal a uterus to do so.

Apparently this School Me Saturday was School Me Saturday and Top of Mind Tuesday all in one.

Oops.

Brown v. Board of Education happened 21 years before I was born. The effects have been widespread and those who dislike it have been determined to undermine it.

Same shit, different decade.

Baker’s sick day

I want off this ride. This spring sucks.

I am sick, again.

And I didn’t make cookies today because I called in sick.

Ugh.

I started my 5th antibiotic, trying to clear a persistent bladder infection. Yay, me!

Happy Hospital Week

Celebrating in the Operating Room.

It happens. And it usually involves food.

Strike that. It ALWAYS involves food.

This week is Hospital Week.

For the first time I can remember Nurses Week and Hospital Week have been separated. With an itty bitty overlap of May 12. May 12 is the day that Nurses Week ended. It traditionally ends on Florence Nightingale’s birthday.

Hospital Week is the week that the American Hospital Association sets aside to celebrate the 24/7 providers of care for their community. A hospital certainly ticks that box.

Food and bragging rights are good for a celebration.

This week we celebrate the workers of the hospitals, including nurses.

At my hospital, the week kicked off with an apple pie contest. Each department that cared to submitted a homemade apple pie. Monday, May 13th is National Apple Pie Day.

That is where the food comes in.

I made the apple pie for the operating room. I used homemade crust. I also peeled, cut, and cooked the apple pie filling. Even though the recipe that I was using said store-bought would be okay. Um, no. Have you met me?

I believe there were 12 apple pies submitted for the contest.

OR won 3rd prize.

There were also cupcakes to feed everyone else.

Because 12 pies are not going to feed the staff that run the 139 beds.

No matter how small the pieces.

No Tuesday Top of Mind today 5/14/24- Internet issue fun

This will be a very limited Tuesday Top of Mind.

Or rather. Not a Tuesday Top of Mind.

Something is happening to our internet in 3 minutes and I have to rush to get this out.

Something regulatory.

That can only happen overnight. For three days, starting yesterday.

That’s when everyone is asleep, right?

Eye roll.

Could I have written earlier?

Yes.

But we all know about my procrastinatory tendencies.

Odd, it took me four times arguing with the auto-correct to get that word the way I wanted.

Is this Skynet? Or has AI had enough of my shit?

Back on track.

Tomorrow will be the normal OR-based Wednesday post.

Maybe I will write Tuesday Top of Mind for Friday. Kind of a Are You Freaking Kidding Me Friday?

Hmm.

Maybe.

School Me Saturday 5/11/24-semester’s over, relaxation time is now. Ask the Dormouse

Yay! You survived to the end of the semester.

As many of my classmates are fond of pointing out, C’s get degrees. Or B’s. Depending on the level of education you are striving for.

Enter the Dormouse to the Alice in Wonderland college/university conversation we are having.

The Dormouse is a character at the Mad-Tea Party. You know the one! The one who is asleep in the teapot. And on the chair. And on the table.

Something made the Dormouse tired.

It might have been life.

It might be his companions. Cough, cough…Mad Hatter, the March Hare.

Or, maybe, he just finished a semester of school.

Perhaps we should let him sleep.

As for you, it is okay to relax after the end of the semester.

Maybe you only have a week off. Maybe you have 12 weeks off.

Make the most of them.

Me? I am indulging in all the fiction I’ve not been able to read during the semester.

And it has been glorious!

I have an extensive To-Be-Read pile and it gets bigger as my favorite authors release books.

My aim this summer is to make a sizable dent into the pile.

What are you going to do?

Happy Nurse’s Week!

It is that time of year again.

Where everyone we’ve given free medical advice to in the past year thanks us.

Nah, I’m only kidding.

But it is Nurse’s week.

Congratulations to us for choosing the hardest schooling and working under the most extreme conditions. Especially in 2020. And 2021. And 2022.

All those years and months in an N-95 mask did was hone our skills and sharpen our dedication to the profession.

It’s not for nothing that I liken nursing to blue-collar work. Because it is hard.

I have been punched and hit and cussed out and peed on and pooped on and pinched. Once a former nursery school teacher, who had dementia, cornered me in the bathroom in the nursing home for 20 minutes. I couldn’t leave her, she could have fallen. All I could do was pull the emergency bathroom alarm and wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, someone came to help me help her back to bed.

Nursing. It’s not for sissies.

It is with some fondness that I remember working nights in the nursing home as a certified nursing assistant. It taught me a lot of things. Time management, how to budget because every other week my paycheck was a day short, how to talk to difficult patients, how to turn and change 32 patients every two hours every night. But the second best thing it ever taught me was how to lift. I lifted a 500-pound patient out of bed every morning, with her help. Well, I levered a 500-pound patient out of bed every morning so she could go visit her mom in another wing.

