24-bbbbrrrraaaaiiinnssss

I was going to write about something completely different for this Tuesday Top of Mind. I had it written and everything but posted.

And then Arizona’s Supreme Court upheld an 1864 anti-abortion law, making it the law of Arizona.

A near-total abortion ban.

Okay. I see what you did there.

They resurrected a zombie law. A law that is technically still on the books but hasn’t been enforced in DECADES.

This completely dismisses more than half of their population. Because in 1864 women couldn’t 1) vote 2) hold office 3) hold property 4) hold a job 5) have a bank account. No women voted for it. Because they couldn’t. Women didn’t gain the right to vote in Arizona until 1912.

I am so incandescent with rage about this further degradation of women’s bodily autonomy and rights.

This zombie law has lurched back to life, aided by those who seek to control women and is now going to be fed the blood of those who it tortures. The women who request abortions and the often doomed children they are seeking to protect. Just like Texas. Just like Tennessee. Just like Florida. Just like any other state that has passed anti-abortion bills since the overturning of Roe v Wade and the Dobbs decision.

This is what Justices Alito and Thomas were signaling when they brought up the Comstock law against mailing indecent and lewd things in the mail during arguments about the legality of mailing mifepristone through the mail. You know, the abortion pill. The Comstock law hasn’t been enforced since the 1930s. I remember when it was bandied about when Larry Flynt was on trial for distributing lewd magazines in the 1970s and 1980s. That magazine was Hustler, among others. If I remember correctly, that is why magazines such as these started to be shipped in brown paper wrapping. To protect the eyes, you know.

Eye roll.

Cruelty and control are their endgame.

They don’t care about the potential child. They just want to control women and bring them to heel because we dare to think that we are people in our own right. With our own rights. With our own ideas. With our own bodily autonomy.

Cruelty is the point.

Control is the endgame.

Also endgame is to have the hard-won rights of women rolled back to when we could be controlled. If that ever was a thing.

This is what the attack on no-fault divorce is about.

This is what the attack on abortion rights is about.

This is what the attack on women’s bodily autonomy is about.

This is what the upcoming attack on birth control is about.

I’ve been writing and marching about it for years.

Increasing the birth rate of WHITE women by WHITE men is the ultimate goal.

This is and always has been about control and cruelty.

This is where being a Cassandra really sucks. No one believes us.

Gah!!!

School Me Saturday 4/6/24-Down the rabbit hole

Being in school very often results in having to do research. This can be for a paper, or a discussion post, or for a class. Students are always doing research. You trot on down to the library, at the college or other, and you, hopefully, engage in conversation with a research librarian.

These magical creatures exist to aid students. Kind of like the kindly shopkeeper or the stray magical beast who gives you the answer to your quest.

Except being in college is not an adventure game. I mean, it is, but not that kind.

Let’s pretend it is the middle of the night and the library is CLOSED!

And the assignment is due tomorrow!

What then?

For a student in this situation, there is probably an online version of the school library.

There is also Google Scholar. Warning, many of the literature hits from Google Scholar is open source. Which may mean they paid to get their article published. It is still a good option though, and better than plain Google.

But the clock is ticking and the assignment is getting hot. You enter your search terms in Google Scholar or the library, and this results in 4,332,662 hits. Far, far too many. This is where you start refining your search question and publication date. Often, schools only want literature or research from the last 5 years.

Through judicious refining, you only have 15 articles to read. You start reading the titles and find that they have little to do with your original search. But they are interesting and you keep reading.

And reading.

And finding.

And reading.

And finding.

Suddenly it is dawn and you can use absolutely none of the articles that you’ve found. You wanted to find articles about prohibition and suddenly you are reading about they made wine in 500 A.D.

This is the research rabbit hole.

You just keep digging yourself deeper in search of good stuff and all you are finding is not usable for this paper/assignment.

Research is a skill.

But even the research librarian has gone down the rabbit hole. Just ask them.

You are still going to go down rabbit holes. Being aware of the possibility of a fruitless search lets you make decisions about what to read and boundaries to put on your search.

Seriously though, reach out to the research librarian at the school. Or at the actual library in your town. They will have strategies to help.

Cookie Thursday 4/4/24- millionaire shortbread

Welcome to April in Cookie Thursday is a Thing. The theme for the month is the Taxman Cometh. Appropriate for April, no?

No, our taxes are not done. I wanted to get through the two assignments due this week. And then I’ll do the taxes. I have all the documents.

We always pay and with the 2017 tax breaks sunsetting for normal Americans who are not rich, I am anticipating a big bill. Even though I am in school that should theoretically offset some of that.

