24- me and the marathon

This also is an unusual post-it post.

This is taken exactly, word for word from one of my written to-self notes.

I used to be a runner.

Well, I say a runner.

I was more of a shuffler.

But I participated! And completed 1 full marathon, 12 or so half marathons, one 12-K, several 10Ks, and innumerable 5Ks. A sprint triathlon and I was aiming for a half Ironman in the next year.

And then school beckoned and I fell out of like with the sport.

*** will indicate my current thoughts.

Denied.

7 miles into the half marathon my knees started to lock. The IT band tightening with every footfall. Each time my foot hit the ground the word “denied” sounded in my head.

Not the marathon one wants.

Up until then it had been a great race. 7 miles down in an hour and 10 minutes.

*** see, I told you I was a shuffler.

All my training, hours on the trail, and sweat had me on a great PR (personal record) pace.

Then I was effectively hobbled by knee pain. It took me 1 hour to do the last 3 miles.

*** for those playing along, this is half the pace I had been on.

*** also, this is not a marathon story, this is supposed to be a half marathon story.

Denied.

I wasn’t even supposed to be doing the half. I had an actual 26.2 marathon planned in five weeks. But if you did the half and the full in the same calendar year, you were promised a THIRD medal. And I love race swag. All the medals

Hubris brought me down. No matter that this run was supposed to be the week’s long run.

I limped back to the car and contemplated my lot.

I could still attempt the full marathon in 5 weeks. My training had been going so well. Miles were stacking up and I did not have any warning from my body that it had had enough. My long run was up to 19 miles. I was slow but I endured.

If I tried the marathon on legs that would still be recovering from today I would probably be swept into the DNF (did not finish) pack. I’ve never had a DNF. But 5 weeks is not enough time to rest my legs and rehab from this fresh hell. I could really injure myself if I continued

My car was the last in the parking lot. I don’t know what that says, but it was then that I decided that this year’s marathon was not for me.

I withdrew.

Present day me again. I did a full marathon 9 months after this. I ran in the debut All-American Marathon in Fayetteville, NC at the Army base. That was thrilling.

After I fell in the operating room in September 2019 and had a deep bone bruise to my left knee I have never run another race. We all know what happened in 2020.

Running doesn’t miss me, but sometimes I miss it.

Not really but I will get back out there sometime. Currently, I prefer to box or bike anyway.

You know, solitary endeavors.

School Me Saturday 11/9/24-empathy

This is a warning!

Heed it well.

The more you are educated and the more you seek out education, the more empathy you find yourself experiencing.

Think about it.

At the collegiate level, you are exposed to ideas that you have never thought before. Not only that you are meeting people from all different walks of life. And being exposed to their troubles. Suddenly the person that you have been taught to “other” is a real boy.

Or girl.

I really only wrote that for comedic effect and to make you think back to Pinocchio. And his very real desire to be real.

Furthering your education you start to consider the concept of what it means to be real. Pinocchio’s definition is not the same as yours.

Because you are not Pinocchio.

And your mind is blown open by the idea that some people want different things and that some people use different goalposts to consider what is good or bad.

And you realize that even the words good and bad are not enough to explain the world.

Because everyone experiences the world differently.

Your universe has suddenly expanded and now you can’t other Joan, the international student in your class who came seeking a path to creating a better life back home. Or Daniel(le) who has so many questions about what makes a good person, a good person, and is trying to outrun their small town.

It is too late to not meet Joan or Daniel(le).

Your eyes have been opened to the terrors that governmental policies can bring to other people.

Where, before, you would have listened and done what the government told you. But now you know that there is two or three or more sides to a story.

And all we are trying to do is make life a little better for those who have not got the same privileges or power that we were born into.

Boom.

Empathy.

So sorry.

No, I’m not.

Cookie Thursday 11/7/24-soft pumpkin cookies

The Cookie Thursday is a Thing theme for November 2025 is Fall.

I asked my boss and someone else who happened to be in their office which cookie screams fall to them. They looked at each other and answered, “Pumpkin.”

I opened my Fall page on my Pinterest Cookie Thursday is a Thing board and looked up pumpkin cookies. One recipe caught my eye and it was for a soft pumpkin cookie, with no frosting.

Sold, I thought.

Until was making it and realized that it was a pumpkin Snickerdoodle recipe. Ugh. I hate making Snickerdoodles and this is probably the second time in CTIAT’s 9 years and 11 months that I made one.

I will recognize that the cookies are soft.

