oops.

nearly forgot.

Thursday’s Cookie Thursday is a Thing cookie was lemon lime.

This was entirely my recipe.

I am so proud.

It was also lemony and limey and had rave reviews.

What?

I hardly ever eat the cookies.

This month was the brain wave that since these are donations to my department I should be writing off the supplies.

And today’s flash of the obvious was I should also be writing off my time baking.

Duh!

good thin I haven’t finished my taxes.

(shakes head sadly)

Yeah, I had a rough Sunday.

And a rough start to this week.

I was dreading the “talk” with my managers, about the stress I am putting on my coworkers by being too efficient at call and at work.

So much so that I promptly burst into tears when I was called in to the office on Wednesday.

Damn my over active tear ducts.

They wanted to talk to me about something completely unrelated.

Okay then.

But before that I decided that I, at 45 years old, and a working nurse of 20 years, needed a little comfort in my work bag.

It is not liquor.

I do not drink.

It is not drugs.

I do not do drugs either.

Instead.

I decided to add a little stuffed animal to my work bag.

A little stuffed hedgehog.

So, what?

It makes me smile.

And keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Apparently I am too good at call.

I am too efficient.

I get the cases moving expeditiously.

I come in, schedule the case, pick the case, get the patient, prep the patient, do the case, call the PACU, cleanup after the case.

Rinse, repeat, PRN.

And I intimidate people with my efficiency.

People don’t like to take call with me because I expect them to, you know, work.

At least that is the latest rumor going about.

I ask them to do too much.

So much extra.

Like, their job.

The one they get paid for.

What the actual fuck?

to be continued.

I am too upset right now.

Yes, Thursday was 2 days ago.

No, I haven’t added my Cookie Thursday is a Thing post for this week.

Citrus month is in full swing.

This week I made ricotta grapefruit cookies.

This was interesting.

Ricotta is such a neutral cheese.

By that I mean it can be savory or sweet.

Grapefruit is a citrus.

A strong tasting citrus.

I thought this would be more flavorful than it was.

The grapefruit flavor came through, but it was muted by the ricotta, I think.

I hate making frosting.

No reason, it’s just obnoxious to me when I make it.

This cookie needed a frosting topper.

Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and a lot of powdered sugar.

I ended up using 3 times the juice to even get a spreadable frosting.

And then I put the frosting in a bowel and placed it next to the cookies and let people decide how much frosting, if any, they wanted.

People seemed to like it.

An anesthesiologist was disappointed when he didn’t get a cookie.

But he didn’t check the drawer they live in.

So he didn’t get a cookie.

We had a late case and I had to call in the call PACU nurses.

One of them was unfamiliar to me and I introduced myself to her.

I had given report and was about to leave and I turned back and told her about Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

She said that she had the cookie this week and it was awesome.

She also said no one told her about the cookies. That she thought it was a joke.

Until she noticed, on Thursday, someone opening the cookie drawer.

And there were fresh baked cookies in there.

And now she checks the drawer before she leaves on Thursdays.

I told her that the cookies don’t get there before 1430, because that is the time I get to work.

And she asked, shocked, “The cookies are yours?”

This tickled me.

And I told both the PACU nurses that next week’s cookie was going to be a lemon-lime flavor.

Finishing citrus month like a boss.

I double booked myself.

I was signing up for vaccine clinic spots.

I’m kind of worried about the decreasing demands for vaccines.

But that’s a story for another time.

I was happily signing up for vaccine clinic slots.

I was checking my calendar.

I KNEW May 1st had something on it but I had not written it down.

So I signed up.

And then when I was in the middle of prepping a leg for surgery it hit me.

May 1st was graduation.

You know, from grad school.

Damn.

And I has already told the college I would be attending.

I had to cancel on the vaccine clinic slot.

Which I feel badly about.

But, graduation!

I hope I can remember where I put the gown.

I know where the cap is.

Tonight we had a spot of busy.

Within 20 minutes there were two add ons.

Surgeon A calls them in.

One critical who was in the ED, and one urgent who was in the office.

But the surgeon who called me was not going to be the surgeon of record as their call was ending in 19 minutes.

Okay, I said, send the urgent patient over and we’ll get her registered and we’ll send for the critical patient and have them ready to go within 50 minutes.

They ring off.

As I am coordinating this, the surgeon of record calls and tells me he has an appy.

Okay, I tell him, but what about these two other cases, one critical and one urgent.

He had no knowledge of the two cases that were already on the board from surgeon A.

Surgeon B says well, I will talk to the off going guy and get the information. But I want to do the appy first.

