The post-it reads “There should be a support group for those who have been harmed by a full moon.”

Yeah, I know the full moon was over a week ago. And I definitely wasn’t harmed by the moon because it was my night off.

But.

This is very true. Especially for the call team that had the full moon that was ALSO a lunar eclipse.

Talk about being double damned.

As a rule, the OR folk are superstitious.

Full moons.

Friday the 13th.

Step on a crack.

All sorts.

In my experience, there is something about a full moon.

Ask Labor and Delivery, they’ll tell you about the increase in labor. After all, the moon works on all bodies of water, including amniotic fluid.

Am I superstitious?

Yep.

The Q word that rhymes with riot is especially hated.

And a Facebook memory just reminded me of a pair of shoes that I got rid of years ago because of the undue influence on the schedule, call and otherwise.

Superstitions are okay. Breeds healthy skepticism and all that.

And if one more person whispers the Q word in my presence, I will absolutely let them have the consequences. I’ve recently broken my 15 year not calling in sick record, and I will again.

Nurse’s week is exhausting.

There is so much to do. Lunches and breakfasts and awards celebrations.

Blessings of hands, massages, and 2nd week of the month meetings.

Capped off with a nursing banquet.

Busy, busy.

I baked the cookie of the week on Wednesday because I knew that Thursday was jammed full of events.

In keeping with the Movie Magic theme of the month, I wanted to do a cookie that paid homage to one of the best movies encapsulating my generation.

I offered a choice to guide the decision-making process: Back to the Future or the Breakfast Club.

I was either going to make a 1950s nostalgia cookie or a cookie inspired by the 1980s movie. Depending on what people chose.

And at the end of the voting, the Breakfast Club was the clear winner.

Now, what cookie to make.

In the movie, there are 5 examples of the teenage trope: the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal. All in detention together. Bonds are formed, they drive the principal in charge of detention nuts. Good times.

There is a scene when all 5 are eating lunch together. The brain has the lunch packed by his mommy, the athlete has a calorie-laden meal to help with fitness, the princess has sushi. And the basket case, played by Ally Sheedy, makes a sandwich with Captain Crunch cereal and pixie sticks.

I know that cereal cookies are a thing. And have been done before. And I saw recipes for Rice Krispie treat marshmallow bars, using another sugary cereal. And an oatmeal-based cookie featuring another kind of cereal.

None of that was quite right.

And then I saw a different version of the cereal cookie. That used crushed cereal pieces AND a swirl of chocolate.

Definitely the recipe for this week’s make.

Except my chocolate swirl made all the cookies appear as if they were chocolate cookies when I mixed it in.

Oh, well, obviously they were well received.

I would be remiss if I did not note that today is International Nurse Day. And Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Obviously, the delay made sense.

Hug a nurse, with permission of course. We are the backbone of the medical profession.

At my hospital, we celebrate quarterly awards.

Throughout the quarter, nominations are gathered and the subjects are identified.

And usually, late in the second month of the next quarter, after the nominations are all tallied, and voted upon, there is an award’s celebration.

May is atypical. Those of us who oversee the awards process have two double time it to ensure that the awards are ready to be given out during the week’s celebration.

This past quarter there were 90 nominations. Nurses, and CNAs, and techs, and dietary, and environmental staff, and front desk staff were all represented.

During the thick of the pandemic, I think our smallest nomination haul was 17. Not that we weren’t providing a valuable and valued service, but no one had a moment or a brain cell to spare to conceptualize and nomination, let alone write one.

Tomorrow, we will be giving out all the awards. I have been writing the script for the presentation. Because we added a new award, that of the Daisy Leader. There have always been a few leader nominations, consistently, and the push was for our hospital to do a Daisy Leader award. This one won’t be quarterly, it will be twice a year.

Because the awards should be about the front-line staff. And those of us who have been at the bedside the entire pandemic.

We even had a student nomination this quarter, the first I believe. And a few nominations for trainee nurses.

Tomorrow, we raise a cinnamon roll to the memory of Patrick Barnes, whose family started the Daisy Foundation. The hospital started the other two awards, the Rose and the Sunshine, because nurses can’t do it alone. And it takes quite a few people to get patients home safe.

I’ll probably cry, I always do.

But we will celebrate those team members who have been singled out by their peers, and by the patients to celebrate them.

Collecting nominations for quarter 2 now.

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.