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.

Productivity.

Productivity is such an ugly word.

Productivity is defined, by Merriam Webster, as the quality or state of being productive, or the rate per unit area or the unit volume at which consumables is made by producers.

To the OR bosses it means the units of hours worked per case volume.

If the case volume isn’t there, there should be less people working.

I understand this. If there are 6 cases in a 8 room OR department then the staffing needs would be minimal.

Unless they are all starting at the same time, such as first case starts.

But then what do the staff do in the rest of their 8/10/12 hours?

Do you send them home?

And hope they have PTO to cover the shortfall.

This is what the department does.

Often, there are people wanting to go home.

So day shift lets them.

But what if the people you are sending home are scheduled to work into the evening shift?

Do you strip the evening shift of the option of running more than 1 room at a time?

And what if the evening suddenly gets busier, as been known to happen, a lot?

And the evening shift could have used the extra room to great advantage.

Or does the day shift doom the evening shift into working WAY past their go home time?

Sometimes.

Would it not be more useful to cut people at the beginning of the shift?

To move their start time by a couple of hours, and have them come in at 1030.

I have posited this and the response is “What if there is an add on in the morning?”

My answer is “What if there is an add on after you’ve let my other 2 evening nurses and techs go home?”

Exactly.

Nearly done with vacation.

Still do not idle well.

I have reached great heights in my game.

I am enjoying it very much.

I was not very productive this week though.

But sometimes you have to give yourself a mental break.

Especially after this year.

The main thing got done, which is the “inspection” of the house.

And all the reading!

Must do this again sometime.

Tomorrow, I start call at 1900.

And if history is accurate.

I will be called in sometime after that.

I certainly am boring myself.

The outside of the house inspection was today.

I made it as cleaned up as I could.

And I put out my giant, bright pink “Hero Nurse Lives Here.”

Not for all day.

I’m not crazy.

Just from 0900-1700.

And then I brought it in.

This week has not be a bang up go on the tentative plans I had for the week.

I am doing something every day.

And then a great deal of reading.

I love to read.

I am also looking at the news A LOT.

No, I don’t know why.

My shared governance council meeting cancelled today.

So I read.

No, I do not idle well.

Why do you ask?

This evening I will continue to wade through all the given to me books, culling out the ones I do want to read.

I will continue to work on that.

I will also continue to work on the garage, maybe.

I don’t know.

I may just read.

Today at shared governance there was a strongly worded warning about social media.

The warning was be careful what you share on social media.

Do not bash the hospital.

Do not break HIPAA laws.

This reminded me that I need to share what I do periodically.

I am well aware of HIPAA.

When I speak about patients, or coworkers, things are changed to make them less identifiable.

I do use names.

I may not speak about people in he/her pronouns.

I try to use they.

I may not be accurate with diagnoses.

I may not accurate with surgeries.

This is all to protect myself and the HIPAA laws.

I feel that my stories are conveyed in a way that makes them relatable.

That the reader will nod their head in recognition.

There was a meme that I shared yesterday about Dick.

Dick doesn’t clean up his room after surgeries.

Dick doesn’t stock his room.

Don’t be a Dick.

Trust me, in the OR you know who the Dicks are.

This was a way to spotlight the issue without naming names.

I don’t even name myself.

I did the impossible for me today.

At my husband’s request.

There was a staff meeting in the morning.

He told me I was on vacation and I should not zoom in for the call.

So I didn’t.

And it was HARD.

Today I prettied up the front of the house for the “inspection”.

(insert eye roll here)

All day.

I mowed our lawn and the side lawn of the next door neighbor.

I put out 16 bags of mulch.

I couldn’t find the blower I JUST used this past weekend.

This means I put it somewhere safe.

It will turn up.

It just means that I had to manually sweep the porch and the stairs and the grass clippings I got on the driveway. And the neighbor’s driveway as well.

Tomorrow the only thing I have to do to “pretty” up the front is to clean the mailbox.

I will do that before my morning meeting.

This is shared governance and I will not be missing.

Not with nurses week next month.

Still not idling too well.

Chores for the day include the front and side yards.

I also picked up medication at Walgreens, or I tried to.

My husband’s insurance will only pay for 90 supply.

Walgreens doesn’t do that.

I have been going back and forth to Walgreens all weekend long.

Today, I transferred the script to CVS, which does 90 day.

Yay.

Tomorrow I will do the 3 hour SG meeting. I haven’t decided if I am going to be going to the hospital for it.

I will wash the mailbox.

I will do something else off my list.

Who knows what it will be.

Day 3 of my vacation has gone swimmingly.

Days 1 and 2 I participated in a Sherlock convention.

I also did all of my bedroom declutter.

Including 1/3 of my clothes.

Today, I weeded all the weeds in the front yard.

In preparation for the INSPECTION by the HOA.

Ugh.

Tomorrow I put out mulch.

And paint a bit around the garage where it was exposed after the new garage door was installed.

I will begin to declutter and thin the books in the library.

I have entire 6 shelf bookcase that are books that people have given me.

I do not envision myself reading ANY of these.

To the Habitat for Humanity they go.

Tomorrow I will also do my tall dresser.

None of these clothes have been looked at in a year.

But some of the clothes are my meeting clothes and I have to go through them.

Why, yes, I am bored.

Normal people would be doing fun things.

I have been reading.

Other than that I do not idle well.

I’m on vacation.

Me, nodding my head, looking around.

My to do list has gotten off to a good start.

I have re-potted some plants.

I have done six loads of laundry.

I have boxed up the winter clothes.

I have mostly done our bedroom.

Sorting the clothes, moving the books, cleaning the catch all drawer on my side of the bed.

Tomorrow I will be finishing the guest bathroom.

And taking a crack at our bathroom.

And garage for a couple of hours.

And putting out all the mulch I bought last week.

Must not get bored.

Am I a workaholic and boring myself?

You betcha.