Depending on who you ask nurses should be celebrated every day. There is Florence Nightingale’s birthday on May 12, and there is Nurse’s Day on May 6th. And the ANA wants us to celebrate the entire month.

Remember last time they wanted to celebrate the entire YEAR? And what a year it was!

Granted this was 2020. And we all know what started that year.

I’m good with a week.

Nurses remain the top trusted job in the United States.

However, the profession has slipped to 79%. We are still the most trusted. But the number is dipping.

I blame social media. And the anti-vaxxers.

Both, it is both driving down the number. And the killer nurse in the UK, and the increased media spotlight on honest to goodness human mistakes that happen when you are staffing a hospital 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Every single nurse I have ever had the pleasure to work with deserves accolades. Even the ones I didn’t and still don’t care for.

Raise a glass to those nurses who line up to care for the ones who need it. And do all the jobs that others won’t do, because they are hard, and sometimes gross, and can be soul-sucking. Who continually seek out learning and enrichment, not for advancement or to get off the nursing floor. But because we care. \

Not you, nurses in Florida who bought their diplomas without putting in the hours studying and the hours learning how to care for hospital patients. You, you should be ashamed of yourselves. We all know you aren’t and see nothing wrong in what you did. But try.

To the other nurses, raise a glass and toast your coworkers and yourselves. Healthcare would not be the same without us.

The phone note reads “Last time Kate was sick was August 2014, last time Kate called out sick was when she had shingles in DC in 2008.”

knock on wood

That is 15 years of not calling in sick.

The streak is broken.

Ruined.

I had to call in sick on Tuesday night because I had food poisoning. And the hospital frowns upon working under those kind of GI conditions.

Heck, I frown upon it too.

Hence the call out.

It had been so long since I had done it, I had to ask my manager how to call out.

And the thing about food poisoning? It is normally a short-term duration illness. I was back to normal on Wednesday. But the no call out streak is still in ruins on the ground.

Rude.

Nothing to do but start again.

And hope that it wasn’t the tipping point inviting all the buggies in. Because you know that OR nurses are superstitious. And Friday night was a honker of a full moon.

Today it has been 5 days since I had to call out sick.

Every streak has to start somewhere.

End of Spring semester was last week.

Thank goodness.

This is legit the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my academic career.

My husband says if a PhD was easy, everyone would do it.

I know, I know, I know.

It’s still hard.

But end of Spring semester marks the end of Year 1.

One down, two to go.

Summer off though. By that, I mean no classes. I am going to be doing a graduate assistant thingy for 6 weeks. From home. Cheerleading those in the RN to BSN bridge program. And keeping their spirits up.

The grades just came through for the statistics class. Don’t ask me how I pulled out a 90.1%. Lots of late nights, study sessions, reading, oh the reading. A few tears, too, I am not ashamed to admit.

Some things, like statistics, are unknowable.

That leaves me with 1 B + and 2 As.

Phew.

And an awareness and acceptance of my shortcomings.

I have the chair picked out for my dissertation committee.

I have ideas of who else to choose.

I have a better idea of what I want to research.

And a plan for Year 2, starting in just a few weeks.

As I told my PhD cohort over our group text this morning when the stats grades were dropped, “The only way out is through.”

Finally!

Thursday is on May 4.

Those of you not complete geeks the fourth of May is Star Wars Day.

It’s a play on words.

A pun, if you would.

A day when geeks like me wear tee shirts, or cosplay, or greet each other with “May the Fourth Be With You.”

This year’s celebration is striking a bit different with the Evil Empire trying to enforce their will on the populace and the rebels striking back.

It is up to you to determine who the Evil Empire is. But there are broad hints in the stifling of voices and the banning of books. And the control of women, by any means necessary, to keep their iron grip on the people. Regardless of how the people feel about it.

Even my state has joined the idiocy. As an OR nurse, I have already seen the impact of desperate women doing desperate things to try to stay alive. And children whose voices are being silenced and they are not being listened to when they tell adults they can trust that there is something wrong.

But, hey, you do you.

Me, I’ll keep fighting and writing and speaking up for those who are being silenced. And slaughtered.

Mothers who are being told they must be sick unto death before their child who is dead already, or cannot survive outside the womb and is actively trying to kill them can be terminated.

But don’t worry, the Evil Empire will still try to convince the gullible that Democrats want to kill a baby in the womb up to term. I’ll say it again, not louder because no one responds to that, but more emphatically.

THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN.

EVER.

But it makes a handy little fairy tale, doesn’t it?

Stop torturing people so you can force all progress since WWII to cease.

Or, worse, the children who decide to end their own lives over this buffoonery. Or the children who you want born into suffering. Because goodness knows that once a child is born, they are the parent’s sole responsibility.

