Category: Uncategorized

Hurricane Helene recap 9/28/24

There was a devastating hurricane that swept through on Thursday and Friday. It didn’t make landfall until late Thursday night but there was rain and wind starting here in North Carolina on Thursday. The rain and the wind continued on until midday Friday.

The university canceled in-person classes but the online class that I am in, my last one, went on.

There were hiccups and classmates that dropped left and right but we persevered.

We never lost power near Charlotte although there were widespread power outages reported all over. We also didn’t lose the internet.

We were lucky here in our little house. There are a lot of leaves down, and I had to chase after the 32-gallon containers that we use for yard waste and bring them back to the garage.

There was a lot of water in the backyard and our neighbor made a trough through his side yard and our side yard to drain the water from the driveways. When they moved in 2020, we gave him permission to drain their yard through our backyard. This is the easiest path to the holding pond behind our property.

We came through pretty well with only 4 inches of water in the mop bucket I left out on purpose to collect rainwater. Our internet has been a bit laggy so no Diablo for me.

Western North Carolina, however, is devastated.

Videos and pictures of raging water dominated the news Friday. Highway 40 on the way to Tennessee flooded, had a landslide, and lost a portion of the road to the water. Entire cities and towns are inundated with water and mud.

The rain has stopped.

The clean-up begins.

Cookie Thursday 9/26/24-lunch lady PB bars with chocolate frosting

This is the cookie that everyone that I told September’s theme to asked about.

ALL of them.

Is the peanut butter and fudge bar gonna be one of the cookies?

The peanut butter bar, right?

I remember the peanut butter fudgy bar. That will be one of them right?

Yes, yes.

It is the peanut butter bars with chocolate frosting.

I hate making frosting but it so iconic I had to.

I also made the frosting yesterday when there wasn’t a hurricane barreling down on us.

This entire month has been about nostalgia. Some people never had a lunch lady cookie and I find that so sad.

I will definitely have to redo this theme in the future.

There are lots of lunch lady cookies that I didn’t get to make.

Next time.

Tuesday Top of Mind 9/24/24-They don’t care about anything but control and money… do you?

I realize that not everyone is as informed about the news as I am.

I realize that everyone doesn’t have the same reaction to the news that I do.

I realize that the reason for this is because some people just don’t care.

They don’t care that over half of Americans are being told that we are worth only what our uterus can produce. AKA the tax revenue that can be brought in by the potential uterine output.

They don’t care that women are dying.

They don’t care that babies are being tortured into existence where they will live their short lives in agony.

They don’t care that medical professionals, those who have gone to school for at LEAST 20 years, and those who don’t want to torture women or the cells that will become the baby, are leaving the red states in droves.

They don’t care that the patients who are left behind who cannot/will not move, are in what we term as an OB desert. This means that the number of doctors who stay in the red states is not enough to care for the women of the state.

They don’t care that women over 50 are still of childbearing age. Instead, they find it easier to mock them and ask why they care about the bodily autonomy of those who can still have children. Never mind that women over 50 can still bear children and never mind their daughters and granddaughters are impacted by the abortion can she or can’t she shell game they have going on.

They don’t care that anyone can be a signatory to an abortion amendments petition without the police/sheriff showing up at their house and interrogating them about it.

All these things they don’t care about. All of these things have been in the news in the last five days.

What do they care about?

It isn’t the unborn. It is money; It is the control of women.

What are they afraid of? Women.

Vote in November like your bodily autonomy depends on it.

Or someone you love.

Post-it Sunday 9/22/24- how the hospital speaks and tells time

The post-it reads “Military time primer. Alphanumeric.”

I am aware that these are two entirely different things.

However, they are how every hospital that I’ve ever worked at communicates. All five of them. Plus the nursing home.

Military time is used so that there is no question as to what is meant by 2 o’clock. Is that morning or afternoon? And do I know that you think it is morning or afternoon?

Well, in military time, that would be 0200 for the morning. And 1400 for the afternoon.

Times in the hospital are mostly for important things like drug administration times. Or surgery times. Or visiting hours. It is important that we mean the same thing.

The best and easiest way to learn military time is to know that it is based on a 24-hour clock. Just like hours in a day. Midnight is 0000, and noon is 1200. What confuses people is anything after noon. All of a sudden we are adding 12 to the hour. 1 pm becomes 1300, 2 pm becomes 1400, 3 pm becomes 1500, and so forth.

The way I’ve taught many people to remember military time is that if it is after noon, just subtract 12 from the number and get the number they are most likely used to seeing. 13=12 is 1 in the afternoon, and 1600-12 is 4 in the afternoon.

I’ve used military time as far back as I can remember. It is second nature to me and how all of my clocks tell time.

Alphanumeric on the other hand is to ensure that a message is not misconstrued.

For example, if you are on the phone with a doctor and they tell you this important heart medication is TID and you heard BID, that can make a patient sick. TID means three times a day and BID means 2 times a day. How often does the patient need the med you begin to ask the doctor. And they’ve already hung up and will yell if you call them back.

The proper way to convey this information is three times a day versus two times a day.

Alphanumeric also is useful when spelling out names of medications or even names of staff or anyone for that matter. M and N sound a lot alike when you are mumbling them into a phone. As do B and T and D. Mike and November sound markedly different. As do Bravo, Tango, and Delta.

It is all about the easiest way to communicate with others in the hospital. Without the possibility of error.

I learned alphanumeric spelling in the Air Force. Because it is how to military communicates as well. Although they love their acronyms as an additional ease in communication too.

As does the hospital.

School Me Saturday 9/21/24- above all else, take care of your health

Being a student is hard.

Like, really hard.

I understand and am suffering along with you.

However…

That is no excuse for not doing the minimum to care for your health.

Eating, hydration, and exercise. Oh, and sleep.

