The three PhD nurse hill is the one I will scale.

I promise.

I get that these people are busy.

Although Omicron is waning, the floors are still hopping.

And the credentialing business is no joke.

I heard back from the CCI dude.

And sent him the required information that I had.

Although the school has ALL the information required.

I also circled back and spoke to the PhD program handler that this recommendation letter would be coming the grad school email address, as requested.

I also heard from the intended 3rd PhD nurse.

She and I had a lovely conversation about my ideas and the end goal of having a PhD.

It makes me feel a bit strange to admit that I want to write textbooks.

Or articles.

Or anything really.

It is why I have this blog, after all.

But I should not limit myself.

The good news is that she says she will have a recommendation letter submitted this weekend.

This is good.

Because this is the painful part of the process.

And I missed the White Rose scholarship deadline.

Like you do when your life is basically unstructured.

I will search for other grants and scholarship opportunities.

Not only for myself, but for a friend who also missed the deadline.

Time is weird.

You know?

I think it is also time for me to stretch my freelance wings and see if I can fly,

Or stumble about.

It’s all a learning curve.

The theme for March is going to be comfort.

The kind of cookies that make you feel safe.

To start off the month, regular Toll House recipe chocolate chip.

Is there anything better than a warm chocolate chip cookie?

With milk?

Nah, I didn’t think so.

With what is going on across the Atlantic, I thought we deserved a little comfort.

Take the cookie.

Put in microwave for 5 seconds.

Enjoy with a glass of milk.

Or a cup of coffee.

You do you.

Today was the Shared Governance Summit that I found and paid for.

Because staff engagement has been… anemic.

Partly due to the staff turnover due to the Great Resignation (if you can call it that).

Partly due to decreased engagement from our hospital leaders.

I get it, they’ve got a lot going on.

All to do with burnout from the pandemic.

I was looking for guidance on creating more buzz around Shared Governance in my own hospital.

Or the hospital system.

The sessions were engaging.

I learned a lot I will be bringing to my hospital council.

But the video clip that one ICU nurse chose to illustrate her session.

Made me incandescent with anger.

I had to take notes.

Well, more notes than I was already taking.

Patients developed a pressure ulcer from the C-Pap mask on the bridge of their nose.

A news person asked this nurse, with a straight face, ‘That’s what a nurse says. What does a doctor say?’

Ugh.

Way to invalidate the entire nursing staff.

Way to go.

This is important.

The news person basically said what the nurse thought was not good enough.

And wanted a man’s take on it.

This is upsetting on many levels.

1. Nurses have been the backbone of the hospital through the pandemic.
2. There are reports of doctors who are pitching in and helping, true, but not every patient, every shift.
3. The nurses were asked to explain their actions that led to patient harm. As though what we just went through as a profession was not heart breaking.
4. It all comes down to blaming the nurse.

And then there apparently was a root cause analysis done as to why the patient developed a pressure ulcer on the bridge of their nose.

Um.

The continuous pressure mask was not designed to be worn 24/7 for weeks on end.

But at least these patients weren’t ventilated.

A handful of people made it out of the ICU alive to go home.

Out of this particular surge.

Of the global pandemic.

Alive because of ventilation.

And proning parties like the ones Florence herself would have had.

Start at one end of the unit.

Keep going until the end of the unit.

Start again.

Nurses have gone through the worst time of our professional lives.

And you want to blame us for it?

Come on, people!

We have to do better than that.

Another month almost gone.

In 6 hours it will be March.

New shift round-up.

Thursday will be 12 weeks since this new shift started.

I can’t say that I am bored.

I will say that I have done so much reading.

Way less organizing than I expected.

But why did I expect anything?

It is not like I’ve been a working nurse during a two year pandemic?

With the exception of staycations (three weeks in total)I have always been at the hospital.

When the elective cases were all cancelled in the beginning, in March and April of 2022, I was at the hospital for my regular shift.

When the cases that came until testing were not tested, I was at the hospital for my regular shift.