Some of my coworkers who have children are finding out they have to pay federal taxes for the first time. I remind them that since we are not the wealthy ones that Congress is so concerned about they put an end date to the 2017 tax breaks. A reminder that the corporate tax breaks do not have an end date. Makes you wonder about your worth as an American, doesn’t it?

This week’s make is the millionaire shortbread. This is a triple-layer cookie. There is a shortbread base, a caramel center, and a chocolate topping.

As always, I have thoughts. I should have scored the chocolate when it was half-set. I think then the caramel layer wouldn’t squish out as much. Because the caramel layer didn’t set appropriately.

The cookies are still delicious. Messy, but delicious.

Let’s talk sterile consciousness-what it is and what it is not

Sterile consciousness is defined as being acutely aware of potential or actual contamination of the sterile field or object and taking steps to remedy the break.

You want surgeries to be as sterile as possible; as a patient, and as a surgical team member. There is a LOT of work done to keep it so.

A break in sterility happens when there is an inadvertant introduction of something non sterile into the sterile field. This can be a tear in the drapes, this can be a puncture from a blade being opened in the wrong area, this can be stray hair in the sterile instrument tray, or when people where their surgical cap in a messy manner with hair hanging out everywhere.

Many things can break the sterile field.

Today, I want to write about the sterile caskets. These are the hard metal containers that the instrument tray is sterilized and stored in. Some of these caskets have single-use filters that must be replaced in the bottom and the top. This is so steam can penetrate the instruments during the steam sterilization process.

You with me so far?

The filters themselves can be inserted incorrectly. There can be missing filters. There can be punctures in the filters from incorrect storage or from loose instruments in the casket. There can be folds in the filters. All of these instances render them unsterile.

If in doubt, sterility has been compromised and another tray must be opened. Hard and fast rule in any of the ORs I’ve worked in.

During the case opening process, the scrub tech does not continue set up and will stand there holding the instrument tray until the filters in the bottom of the casket can be checked for holes. Don’t wander off during this time, your scrub tech will not appreciate it as they are literally left holding the bag.

This next break in sterility has been reported to me. The scrub tech was holding the instrument tray, waiting impatiently for the circulator to reach into the casket, pull out and inspect the filters. Normal right? Yeah, the scrub tech placed the sterile instrument set BACK INTO THE NO LONGER STERILE CASKET and was picking instruments that they wanted out of the tray. No recognition that the entire instrument tray had been contaminated and must be taken away to be re-processed and protesting when the circulator told them it was now contaminated.

That is what I mean about breaks in sterile consciousness.

Don’t do this.

The OR is complicated.

Tuesday Top of Mind 4/2/24-what fresh hell is there now?

The questionis what fresh hell is there now?

Well.

So much.

Republicans are still bitter that it is no longer the 1950s and women have rights and bank accounts and our own money. Therefore they are enacting laws to get us back there. When they mattered because money is power and women had none.

Apparently some women want to get back there. There is even a small movement around it. The Trad Wife. Or Stay At Home Girlfriend.

But do they really? Do they want to do all the chores without modern conveniences such as vacuum cleaners? Or dishwashers? And bake the bread from scratch. All the bread. And make all the dinners from scratch. And not have any other their own money in case the man in question no longer wants a stay at home wife/girlfriend because maybe a new little cutie has caught their eye. Maybe the new one would like to be a stay at home whatever.

No. I would hazard a guess that they want to be taken care of by a rich person. Where they don’t have to think about the money that is spent. Where they don’t have to pay X bill this month and hope that Y company does not cut off service for non-payment. Where they don’t have to wonder how to stretch the grocery budget this week for all the demands that the sugar person had. Where their only job is to look good.

Kind of hollow that life. It is kind of like the food that looks so appetizing in the store and tastes like sawdust.

Be careful what you wish for.

Don’t give up what control you have. Don’t let them take it away from you, no matter what they promise.

Instead of the gold ring, you might end up with a green finger.

Post-it Sunday 3/31/23-milestone post

This is from a message from WordPress, which is the platform this blog is on, specifically from the Jetpack, which is where I get messages and can write and share posts.

The message was Dispatches from the Evening Shift (that’s this blog) has had ONE THOUSAND POSTS.

One thousand posts like Post-it Sundays.

One thousand posts like Tuesday Top of Mind, previously Monday Musings.

One thousand posts like Cookie Thursday is a Thing.

One thousand posts like School Me Saturday.

One thousand posts like Wednesdays, which don’t have a name, but each is about the OR or hospital life.

This blog has been active since 2017. Through my MSN, through my PhD program.

Through being a working nurse during the fucking pandemic!

I just wanted to share that.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

School Me Saturday 3/30/24-Twas brillig, and the slithy toves…

I’ve decided to start a small series for School Me Saturday.

The title is taken From the Jabberwocky if that is any hint.