Apparently, this is because I decreased the canned pumpkin’s water content. I thought that would make the cookies drier. Not so. I put the canned pumpkin on paper towels and let the moisture seep out. This completely changed the consistency of the canned pumpkin.

Color me surprised and impressed.

The cookies did bake up super soft and it intensified the pumpkin flavor. Who knew?

I still hated dredging each dough ball in cinnamon sugar before baking. I will try that trick when I am making sweet potato cookies.

Best Kept Secrets of the OR #13- sometimes the surgeons get away with it

Unlucky 13.

Did you know that many operating rooms don’t have an OR #13? Many hospitals don’t have a 13th floor, either. Many units also don’t have a room #13, including ERs, med-surg, ICU, and PACU bays.

Huh, I wonder why? This is a rhetorical question.

The best-kept secret of today is that sometimes terrible surgeons get away with their shitty behavior, with their throwing of instrumentation, with their misogyny, and their open disdain for women.

Sounds like a person who is headed for the White House, no?

It doesn’t matter that there have been many, many, many, many, oh so many, attempts to report a surgeon for bad behavior, they just seem to get a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back in the same motion.

Sometimes the assholes win.

When they do, you have two choices. 1) suck it up and deal with it the best you can and 2) keep reporting, even if it seemingly goes nowhere.

Eventually, bad things happen to bad people. At least that can be something we tell ourselves in an effort to cheer ourselves and our coworkers up.

Now if a surgeon’s bad behavior puts a patient in danger, that is an entirely different ball game. Often there is an Alert Line that team members and others can use to report behavior. Eventually, they have to listen.

In The Princess Bride, Fred Savage’s character reacts badly when the grandfather tells him that Westley is dead. If you haven’t seen the movie, watch it and understand so much more about my posts.

I feel like Fred Savage’s character today.

Best thing I can do for myself today is to take a nap.

And then start again.

I’m gonna Pollyanna a bit, and maybe Annie, too. The sun will come out tomorrow and I have hope that not all is lost. It’s just gonna suck for a bit.

Here’s hoping.

Tuesday Top of Mind 11/5/24- your vote is private

Over the last two weeks, I have heard many, many, many, many, many attacks on women. Men are interested in how learning a woman, any woman, THEIR woman voted.

Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t owe anyone an answer to this.

It is none of their business HOW you voted.

It is none of their business IF you voted. Although, I wish you would.

Some men even equated not voting in lockstep with their vote to cheating. Cough, cough, jesse watters.

Um.

Take several steps back, sir.

In fact, check yourself. I realize that you think having an outie sex organ entitles you to all the things. But it doesn’t.

A woman in her EIGHTIES voted for the first time because her husband, who had decreed that it is not important that she vote, died last year.

There are so many stories about men and others but mostly men, putting pressure on women to vote the way that the man does. Or even stopping women from voting. Where do you think you live, sir? Iran or Afghanistan. The woman’s right to vote is enshrined in the 19th Amendment and we will not be denied.

Of course, there is a lot of chatter “joking” that the 19th Amendment has to be repealed. Yeah, I’ve seen your jokes. There is always a kernel or even a whole ear of corn of truth.

You and what army?

There are stories of breakups over a woman not telling a man who they voted for. Of men looming over their partners in the voting area in an intimidating manner. BTW, this is not allowed. Men who gave their wives the silent treatment because the wives dared to 1) vote and 2) not to tell them how they voted.

If I was confronted and someone demanded I tell them how I voted, I would tell the truth. I voted straight blue ticket. Yes, all of them, even the ballots that don’t have party affiliations on them. I can research and read up on the people I am voting for before I go to the early voting site.

But not all women are like me. And that’s okay.

This is your permission slip to lie. This isn’t something I would do, but you have to live your life.

No one has the right to know who you voted for.

No Post-it Sunday 11/3/24- 48 hours, and then the shouting really begins

Well, they’ve nearly broken me.

Between the near-constant text messages from unknown people, even received AFTER I noted, and the incessant election commercials on the news. You know, if I even watched television. I don’t even sit with my husband as he watches the news, as I cannot stand the man’s voice or the one-sided coverage or it all really. I continue to get my news from a variety of news sources, but even they are starting to drain me. Although I would 100% rather read about the batshit things that the GOP candidates say than listen to the sound of their voices. Yes, the sound of any GOP candidate is grating.

I am starting to get incandescent with rage listening to the non-stop lies. If I never have to read or hear “baseless claims” or “claims without proof”, it will be too soon.