When the elective cases resumed with testing, if there was time, I was at the hospital for my regular shift.

When the cases came without time for testing, I was at the hospital for my regular shift and circulating those cases.

When the cases came in the middle of the night without time for testing, I was at the hospital for my call shift and circulated those cases.

When coworkers all were laid ill with Covid in succession, I was at the hospital for my regular shift.

When we coded a patient, twice in thirty minutes, in the middle of the night, I was at the hospital at 1430 for my regular shift.

I went to California on a medical mission of mercy to visit my ailing father in the ICU I went from the hotel to the hospital.

I’ve seen some shit.

All healthcare workers have.

Why, then, do we question when we have a break?

When the call shift opened up I jumped at it.

Not because I did not enjoy my job.

Not because I did not enjoy my coworkers.

But because I, like all of my healthcare coworkers, am tired.

Yeah, I earn less.

But I have not worked so little in my entire working life.

But I don’t take call like it is going out of style.

And that is enough.

There had to be a change.

I was working as fast as I could.

Not because I needed the money.

But because I enjoy working so much.

It is hard to be a recovering workaholic.

It is also hard to organize when I am still so burnt out from the pandemic.

And now there is war in Ukraine.

Excuse me while I doom scroll that.

Instead of Covid.

And worry that this means I will not get to London in August after all.

I’m trying.

To organize my life which has gone unorganized for years because of being at the hospital for my normal shift.

To relax and re-learn that I don’t have to be a workaholic.

I still like work though.

I’m just switching gears a bit.

Sleeping more.

Because I’ve never had a problem sleeping on call.

Writing more.

Because I honestly love it.

Reading more.

Because I’m a reader, always have been.

The post-it reads ‘Why do people not understand? That we can troubleshoot.’

The operating room is a very technical place.

There are a lot of moving parts to a surgery.

The electrocautery.

The bed.

The robot, if we are using one.

The SCD machine.

The tourniquet.

The spot lights.

They are depend on nurses and techs to know how to use them.

And to figure out why they are not working if they fail.

Sometimes it is as easy as turning off the machine.

Waiting.

And then turning it back on.

And re-setting the settings.

And it works.

This is only sometimes.

Sometimes we have to replace all the links in the chain before we open up another disposable.

For example, the TPS.

Or drill system.

There are 3 moving parts.

A console.

The electrical cord.

The hand piece.

The short may be in any one of these.

Rarely it is in all 3.

You start with the easily replacable.

The console.

No dice.

Still unfunctioning.

Another set it opened.

Still nothing.

But instead of opening a third set, test each of the sterile components.

Ah, it was the cord.

Use the new cord from the second set.

Mark the original cord.

Go on with your case.

You have to be systematic though.

I know it is not easy when a surgeon is screaming.

Or anesthesia is making noises about length of time under anesthesia.

You know what doesn’t help?

Putting us on the defensive, surgeon.

Instead of railing on the SPD department.

And you know who you are.

Instead of railing on the operating room.

Again, you know who you are.

Have a little bit of faith that your circulator can figure it out.

Or, at lease, phone a friend.

Trouble shooting is in the circulator’s blood.

Let them think a minute, as they are replacing things.

The CDC dropped the mask mandate today.

Of course they did.

Because cases are down.

This is the end of the surge.

Not the end of Covid.

Don’t you know?

Of course, political pressure was up.

And pressure from parents.

And pressure from people who don’t UNDERTAND.

Because they are tired of this shit.

No doubt about it.

I’m tired of this crap too.

Omicron remains the highest infector of the country.

But.

But 1 in 5 or 20% of cases are BA.2.

That number is climbing.

Rapidly.

Do I know that son of Omicron, as some are calling it, is more dangerous that Omicron itself.

Science doesn’t know yet.

But don’t worry.

We have not won.

The mask mandates have fallen.

In my state, they will be dropped as of Sunday.

Not that people are wearing masks.

I am.

You’d think more people would be more interested in the greater good.

Instead they whine about going back to normal.

There is no normal.