This series will be based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

It is spring and I think this is a good time to highlight the strange, wonderful world of higher education. Through Lewis Carroll and his zany books.

We will meet creatures such as the Dormouse, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and, of course, Alice herself. Delilah might have a cameo as well.

Who’s Delilah? Watch the movie. Spoiler, she was the kitten that Alice followed at the beginning.

Of course, we can’t forget the Cheshire cat.

Next week, I will be writing about the danger of rabbit holes and how not to fall down them, or at least how to get yourself out of them. A la Alice.

If you know, you know.

But don’t drink or eat anything strange. Even if they are labeled eat me and drink me.

Cookie Thursday 3/28/24-the ApocaPEEP

This is the final week of Well, That Was Easy March. And the week before Easter.

At this time the surgical schedule is kind of hit and miss. It all depends on where the doctors’ kids go to school and where their spring break falls.

This is also the fourth day of my new antibiotic (third one!) and I needed an easy make.

Enter the PEEPS.

For those who don’t know, the peep candy is a marshmallow body that is covered in sugar crystal, with two itty bitty wax eyes.

You either love them or hate them.

Me, I love them. I am enabled in my love for them too.

I long wondered if I could use the peep in a rice crispy treat. And you totally can!

But as I learned in the execution, you have to choose your peep colors carefully. I used what I had; pink, yellow, and blue. Eh, it was all I had. I kind of expected the end result to be gray.

Nope!

Very much in keeping with Dispatches from the Evening Shift and its war tone, where healthcare is a war and we are all on the frontline, the peeps turned out camo? Blotches of pink, yellow, and blue.

Very cool.

Tuesday Top of Mind 3/26/24-old song, new verse

On this Tuesday I am struck by the US measles rate. In the last three months, there have been 64 suspected cases in the US. According to the CDC, this is in 17 states and surpasses the total number of cases in 2023, which was 58. FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR! And there have been 64 in 85 days. How high can the number go in the next 280 days?

Like Covid, the answer is the same. Vaccination. The MMR, measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine that has been given to millions of people. If not billions. The same titer that I have had to have drawn at every level of schooling: ADN, BSN, MSN, and PhD. To make sure that I was not a danger to my classmates and that I was not in danger from the very random person who has those diseases. I also got the booster in the 1990s.

If another booster was deemed appropriate today I would roll up my sleeves. Right now.

Like Covid, the reason is the same. People who are against vaccines. For a variety of reasons. I don’t really care what your reasons are. I have heard them all.

You know what I read that was jaw-droppingly stupid? That the Florida surgeon general, whose state is enduring part of the measles wave, said it was okay to send your children to school even if they have measles. Oh, and the vaccinations? Not necessary.

Wall, meet head.

As the magazine Scientific American put it, this is a direct effect of the peddling of covid-era pattern of medical misinformation.

I will say it again, if you are against vaccination and part of the tide of cases that is threatening our herd immunity, your great-grandparents are spinning in their grave. They watched their children die and fought for vaccines. The same vaccines that have allowed us to build up the herd immunity that everyone enjoys. Even those assholes who think that they are not part of the herd but are enjoying the effects of our rolling up our sleeves and taking it for the good of humanity. Or allowing our children to be vaccinated so they are not in danger.

You might have been lucky and continue to be lucky, but what happens when your luck runs out?

Post-it Sunday 3/24/24-School or keeping up with family over video

The post-it reads “Zoom, Teams, and Skype, oh, my. How far we’ve come.”

Yes, I definitely heard Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh, my when I was writing it.

These are video conferencing platforms. Kind of like FaceTime but you don’t have to be in the same room.

I’ve done a version of these since about 2015 when I first started with shared governance. The meetings had a Skype option if you couldn’t get to the meetings. And it was easier to log into the meeting than drive to the meeting, fighting traffic, finding a parking spot. After 2020 most of the meetings were online through Zoom. And then the hospital got way into Microsoft 365, which has Teams.

Schools also use these platforms. During the pandemic, college and universities, and schools, all the way down to elementary, used a conference platforms for classes.

I could go through how not every child had access to 1) internet access, 2) a computer with a camera, or 3) an adult who was savvy enough to sign them on until they learned.

The pandemic forced us to take a leap forward in a lot of ways. Including classes, funerals, weddings, and the humble check-in with our families.

All of these platforms are still active, by the way.

But the university and the hospital use Teams.

Tips for all of the conference platforms

keep them updated
Be patient with the technology
Be patient with the people you are trying to connect with
Sometimes it just plain doesn’t work

In my readings for school, a qualitative project had 2 conference meetings for an interview. The first was to make sure that the technology all worked. I thought this was very smart and I did the same in the interview that I had to do. It was a dress rehearsal.

Before the main event.