The best thing that it gave me was the desire to return to a nursing program and finish my RN. And so I did. Look at me now, a PhD student. Okay, it’s nearly 30 years later but it still counts.

Happy Nurse’s Week.

As I tell my fellow hospital nurses, find yourself a corporation to work for that wants to help you be the best nurse you want to be. If that is no longer the hospital, that is okay. If it is higher in the corporation, that is also okay. Weird flex but okay.

Happy Nurse’s Week.

Be the nurse you want to be.

Tuesday Top of Mind 5/7/24- Everything old is new again

History has much to teach us.

How to survive a pandemic. Such as the so-called Spanish Flu from 1918. Even though at best guess it started in Kansas.

Nope, never mind. Some people never learned about masking and taking steps to ensure that OTHER people are kept safe.

What’s next?

Students protesting against what they see as an unjust war. And them being fired upon by the Ohio National Guard. What they were protesting was the expansion from Vietnam into Cambodia. May 4th, Ohio National Guard fired upon the protestors, killing 4.

Oh, lookie, students are protesting again against what they see as the unfair treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza at the rockets of the Israelis. Yes, Hamas (the ruling party of Gaza) did kill 1269 Israelis without mercy on October 7, 2024, and kidnapped 240 people. Israel defended itself (their words) and have killed over 30,000 Palestinians in retaliation. They are searching for the Hamas leaders and killing women and children. And choking off much-needed humanitarian aid at ports and crossings and killing an aid convoy from World Central Kitchen. This is why the students are protesting. Last weekend police were violently (at times) dispersing the student encampments on multiple universities. You know, destroying the student’s First Amendment rights. Nothing to see here.

Another thing history tried to teach us, that no one is listening to. No students have died in the current times so perhaps those with guns learned their lesson. Probably not.

The Supreme Court showed its thumb firmly on the scale for the former president. But then it has never been apolitical.

What’s next?

Fifty years ago women were granted the right to privacy, outlined in the 14th Amendment. This was the Roe v Wade decision and was universally hated by those who wanted to control women and didn’t give a fig about their privacy. But I’ve written about that. A lot. And I am still incandescent with rage, nearly 2 years later as women’s rights are dripped down the drain, women die and some unborn are tortured. But that will be another Dispatch.

The same Supreme Court also ruled against privacy rights, which was what Roe v Wade was about, and handed abortion to the states. Who have all but danced around Roe’s body in response and finally get the chance to control women. Again, that will be another Dispatch. Or read the ones I’ve already written.

George Santanaya, a philosopher, wrote in 1905 “Those who don’t cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Winston Churchill also said “Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it” in 1948. Take of that what you will.

History repeats itself because we do not listen. We are forced to relearn lessons that history has already tried to teach us.

Post-it Sunday 5/5/24- the OR is too hard on its toys

The gown card says “Remember when your sister dismembered your favorite Barbie doll.”

Boy, do I!

Let me set the scene. I had received the Loving You Barbie for a birthday, or it might have been Christmas. This Barbie was awesome! Red sweetheart bodice, sleeves AND skirt that were tulle-like with red velvet hearts on it. I’ve called it the Sweetheart Barbie for years but the doll apparently debuted in 1983. I would have been 7 or 8. She came with a little heart notepad and pencil. In my recollection, my favorite thing about this Barbie was that her hair wasn’t platinum blond, like the others. Instead, it was a warmer golden blonde. At least that’s what I remembered.

Not sure how old my sister was when she got her hands on Barbie. I definitely don’t remember her having access to scissors.

First, she scalped my favorite Barbie. I remember being pissed.

And then she tore its head off. Everyone knows you can replace the head but it is never the same after that.

Little sisters! Am I right?

About 20 years later, after I got married, my husband received a box from his parents. And in that box were the remnants of his Star Wars toys. And I mean REMNANTS. He had a fondness for blowing things up with firecrackers.

Kids. They just can’t have nice things.

This is also the way of the OR.

Every time I see plant engineering fixing a hole in the wall, or putting up hard plastic to protect our walls, or the corners of the walls.

Or environmental cleaning blood off the ceiling.

Or biomedical engineering replacing a piece of equipment that the OR has damaged.

Sorry to all of them.

The OR is hard on our toys.

But the ER? They are hard on the gurneys.

Makes sense when they have upwards of so many patients (hard to get an exact number on the fly). But extrapolated out, the OR is harder on its equipment, walls, instruments, etc.

Sorry.