Two Party Opera, an online comic that I read, said it best, “Is it true that Pandemics never really end, people just stop caring?”

And the next panel the other figure says, “Time makes it easy to ignore why people die.”

Yes.

All of this.

2000+ people a day are still dying.

Be sure to tell them they don’t need to wear a mask in the casket.

Today would have been my grandmother’s birthday.

Both of them.

In remembrance of them, the family does their favorite thing.

Read.

I remembrance of them, the family eats their favorite foods.

Pringles, Coke, and usually pork rinds.

But there are no non spicy pork rinds to be had.

Stupid supply chain.

Stupid renovation at the closest gas station.

Although neither of these women were in the health care field, I find it comforting to remember them.

Because we are reflections of who has come before.

I like to think that although they would be flummoxed by me going to a PhD program, they would be supportive of me.

In their quiet ways.

If you need me, I’ll be reading an actual book.

Eating Pringles and chocolate.

Drinking a coke.

Enjoying my day off .

Because although this is new to me, is fast becoming a day of rest.

The request was Kalhua.

The other request was the same cheddar pennies from before.

With triple pepper jelly.

The second batch was with red pepper flakes.

A little heat for this cold and rainy February day.

Of course, this is North Carolina, wait 15 minutes.

The sun will come out.

I am too sad to do a different cookie today.

A meme that I saw described it best ‘One man’s ego leads to war’.

I saw it in the midst of my doom scrolling about Ukraine.

War.

Again.

Too tired to make up a different cookie recipe.

I should have gone with the Kahlua request.

There is a lot regarding going back to school for your PhD that I did not go through with my BSN or MSN.

It can be exhausting.

And then I listen to a webinar about a nurse who is newly retired and what she loves most about the operating room.

I wonder if I can reach out to her and have her reassure me monthly during this process.

I got an interview at one of the 2 universities that have a PhD program that I am interested in!

Yay!

The university is an hour and a half away, and I am opting for a zoom interview so as not to waste gas.

The 2nd university I instructed to reach out to a 4th PhD nurse that I know because of volunteering with his organization.

He is willing to write the missing recommendation. I hope to hear more soon.

I don’t know about this place because the reviewer has glommed onto something completely normal.

In California, anyway.

He is looking at the transcript from the school where I got my ADN.

And noticed that the bottom says there are 5 UC (meaning University of California) credits.

And 52 CSU (California State University).

Means that of the 57 credit hours I took for my ADN.

That many would transfer to a higher level of school.

Because Napa Valley College is a community college.

At the time I did not conceive of writing textbooks.

Or teaching.

In fact it took nearly 15 years for me to go back to school for my BSN.

I can understand the need to be choosey when it comes to candidates.

A PhD is, as was pointed out, a terminal degree.

Meaning there is no further degrees to get.

I hope I am doing the write thing.

Do you see what I did there?

Today someone pointed out that every day is a palindrome.

And will be for the next nine days.

That is the same forward and backwards.

My sister is catering a wedding tomorrow at 2 pm on 2-22-22.

Superstitions.

All nurses have them.

The full moon effect.

Is absolutely a thing and I am lucky that last week’s full moon did not impact the OR for once.

The thing about the full moon is it brings out the crazies.

The drug dealers, the addicts, the patients with the psychoactive disorders, the ones who should absolutely know better.

But they don’t.

They bay at the moon.

And Murphy.

Murphy lives in the OR you know.

Anything that can go wrong will.

Absolutely he lives in the OR.

There are all sorts of superstitions.

Don’t jump on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back

There are cracks in the OR floor but it is correctly quickly because cracks are not clean.

You shouldn’t walk under a ladder.

No ladders except those carried in and out by engineering.

No black cats.

Some of the best cats I’ve met are black ones.

It is not their fault.

But the big daddy of hospital superstitions.

Friday the 13th.

People actively try to give their call away most days.

But they try extra hard on Friday the 13th.

And if the full moon happens to hit on the 13th.

Count your blessings, and sage the hospital.

Because shit is going down this night.