It’s my little corner of the Rebellion.

This week’s make are candy-coated pretzel rods aka light sabers.

There are red light sabers for evil and power.

There are blue light sabers for justice and protection.

There are green light sabers for peace through force when necessry.

Monday night was very surreal.

I got a call from the nursing supervisor, asking me to call a doctor who was with a patient in the ICU that needed surgery.

And they tried the pager but could not get through.

It was on my bedside table, right next to me, but sure.

Okay, weird flex, but sure.

I called the number she gave me.

It was a PA, waiting for the surgeon, wanting to get the OR ready for an emergent case.

Before the surgeon had even been to evaluate the patient.

I assured him that the OR team would prep the room, but hold off opening until they called me back.

I alerted the call tech, got dressed and headed in.

I scheduled the case, picked the case, and started reading up on the patient, labs, doctor’s notes, nurses’ notes. And the PA called me back as the scrub tech entered the core. They told me that the surgeon decided to transfer the patient to a higher level of care instead.

After reading what I had, I agreed. I didn’t tell them that but the patient would get more comprehensive care at the main hospital downtown. Our OR could’ve handled the surgery, no question about it, but the aftercare would be key. After hanging up with them, I told the scrub tech that the case was canceled. I said that I was sorry she’d driven in and to be safe driving home.

And then I reversed what I had done. I took the booking sheet, and wrote CX, PT TX to MH. This means that the case was canceled, and the patient transferred to the bigger hospital. (You know, I got reports that day shift still bitched that we left the case supplies on a table with the note. You can’t please some people.)

I called the anesthesia team and told them the patient was being transferred. And then I called the nursing supervisor back to tell her to anticipate transferring this patient. And then I asked what they had done when the pager “failed” on them. I quote the word fail because I don’t think they paged correctly. She said it had just beeped.

And it all became clear.

This is probably a generational gap thing.

Surgeons, people who grew up in the 80s and 90s and even the early aughts know how to work a pager. There are no prompts, there used to be, it depends on the service provider.

I would surmise that the PA called the pager number, got beeped at, and hung up, thinking it had malfunctioned.

Tips for using a pager- dial the pager number, wait for the beeps, put in a call back number, hit pound to send the page. Hang up. Wait for call back.

We all do it, well, some of us. Pack lunches, that is. A little of this, a little of that. The leftovers from last night, which would make it 2 days old when you have it for lunch the next day.

It is a time hack that is employed. If we make lunches the night before a day of work, we don’t have to think about it the next morning during the crush of getting ourselves, and children, or husbands, off to daycare, school, or work.

I packed my lunch last night. Today is my last RA day of the Spring semester. I halved some cherry tomatoes, sliced up some cucumber (I much prefer it to lettuce for sandwiches), added bacon from Friday’s breakfast in a small container, sliced up some bread to tie it all together. Made a perfect desk BLT. I also added a mandarin, and some chocolate animal crackers. And the rest of the veggies. And a glass for water. All set to go.

The last thing I put in my lunch box was a carrot applesauce mixture. Why? As an extra veggie? I don’t know, I don’t even like carrots.

The bacon was crisping up a bit in the microwave when I found the carrot applesauce and was dumbfounded anew.

It did prompt a conversation with the admin assistant of the department on sometimes we don’t feel like the lunch that we packed the night before.

And it got me to thinking. I’ve been an off shifter for most of my working life. Sometimes last night’s lunch makes just don’t hit right. But, as an OR nurse I shrug and eat is anyway, food is fuel. And the OR the battlefield.

I ate the lunch because I’d packed it and I hate eating out of the vending machines. I know that this is a college town and there are more places to eat, designed for the young appetite just a stone’s throw away.

But, eh, I’ll just have my desk BLT. And mandarin. And animal crackers. Like the adult I am.

The carrot applesauce is still in my lunch box. Maybe I’ll save it for the ride home. It is in a pouch and easily eaten/drunk.

Maybe not.

In celebration of it being my last drive to the university, I had a chocolate malt.

I’ve been talking about, and living through, the end of the semester.

It is a harrowing time. No matter the grade you have, there is always the concern that it is not good enough and you will fail. Your student may be fractious and snappy and not sleeping. The best thing you can do is support the student.

But if the end of the semester classes have all finished, the last papers are in, and the last tests have been done, don’t forget to take time to celebrate the ending of another semester.

Take a walk and see that thing called sun that everyone is always going about.

Take a nap, goodness knows the student hasn’t been getting enough sleep. Go to bed early and sleep in, if you can.

Take yourself out to eat, ditto on the spotty nutrition that the student may have been enjoying or not enjoying the last couple of weeks.

