Category: Uncategorized

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.

Post-it Sunday 12/22/24- the daily 50

The post-it reads “Daily 50s- pushups, squats, lunches, wall sit, and plank.”

This is not a prank. I don’t do pranks.

This is a post-it that I wrote myself about fitness. And then it promptly turned December and everyone knows that calories don’t count in December.

I kid, I kid.

As a society, we should start thinking about moving our bodies more. Especially after the calorie-laden holidays and that second piece of pecan pie. Or the third helping of mashed potatoes.

I am not suggesting a gym. Not with all the other newbies out looking for a quick fix. Because this is not a quick fix.

This is just your reminder to move your body deliberately in the new year.

New Year’s resolutions? I am not a fan because I think they are too quickly forgotten in favor of the couch and doom-scrolling. I’m not saying we don’t have reason to sit on the couch and doom-scroll. What about taking 15 minutes every hour and moving your body in a deliberate and thoughtful way.

Me? My goal is to unearth the boxing dummy from the garage. I also have a stack of 15-minute exercises I am going to do while doing the Big Write. Including boxing but not exclusive of it.

Get out that aggression, you know?

School Me Saturday 12/21/24-adjusting expectations

This was a HIGH bar for me to clear.

My expectation was that I could move heaven and earth to graduate with a PhD in 3 years. Eminently doable, I smugly thought to myself as I signed up. Doing the program in 3 years means that I will graduate before I turn 50!

I’m not sure why that arbitrary number was important. After all, I will turn 50 with or without a PhD.

Also of importance was the fact that I wanted to clear the triple hurdle and get my third degree in 10 years. No matter that the world was on fire in 2020 and 2021. And I was a working hospital-based operating room nurse the entire time.

Who was I competing against?

Myself. That’s who I was competing against.

Because this will not set the nursing world on fire.

Oh, and yeah, 2024 was a horrible year health-wise for me. Horrible. Your forties are like a gift. This is heavy sarcasm.

Sometime in the past months, I came to the realization that the thesis will not be finished and defended by the graduate in May deadline of March 20th. There just isn’t enough time to do all the tasks.

Everything takes longer in academia. And I mean EVERYTHING. Through a series of pitfalls, and, yes the personal physical challenges, and the university challenges, it has taken me 6 months to start my pilot project and 2 months to complete it and finish the class. This process should have taken me 6 weeks to start the pilot project and 2 months to complete it and finish the class.

Okay. I’ve written before that age is just a number and time means nothing. Why was I so worried about the PhD being completed by a deadline I made up in my own head? I will finish this degree in my own time. I should just enjoy this dedicated writing time.

The take-home lesson is that plans may change. Some people might look at a change as the opportunity to drop the idea completely. They would not be wrong in doing so.

Their path is their own.

Your path is your own.

Paths may change. I know that my personal path has taken a few right turns and a couple of u-turns. And that is okay.

Whether you stay on the path or decide that it is not the path you want, the important thing is to keep learning. Being an adult learner is hard but remember the reasons you started on the path and the reasons to keep on the path. Even as it changes underfoot.

You might surprise yourself.

I hope you do.

FFS 12/20/24-Fatigue

Fatigue as in tired.

Women in this country are tired of listening to old white men who don’t know anything about women’s bodies but still, somehow, think they have control over us. I am definitely tired of this.

I am tired of picking up an emergency room patient who is having an active miscarriage and bleeding out and burdening them by asking them more questions as to where they want the clump of cells to go. Or, if the pregnancy is advanced enough, which funeral home they want to use. Because of the new abortion laws in our state, we have to ask these questions, and the hospital is no longer allowed to do much.

I am tired of the threat of legal action against women for trying to live a normal life. After all, an Ohio woman was arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse after she miscarried in her own bathroom. It is as if the old white men never realized that 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. They’ve been told, it just doesn’t register with them.

We cannot let being tired of this shit control our waking lives. We have to pay attention and pay tribute to those who have died because of their draconian laws. We have to pay attention to the mocked-up trials that are outrageous and designed to be outrageous so they reach the very very very very conservative Supreme Court in the hopes of the Court siding with them. Oops, there goes another right.

Tired or not, we have to demand action. We have to pay attention to the news, distasteful and hateful as it sometimes can be. We have to pay attention to the laws being passed in our states. We have to pay attention to the cases that the Supreme Court takes up.