I know that shrinkflation has hit the grocery stores hard and it is sometimes hard to find time to eat, but do your best.

Eat a salad a day, or at least a vegetable. Less fast food and more at-home eating is also key.

I get that fast and easy will win sometimes. Just not every time.

Hydration. Drink that water. Hydration can impact all of your systems. And I mean ALL of them. Make sure you drink water first thing in the morning and try to make it the last thing you drink at night.

Exercise. Go for a walk on the Pomodoro break. Or do desk exercises. There are a lot of really great desk exercise videos and books out there. Your bone density will thank you. And bone density will be important for all the years you plan on living.

Sleep. This is the one that is the easiest to slide on. Aim for seven hours of sleep a night at a minimum. I’m not going to say no screens before bed because I read myself to sleep every night but minimize the engagement with the screens.

After all, you only get one body. Make sure you take care of it.

Tuesday Top of Mind 9/17/24- On your marks, get ready…

I am not sure if you’ve heard but there is a critical election here in the United States on November 5, 2024.

So much is riding on this election I would hazard to say that it is the most important election of my life. And yours.

No, that is not hyperbolic. Or an exaggeration.

On one hand, you have women’s bodily autonomy.

On the other hand, you have the slide toward fascism. And I do not write that word lightly.

Choose wisely.

Today is National Voter Registration Day.

If you are not registered, please register.

If you are registered, please check your registration.

There are some foul shenanigans afoot that want to strip you of your constitutionally recognized and protected right to vote.

Let us say no.

No to fascism.

No to the odd idea that men know best about a woman’s body. Weird, right?

No to making the rich richer and leaving the less rich hanging out to dry.

Just no.

Post-it Sunday 9/15/24- Sour grapes

The gown card reads “Sour grapes, trashing nominations because they can.”

I have no idea if this is an actual thing.

However, I have my suspicions.

The nominations for the nursing awards that I am in charge of are down.

Like, a lot.

So much so that I made an announcement at the end of the last awards ceremony that we did in August that the nominations were down and please encourage people to nominate the hospital staff. If there is a position, we probably have an award for it.

The answer is to take the nominations online.

Sounds simple.

It is anything but.

Where would the nominations be housed? Is this mythical place easily accessible? And is it not able to be hacked?

These are the questions we as a council are reckoning with.

Also, where would someone access the nominations to nominate people?

Because not everyone is tech-savvy.

The corporate-level shared governance tried to do this a few years ago. The same problems came up then, too. Not everyone has access to the computer app. Not everyone has access to the nominations to collect them and collate them for consideration.

I am waiting for pushback about the cursive nominations. Because we have those too.

I’ll just keep collecting nominations, collating them with the massive assistance from the administrative assistant attached to the group, and tallying up the votes.

The only way out is through. This is why I am still in charge of this council because no one has stepped forward to take my place. And after shepherding it through the covid pandemic and keeping it alive with two other nurses, I will not let it die. It is too important to celebrate hospital staff.

And, frankly, we need all the wins we can take.

School Me Saturday 9/14/24- on line class dress code

There really isn’t a dress code for online classes. Especially the synchronous ones. For the asynchronous ones, no one cares because you are never on camera.

But the synchronous ones. That is another story.

I have heard stories of barely dressed students, smoking students, and clearly hungover students.

Remember, you are paying money to do this class. It is best to act like it.

The program I am in started every other week in person at the university. I wore a version of librarian casual. One of my nicer tee shirts, slacks, or a skirt. When I was working as a research assistant my dress was dressier. Nice sweater, slacks, or skirt. I never wore a graphic tee to do RA work. I was being paid to do the work and there I should dress the part.

However, for my online classes that meet every Friday, I make sure I am 1) wearing a bra, 2) wearing an inoffensive tee shirt, and 3) bottoms. In the hot months, the bottoms are either shorts or a skirt. In the colder months, then it is probably pajama bottoms.

This last one is the most important.

Some people do not wear bottoms. After all, the camera only shows from just under the clavicle and your head.

But what if there is an emergency and you are not wearing bottoms?

You will give your professor and your class something to talk about for sure.

Keep it covered. Keep it classy.

Be prepared for emergencies.

Or the doorbell.

Whichever comes first.

Whatever you are comfortable being seen in is best.

The day the world stood still

This post is not part of the Best Kept Secrets of the OR series. This is a remembrance of the day the world stood still.

September 11, 2001.

The day that the world stood still. If only for a moment in time.

It is strange to think that an event that changed our world has no reference for the latest generations.

Last year’s post for 9/11 was talking through it for the generation that watched the JFK assassination on television.

This year’s 9/11 post will be trying to explain what it was like for the younger generations.

The one’s who didn’t live through it.

Who have only learned of it through textbooks. And that is if their state hasn’t banned history textbooks.

But September 11, 2001 was a day that took us outside of ourselves.

It was a date that allowed us to come together as a society. Even if only for a moment.

The parallels are there for today as well.

9/11 was less than 10 months after George W. Bush took up residence in the White House as the 43rd president after a nail biter of an election.

Our elections haven’t gotten any easier. Or easier on the nails.

But for the moment and for months after 9/11 America spoke with one voice.

And that voice said “No.”

We would not disappear.

We would not bow to the pain of the the 2,977 dead.

2,753 people died at the World Trade Center Twin Towers collapse.

40 people died on a plane outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

343 people died at the Pentagon.

Many valuable lessons were learned that day.

We would learn that not everyone is a friend.

We would learn that not eveyrone is a foe.

We would learn the value of helping others through the darkness.

We would learn fear.

Many lessons were learned after the events that this attack unfolded. I won’t get into them here becasue this shouldn’t be political. It should be a remembrance of what and who we lost.

However…

We learned that we would endure.