If I never have to read about a woman who lost her life or her fertility because of a fucking abortion ban, it will be too soon. One woman has lost her life and her fertility because of the need for control over women that some men are trying to exert is too many.

Bless the news sources that are calling a lie a lie.

I have to work Tuesday night and I don’t drink but others can make a drinking game out of poll numbers returning.

Seriously, this is the 8th presidential election that I have voted in and I cannot remember once when it felt this fraught.

Ugh.

Buckle up, there will be rough water to come.

School Me Saturday 11/2/24- minding your p’s and q’s and citations

As an adult learner, I have had to unlearn and re-learn so much.

I write unlearn because I picked up some bad habits when it came to writing essays as a high schooler. I would spend a lot of time thinking about the essay that was due. And then I would research what I had to do. I would finish the book if it was a book report. I spent a lot of time thinking about opening hooks and sentences and essay structure.

I still do a lot of my writing in my head. Even during my fourth degree. I am unsure why this is the way that I have worked, am working, and will continue to work.

Writing is my favorite, after all.

Much better than math. Or statistics. So many statistics classes. I am not sure if I’ve shared this before but I decidedly do not have a math brain. At least not a higher-level math brain. I mean, simple math, algebra, and even geometry are doable. But beyond that? Anxiety city.

This was supposed to be a post about spelling and citation errors.

Apparently, I am not in the mood.

Spelling errors and citation errors will tank your grade because at the collegiate level, they include that in your grade and absolutely will take points off for errors.

There are many different kinds of citations. Find out the citation style that your program uses and embrace it. Embrace it hard-core. This will only help you.

Also embraceable is the spell check. I cannot stress this enough. Nothing impacts a grade more than using the incorrect tense/spelling/contraction/conjunction in a sentence. It makes your essays hard to read.

As a former editor and a current reader, I can tell you that nothing knocks me out of a written article or paper than a spelling error. Or badly used punctuation.

But nothing gives me more glee than noticing an error in a school document, such as the syllabus.

Typos happen, acknowledge that this will happen to you and go on and write the danged essay.

Just be aware of spelling mishaps, and the stray badly written sentence. Your writing will be better for it.

Cookie Thursdai 10/31/21- Trick or Treat?

This is my favoritest cookie Thursday of the year. This is the Thursday that I make homemade candies instead of cookies.

This is themed trick or treat because you never know if you are getting a trick or a treat.

In years past I made red hots, and sour patch kids, and itty brownie cauldrons with green frosting foam. I’ve made sea foam and, for the health conscious, I drew faces on clementines.

This month I only made 4 candies. I was going to candy Cheetos but I did not decide to make those in the last minute. It was a grave side decision. (joke)

I’ve made chocolate cracker toffee for Halloween and Christmas with various crackers and then I saw a recipe for cornflake chocolate toffee. After following the recipe I ended up with too much toffee and too little cornflakes. There is definitely something off about the proportions. Tasted good though. I wonder if I can make candy/cookies with grapenuts.

The next candy was just a tinted candy coating over a marshmallow. What made these fun is that the colors were that of candy corn. Cute but I’m not sure that large marshmallows are the way to go here.

A bit of a trick was the Monster muffins. These were green. Okay, these were spinach, banana, oat mini muffins. Of course I forgot to add the chocolate chip faces before I baked them. Cute, will do again, will add the chocolate chip faces next time.

The last candy I am the proudest of. Cookie Thursday is a Thing is about experimentation on my coworkers. This last one was definitely that. I was looking at buttermint candies, you know the ones, the ones that are served at weddings and baby showers. They can be molded or colored to match any theme. These are traditionally made with butter, powdered sugar, and peppermint oil/flavoring. Hence the buttermint. I wondered if another flavoring would work. And I just happened to have cinnamon oil. It totally works. These are sweet, but not too sweet, cinnamon bombs. I will definitely have to explore other extracts and have a little fun.

Cookie Thursday is a Thing Halloween Trick or Treat edition is over for the year.

What should I make next year?

Best Kept Secrets of the OR #12- What is on back order now?

Your OR life will be spent tracking down instruments and supplies. Some of these supplies are of the urgent nature. This may be a disposable piece that goes to an equipment to a package of sterile towels. This may be the suture that is needed after you, or the surgeon, puts a giant hole in someone to fix their problem.

We have supplies that are by themselves. We will call these one thing.

We have supplies that might come in a pair. We will call these two thing.

We have red supply. We will call these red thing.