Okay. This is actually sound reasoning as it is the quickest of the three and the easiest to prep. I think the critical patient will take the longest to prep and can be done during the appy.

The line up now looks like appy, critical patient, urgent patient.

I am writing these up, posting them, calling the anesthesiologist and the CRNA, normal stuff.

I go and get the patient from the ED we have a chance of making the critical patient within the hour.

I get the appy to the pre-op drop them off.

I check in with the team in the room.

There is a resident who is assisting surgeon B. They inform me that critical case is cancelled as they are no longer critical.

Sigh of relief.

Now there is an appendix and an urgent case.

Cool.

I undo some of what I already did.

They finish the appy, I was making sure that the new nurse in the appy does not feel abandoned and I was backing them up from the core, trying not to do the entire case for them.

Appy is done.

Urgent case shows up and is done.

Dropping the urgent case in the PACU, surgeon B comes in looking sheepish.

I squint at him suspiciously.

There is a second appy.

I look at the PACU nurses, both of whom have their own patients to recover and discharge.

I know there is no reason for me not to prep them, rather than wait for the PACU nurses to recovery and discharge.

I tell the anesthesia team and go off to the ED to pick up appy #2.

I prep appy #2.

I text and call the tech with no response.

The CRNA comes in and tells me the room that we are going to be doing the appy in is still dirty.

I excuse myself from the patient and go to find the tech, who was finishing up his lunch.

The tech is dumbfounded as both surgeon B and the anesthesiologist have walked past him.

And said NOTHING.

sigh.

Nothing like being welcomed back.

Yay!

Back to work.

People seem disappointed when I express glee at being back to work.

They ask me about my vacation.

I read.

A lot.

Many books.

I played computer.

A lot.

In the current ‘season’ of the game I play I leveled my new character through four chapters in the game.

This means I went through 30+ levels that got progressively harder.

No I didn’t go anywhere.

My husband is between vaccinations, with 10 days until his second one.

So, no I didn’t go anywhere.

I didn’t do half of what I planned.

Oh, well.

This week I will work on trying to finish what I started.

You know, in between call and work and the vaccine administration clinic I am volunteering for.

Not sure what I will pledge to do.

I’ll pick something.

Productivity.

Productivity is such an ugly word.

Productivity is defined, by Merriam Webster, as the quality or state of being productive, or the rate per unit area or the unit volume at which consumables is made by producers.

To the OR bosses it means the units of hours worked per case volume.

If the case volume isn’t there, there should be less people working.

I understand this. If there are 6 cases in a 8 room OR department then the staffing needs would be minimal.

Unless they are all starting at the same time, such as first case starts.

But then what do the staff do in the rest of their 8/10/12 hours?

Do you send them home?

And hope they have PTO to cover the shortfall.

This is what the department does.

Often, there are people wanting to go home.

So day shift lets them.

But what if the people you are sending home are scheduled to work into the evening shift?

Do you strip the evening shift of the option of running more than 1 room at a time?

And what if the evening suddenly gets busier, as been known to happen, a lot?

And the evening shift could have used the extra room to great advantage.

Or does the day shift doom the evening shift into working WAY past their go home time?

Sometimes.

Would it not be more useful to cut people at the beginning of the shift?

To move their start time by a couple of hours, and have them come in at 1030.

I have posited this and the response is “What if there is an add on in the morning?”

My answer is “What if there is an add on after you’ve let my other 2 evening nurses and techs go home?”

Exactly.

Nearly done with vacation.

Still do not idle well.

I have reached great heights in my game.

I am enjoying it very much.

I was not very productive this week though.

But sometimes you have to give yourself a mental break.

Especially after this year.

The main thing got done, which is the “inspection” of the house.

And all the reading!

Must do this again sometime.

Tomorrow, I start call at 1900.

And if history is accurate.

I will be called in sometime after that.

I certainly am boring myself.

The outside of the house inspection was today.

I made it as cleaned up as I could.

And I put out my giant, bright pink “Hero Nurse Lives Here.”

Not for all day.

I’m not crazy.

Just from 0900-1700.

And then I brought it in.

This week has not be a bang up go on the tentative plans I had for the week.

I am doing something every day.

And then a great deal of reading.

I love to read.

I am also looking at the news A LOT.

No, I don’t know why.

My shared governance council meeting cancelled today.

So I read.

No, I do not idle well.

Why do you ask?

This evening I will continue to wade through all the given to me books, culling out the ones I do want to read.

I will continue to work on that.

I will also continue to work on the garage, maybe.

I don’t know.

I may just read.