The post-it reads “Ambition. Dirty word?”

We’ve all worked with the ambitious nurse who has designs on the captain’s chair.

So to speak.

The nurse who has ambitions to be something beyond “just a nurse”. And who is willing to do just about anything to become something beyond “just a nurse”.

I used to think that I didn’t have any ambition because I never aspired to nurse manager or assistant nurse manager. Or house supervisor.

I’m sure there is a Star Trek reference here.

After all, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay had ambitions to be the captain. Or the hero. Or to be anyone else than Lieutenant Barclay. This is a Star Trek Next Generation and Voyager reference.

Ha! I knew I could do one.

It isn’t bad to have ambition for higher rank. Or a higher position.

But there may not be room for a multitude of people at the top.

It is when your ambition blinds you to who you are hurting as you jockey for a higher position that is dangerous to you.

Never forget that as operating room nurses, as labor and delivery room nurses, as emergency room nurses, as cath lab nurses, as mother baby nurses, or NICU nurses the reason we work is for the patient. That is good enough for me.

My ambition is to be the best nurse I can be.

I think it is a pretty good one.

The post-it reads “Sometimes I think that a patient thinks that medical imaging is like a window into their body. It is, but it is frosted over.”

Patients are always keen to look at their films. They don’t know what they are looking at and want us to interpret for them, but they are excited.

Medical imaging- CT scan, mammography, MRI, even x-ray, can be confusing for an untrained eye to look at them and diagnose themselves. Doctors train for years and years to be able to interpret faint images that result from these tests. To tell the good, crisp scan, which they aren’t, from the blurry blob.

Each of the medical imaging type is used in the diagnosis of different things. A CT of your abdomen when you have belly pain will tell the doctor different things than an ultrasound of your abdomen.

An MRI is more specific but prohibitively expensive, which is why the cheaper tests are done first.

There is an art to medical imaging reading that, again, takes years to learn.

And even then the picture can be fuzzy.

I was going to write kind of like tea leaves and augury (mucking about in entrails) to tell the future but medical imaging is hard science, not telling the future.

I will absolutely bring up your pictures, but unless there is a helpful arrow drawn on by the radiologist, I have very limited experience to draw upon.

I am better with x-rays of bone.

I haven’t written yet today for the simple reason that all the papers have been turned in. I’ve written 56,271 words for November. And my brain is completely empty after turning in two 20+ page papers in the last two days.

This word count is for lecture notes, notes from readings, rough drafts, actual papers, and blog posts.

I know this because I kept track because November is National Novel Writing Month, where writers try to write 50,000 words.

I’ve participated in NaNo, as it is colloquially called, for years with original fiction. I wrote Calling in Dead, which is about a road trip with a scientist who is becoming a zombie who is trying to get to the cure while trying to outrun the hunters who want to kill the partial zombie. I wrote Gabriel’s Gate, which is about a politically connected detective agency in Maryland. I worked on Occupational Hazard, which is about a serial killer in the OR.

I have to say, after being a working nurse during a pandemic, about a virus, makes me kinda reconsider the zombie virus. It just hits differently.

The overall point of this blog post is that it is okay to admit your brain is empty after the end of the semester.

Just look at what you’ve done over the semester.

Books that have been read.

Papers that have been written.

Tests that have been taken.

Be proud of yourself for all that you’ve accomplished.

After finals put away the schoolbooks.

Enjoy the holidays if you participate.

Enjoy the time off if you don’t.

Spring semester will be here before you know it.

Yes, the title is clunky.

It is meant to convey that there are crispy fried jalapenos in the cookie dough.

The fan favorite of the OR. 95% of OR approved.

There is always going to be a few outliers. Statistics has taught me that.

This is the final Thursday of the Something from Nothing November theme. Where I use random ingredients from my pantry.

Today is the container of fried jalapenos that I bought from Trader Joe’s.

I was wondering if they could cookie. And they can.

It is a more subtle taste than fresh or dried jalapenos.

Let’s see if they like them.

This is a short post because this is four days into my own hiatus.

Off to work on the final paper!

Have you heard from nursing lately? How do we, as one of the largest labor forces, lose our voice?

You haven’t heard much from us as a group. Not much has been said. Because the loud makes right crowd are shouting us down and taking all the oxygen in the room.

But we have to realize as a group, we are bigger than them. And what we have to say matters just as much as what the loud makes right group has to say.

The different people in the group have different voices, true. But speaking together we can drown out the anti-science noise that is going on.

Or the anti-woman noise.

Or the anti- this is confusing to me and therefore I am scared so I shout louder noise.

Or the anti-I don’t like this choice so you can’t have this choice noise.

Or the anti-I don’t like this book so you can’t read this book noise.

Definitely the anti-abortion noise.

But people are beginning to understand the effects of all this noise has on people.

Women are dying.

LGBTQ+ people are dying.

People who just want to live life the way they choose are being impacted.

Books are not dying but personal choice to read what you want is being impacted.

Again, women are dying. Especially black women who are just trying to give birth and survive to raise their children.

Babies who cannot survive out of the womb are being tortured and then dying.

Shhhh.

Stop the noise.

Let people live.

It is the end of the semester, and Dispatches from the Evening Shift is going on a brief hiatus. Until December 2 because I have 2 big final papers to finish and submit for class.

Because I would rather write Dispatches than some of the school stuff.

I could write ahead and stockpile posts.

But I have never done that.

I do have draft posts that never made it into the world for a variety of reasons. I felt that a few are too mean, or too topical, or not time-separated from the actual event I am writing about.

I will be posting some of those instead.

Starting for Tuesday Top of Mind.

So, really, It is only three regularly scheduled posts that are going to be affected.

Four including this one.

I know that I have been struggling with Post-it Sundays for the past couple of months. I have been taking Sundays to prepare for my long, long, long Mondays, but tomorrow is the last Monday! The Skin, a memoir by you, series that I’ve been posting on Sundays will be continuing soon.