Take a moment and just be.

Don’t forget to thank those who have made the end of the semester, which is always an icky time, a little easier.

Take the day off from doing anything. The real world will be waiting soon enough. But this is the time to relax. Whether the journey is ending with this semester (congratulations, BTW), or there are just a few weeks before the start of summer school, or another semester, it will all still be waiting for you and today you should be about you.

The life admin that has not been happening, dirty bathrooms and dirty clothes will be here waiting when you get back. This is doubly true if you are an adult learner and back in school again and are in the workforce.

Take a break. You need it.

It is the last week of Spring! has Sprung theme. I’ve been wanting to do a lemon cookie for a while now. And today is a good day for it.

It is overcast and rainy. Best kind of day to spread a little sunshine in cookie form.

As for me, I am struggling mightily with my final paper in theory class. My mom, who I remind you is also an OR nurse, tells me that OR nurses are too pragmatic and centered to be concerned with theory. Our world is not dissimilar to the “There is a fracture, I have to fix it” comic I wrote about months ago. There is a problem, do not fill my mind with things that can’t be seen or acted upon and that I cannot impact. No wonder I am having such trouble with theory. It is also not fun that I picked a very indefinable topic such as resilience. You see, I brought this on myself. Why? I am wondering that more with every class. I hope that the Fall semester, if I survive, will be kinder and less mind-bending. One of my three classes is quantitative research, something less abstract and more numbers based. Yeah, I’m hypocritical on numbers. Did you not see that coming?

Definitely in the mood and need sunshine cookies.

I used old reliable, the Toll House basic cookie. With a twist.

Instead of vanilla, I used lemon extract. And the juice of half a lemon. And I just had the flash of obvious that I am waiting for in my class, I should have used the zest of that lemon as well. It will just have to do.

Cookie Thursday is a Thing is all about experimentation, after all.

And I really want to do a study on the effect of free baked goods on morale and retention. The idea got shot down for my dissertation, but I can do it after. If there is an after.

I think I will name these the Sunshine Cookies.

Bright, buttery, lemony, with the sharp surprise of the dried cranberry.

Next time I will use dried blueberries. I bet that would be awesome.

And it would allow Cookie Thursday is a Thing to remain experimental. Even if it can’t be the subject of my dissertation.

Enough gloom, there is enough of it outside.

I’m going to have a cookie.

Since last summer a large group of us, across the entire corporation, has been meeting virtually to reboot shared governance.

There has been so much volatility in the nursing workforce. This person left because of covid, that person left because traveling, those people left because of then required covid vaccinations.

The list goes on.

And then the hospitals started to poach from each other. Each offering more and more money. And more people left.

Some have returned, others have not. And we are filling out some units with travelers. Still.

I’ve been involved with shared governance since 2015. Before I started my education journey.

I’ve been involved on every level.

To simply put, shared governance is the information highway to the executive suite from the bedside. And vice versa.

I’ve been involved with some amazing things. I’ve led every single level available, bedside, hospital, regional, and corporate.

And covid hurt us a lot.

In more ways than one.

But there is a new corporate initiative to reboot shared governance. And remake it to something that is user-friendly, and includes every level of nursing. Including the medical office groups. They have been lacking, not to want of trying from us.

It was an honor to be on the committee for the reboot.

And we are nearly ready to roll out.

Just in time for nurses’ week 2023.

Who is gonna tell them that my hospital never stopped meeting? Or is that why there are several of us on the committee?

To speak truth to power is important.

And so is telling the emperor that he has no clothes on and not being afraid of reprisal.

I am still very much involved in shared governance as we rebuild.

I hope it works.

We are told time and time and time and time and time again.

And time.

Trust the process.

What does even mean?

To my surprise, the term is attributed to a professional basketball player, Sam Hinkie, in 2013.

I thought it was older than that.

At its basic, it means things may look bad now, but there is a plan in place to make it all better.

Very true about many things.

Currently, I am finding it true about the PhD process.

There is a carefully thought out curriculum. These difficult classes are front loaded for a reason.

At least, that is what I tell myself.

Because my brain always goes back to school. And these difficult, dense classes. Because school is never far from my thoughts.

I am going to trust the process. Will I survive? Who knows? I’ll let you know next week. Or the week after. But I am feeling good about my chances.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get out of my own way for this last presentation and paper.

Because my own worse enemy is my mind.

In happier news, one of my favorite podcast presenters is starting a daily fun of the day, a short feel good podcast to get your mind going. Starting next Monday, May 1. I’ll be listening.

After I write this paper and make this presentation. We’ll see.

What happened to my Pollyanna Puke persona? The PhD program happened to it.

I am going to trust the process and we’ll see.