We have blue supply. We will call these blue thing.

Now that I am done Dr. Seuss-ing up the post (I hope you got it), we have lots of supplies.

Like lots of supplies.

So many supplies.

You never think we’d run out amount of supplies.

But the thing is that each surgery needs these supplies.

99.999999% of surgeries require supplies. I made that number up but the vast majority of cases need supplies.

These are special supplies that need to come sterile. You know, so that we don’t kill the patient by using a supply that will send them into sepsis. And we might not have the capability to render them sterile on site.

The point is the OR is a supply heavy place. And the supplies need to be sterile.

I would hazard a guess that the OR is the most heavily supplied place in the hospital.

You know what other place is heavily supplied and supplies the rest of the hospital.

The pharmacy.

100% of patients in the hospital require medications at some point during their time with us.

Many of those patients require some form of IV therapy. This is fluids/medications that are delivered to a patient via an intravenous catheter. Straight into the blood stream. And these fluids/medications need to be sterile as well. Same reason.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton did a number on two factories that supply IV fluids. One in Western North Carolina and one in Florida. Guess where many hospitals/surgery centers/doctor’s offices/free standing ERs get their fluids? From these factories.

Immediatly after the hurricanes my hospital put out the bat signal to all of its employees reassuring them that the corporation had IV fluids to continue to operate and reminding us to conserve IV fluids and bags.

The hurricanes were not even been a month ago and some surgeries are being cancelled due to lack of IV fluids.

This is disappointing to patients and providers alike.

Let me tell you about the model that hospitals et al. get their supplies through. It is called just in time ordering. The hospitals et al. can’t have millions of dollars of supplies on their shelves, including IV fluids. For one thing, that is a LOT of money to have in backstock. For another, especially when it comes to IV fluids and medications, there is an expiration date where the sterility of the packaging or the stuff inside the packaging can no longer be guaranteed.

Many hospitals et al. are in trouble with IV fluid supply levels. We in the business call this kind of thing back order. As in we need the supply/IV fluid and the supplier would like to give us the thing but is unable to because of glitches like hurricanes. We’ve had a LOT of backorder for as long as I’ve been a nurse and I don’t see that changing.

Is this model sound? Maybe. Does it hit the fan when it there is a bump? Absolutely.

Does it put patients at risk? Yep.

Tuesday Top of Mind 10/29/24- 50 years ago today, women could open credit cards and own a house

I knew this was the year when the world of credit opened up to women. But I had no idea that today, October 29, 1973, was the day.

I don’t think you understand exactly what that means.

We, as women, have been clawing our way out of the shadows for a very long time. Or should I say from under a man’s thumb for a very long time.

I like the thumb metaphor better than shadows.

I know, I know. I’ve written about it before. But it is important to acknowledge that it has only been FIFTY years here in the US that a woman has been allowed to sign for a mortgage or a credit card.

Oh, wait, I forgot the qualifier.

It has only been FIFTY years that a woman has been allowed to sign for a mortgage or a credit card WITHOUT A MAN.

That’s better and a more complete sentence.

I had a conversation with a guy this weekend and he was shocked when I was mad when he said that men make sure that society runs smoothly.

After my brain stopped smoking from the rage, I asked what he meant.

He said that it was the men who made sure the rules were followed.

After I was able to unfist my hands, I reminded him that men had had control of the reins of power since time immemorial, especially in this country, and that women were, in fact, police officers who enforced the laws. And there were women in the government who made sure these “rules” were enacted. Not as many as there should be considering we are more than half of the population, but women have to start somewhere.

We left the conversation there and I left the place where we had had this conversation.

It was either that or haul off and punch him. Yes, punch. With a closed-finger fist.

What I wish I’d said, “Well, Chris, maybe if we hadn’t only had real power and real representation in the US Congress, or on the Supreme Court before the last 45 years, women might’ve had a chance to do something about the gross interference of men.”

To which he’d reply, “Women could never.”

And I would say, “Well, if men would get out of our way we could.” And I would watch him turn red and bluster and walk away.

Now, that would be satisfying.

But, yay, for us women who’ve had the ability to take on debt, in our own name, for 50 years today.

Let’s get to work on the rest of it.

First thing to do is vote in this year’s general election.

Especially after that blatant dog whistle of a rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, 10/27/24.

The last thing I will write is that a person for the campaign noted after all the gross “joke” about Puerto Rico that the people didn’t seem to mind.

No, of course not, Jan. They wouldn’t.