We have to pay attention, even if we are tired. Because like the Weeping Angels of Doctor Who, when our eyes and attention are not on them, bad things happen. People disappear back to the past when they touch a human and our present-day energy is used to keep the Weeping Angels alive.

Put simply, we have to keep our eyes on the modern-day Weeping Angels and what they are doing so that we as women are not sent back to the past. You know, without rights or a voice. Right where they want us.

Keep watching, even if you are tired. I will be.

Cookie Thursday 12/19/24- glazed ricotta cookies

This cookie doesn’t really fit with the Holiday theme but there is a story behind it that is very Christmassy.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was working as a CNA on a skilled nursing unit of a local hospital. There were all sorts of patients, short-timers, post-total hip or knee patients who would be going home after physical therapy, and even a long, long-timer who had been there for 10 years.

This was a unit that some patients came to after extensive surgery, often from other hospitals. This story is about Gertrude, not her name and I don’t normally add names to my posts but I felt that she needed a name.

Gertrude was from Northern Italy and she had had major abdominal surgery in San Francisco. She had been admitted to our unit to gain additional strength before she went home to her little bungalow.

She needed a lot of assistance when she first came to us, walking to the bathroom, repositioning in bed, and having her drains emptied twice a day. This was a task that was delegated to me.

Gertrude was admitted to the unit in September, with an eye to go home before Christmas. Step by step she became stronger. Step by step her drain was putting less and less fluid. As the months passed, she got stronger and stronger.

In late November she was given a discharge date of December 6th.

As the CNA on the unit, I spent a lot of time with her. She was a very educated woman who delighted in talking literature or the college classes she used to teach. I really enjoyed talking to her.

She would regale me with stories of growing up in Northern Italy as I walked with her to the bathroom and to physical therapy and she talked about her favorite ricotta cookies. I can’t describe the accent she put on ricotta but she swallowed the o sound and made the t’s sharp. She informed me that when she got home she was going to make me her favorite Christmas cookies. I told her she didn’t need to but she insisted she would return.

She was discharged home with her friends on December 6th. Unit life after she left was a little flatter without our daily talks. It was December and December sucks in the hospital. It just does.

Right before Christmas, she made a triumphant return. Her drains had been removed, she was dressed in street clothing and she was all smiles. She was also bearing a box of the ricotta Christmas cookies for the unit nursing staff. With sprinkles. To make them festive.

Those were the most meaningful Christmas cookies that we received that year. But even better was to see her looking happy and healthy as she returned to life outside of the hospital.

That is why I made these glazed ricotta cookies for the December theme.

No sprinkles though. I was out.

Best Kept Secrets of the OR #18- Find Your Why

I know this sounds more like a navel gazing exercise than a secret of the operating room. I bet if you polled the long-timers in the OR, those who have been in the role for years, every single why would be different. And every single why probably has something to do with the patient.

Because when it works and all cylinders are rocking and rolling, and every potential catastrophe is dealt with it is beautiful.

Here is mine.

‘This.

This is why we do what we do. This is why we work the impossible hours, away from our own loved ones. This is why we cheerfully (mostly) smile at our patients and our doctors and do our very best for them.

Because sometimes, it is a awe inspiring ballet of anesthesia, nursing, scrub techs and surgeons all knowing our job and how to help others do their jobs. Ordering labs during the case on the in room computer, putting in lines, getting patients from the ICU ourselves when it is necessary getting blood products, keeping one step ahead of the sterile team.

This saving of a life can be a thing of outstanding grace and beauty.

Because you go home at the end of the day, exhausted, exhilarated. And that patient is alive because of you and the incredible tango you have all just performed, just for them, to the beat of their heart monitors and their breaths.’

*

According to my notes, I wrote this on December 16th, 2013. Do I remember the particulars of that case or that patient? No, but I would bet cash money that the patient hemorrhaged. When a patient hemorrhages, it is all hands on deck. Heck, if you can beg, borrow, or steal other hands do so. The hands don’t even have to be OR hands; I’ve pulled in PACU people before.

The saving of a life can be a thing of outstanding grace and beauty.

Still is, more than 10 years later. Which is why I will never leave the OR. As long as I am capable, I am there.