This could be it!

 It shouldn't be a surprise that this has been a bad year and a half for me.  My brother goes through, and is still going through, a bad time in his life.  COVID-19 stomps its way through our society, eating everything in its path.  My aunt dies.  I have my mom move out to keep her safe, then trade places with her and move out myself.  My hours at work change to a time that conflicts with my body mechanics.  I go through some minor, but scary, health scares.  The politics get scary, get better, get scarier, then get back to normal gridlock.  

I've often wondered when things fall apart, do we notice them falling apart?  Or do we only notice the individual dominoes when it's all fallen down?  In reverse, do we notice things getting better with each individual betterment?  Or can we only count them once things are good again?  I've mentally blamed a lot of my anxiety and sadness on COVID-19, but that was only one piece of it.  Sure, it was riding shotgun on a lot of things that went wrong but it certainly had nothing to do with my brother's financial breakdown.  It had nothing to do with my aunt dying.  It had nothing to do with the insurrection and the political coverup.   It only barely had anything to do with my hours getting changed. 

Now that everything has already gone to shit, I can see that.  But things are turning up, and I'm going to try and see it as many small things getting better and not just celebrate this one big change, this one big return to 'normal'.  You see, Thursday afternoon (06/17/21) I was told that my hours at work could return to normal.  I've been going into work and starting my day between 0800 and 0830 since early June of 2020.  I don't think I was getting used to the pandemic at that point, but even if I were, that would have been a huge blow to my wellness.  But lets look back at what went wrong, check and see if its better, and see what's going well.  

The bad:

• My brother's financial meltdown
• November 2019
• His car was repossessed.  His second car was repossessed.  He was kicked out of the rental home he'd been living in for the past 10 years.  His wife was primarily to blame, but he carried his share.  He eventually split up his family with him living here and the rest living at his mother inlaw's.    
• COVID-19 Starts
• February/March 2020
• The prison locks down, we start getting our first cases, we start worrying about Mom's health. 
• My aunt dies
• March 2020
• This just absolutely devastated my mother.  We can't even have a funeral as this is the beginning of the pandemic.  
• Mom moves out with the niece and nephews
• March 2020
• My two brothers and I are Mom's biggest vectors for getting the disease, so it's decided for her to move into her sister's house.  Yeah, the sister that just passed away.  I thought it would be better for her to stay at home and the rest of us move out, but she insisted.
• We switch with Mom
• June 2020
• It's nerve wracking to see how hard this is for mom,  but we hold our resolve and think of her safety first.  When it gets to much for her to bear, my brother B and I move out while she moves in with R.  
• Work gets harder
• March 2020 to June 2020
• They take several of our nurses to other facilities that are incredibly short staffed.  It, of course, then makes us short staffed.  And then nurses quit on top of that.  Then a third nurse supervisor is forced upon us that we don't want.   Then the HUM quits (she simply stops coming to work on a medical leave, leaving her job and position in limbo).  We're all scared of our patient's health, not to mention our own health.  Rumors run rampant from mandated 24 hour shifts, to mandating us to move into the prison.  It's real real REAL bad.  And then...
• My work schedule gets changed. 
• June 2020
• After they take our supervisor away (the one they'd just forced upon us), leaving us with just two supervisors, they force my hours from 1130-2000 to 0830-1700.   Nine to five.  I haven't worked a morning shift since... photography days?  My classes at nursing school were mainly later in the day.  My clinicals were afternoon or even night.  My job started on afternoons and my overtime was overnight.  My supervisor position was afternoon from the begining.  And to make matters worse, this started when I was still living with R who leaves for work at 0700.  That means mine and his morning schedules collided, so I shifted mine even earlier so we wouldn't ram into each other in the bathroom and kitchen.  
• I changed from not having a morning alarm to getting up at 0430.  I changed from going to bed when I was tired to going to bed at nine thirty at night.  
• I start on insulin
• August 2020
• Every few weeks the dose goes up as I won't see an endocrinologist until January.  
• Work remains a struggle
• June 2020 - February 2021
• It seems that once we get used to a new policy or procedure, they change it.  Mass testing every week.  New rules on what constitutes close contact.  New protective equipment to wear.  New procedures on where close contacts are to be housed.  New definitions on when someone is deemed positive and how long they're positive for.  It's beyond maddening for the nurses and I'd say even worse for me as I have to be their rock.  Their steady manager to explain the why, even when the state doesn't give us a why.  
• I get a 'Ronacation
• November 2020 - December 2020
• My brother B gets tested positive.  I'm now a close contact, living with a positive individual.  I'm forced to stay home for three weeks, using up all of my vacation and sick leave.  I even dip into lost time and don't get paid for a couple days, literally costing me money.  Oh, and when I get back to work nothing has been done and it takes me weeks to get caught up.  At Christmas time.  When there are 2 three day weeks in a row.  It's fucked up.  
• I get written up
• April 2021
• With my sick leave zeroed out, doctor visits that now take sick time (since I work nine to five), and migraines that are progressively getting worse, I finally dip back into lost time.  That's deemed unacceptable and I get written up.  That forces me into a defensive measure and I get family medical leave just so that I can protect my job.  

I'd say rock bottom was the 'Ronacation.  I was letting everybody down at work as they had to cover for me or deal with my absence.  I wanted to work, even if it was unpaid and from home, but wasn't allowed to do so.  The work I'd be doing wasn't getting done, so it took forever to catch up and it's not like I was ahead of the curve to begin with.  And being stuck at home during a pandemic during Thanksgiving, caring for my brother and my niece well, lets just say it wasn't exactly time off.  I think with all the stress I was feeling during those three weeks, I slept LESS than normal.  

But eventually, things started getting better.  Let's look at the good:'

• Trip to Dallas and San Francisco
• November 2020
• Driving Nina down to Texas then flying with my friend A so we can hang out with our friend E was a great time.  I think it was the longest vacation I'd taken up until that time and I really REALLY loved it.  
• Better relationship with my brother
• November 2020
• Yeah, he was going through hell, but our relationship grew closer.  We could chat daily, more easily make plans, and just simply be there for each other.  
• Finding out just how strong my work team is
• Summer 2020
• When we started losing nurses and it got scary and it got hard.... well sure, we lost some nurses.  Weak scared nurses.  But the ones that remained showed their metal and proved we were made of Iron! 
• Finding out just how strong I am
• Summer 2020
• I won't lie, there were plenty of times that I considered quitting.  I mean, lets' face it, I could get a nursing job just about anywhere during the pandemic.  If I wanted to do travel nursing, I could get a LOT more money.  But I pushed through every difficulty thrown at me and came out a better nurse, a better nurse manager, and a better person. 
• Diabetes
• January 2021
• Getting to an Endocrinologist was the best thing for me.  He swapped a couple meds, monitored my sugars, and I'm now doing well.  I've dropped dozens of pounds and continue to lose weight.  
• Work has gotten... easier?
• Spring 2021
• This is almost a teaser as it's gotten difficult again, but still... it's way WAY better than it was in Summer 2020, Autumn 2020, and Winter 2020/2021.  WAY BETTER!
• The new computer
• May 2021
• Sure, I probably didn't need to buy this, but I'd honestly stopped playing games in January.  And just for the past few weekends, being able to sit back and lose myself in a game, has been bliss.  A bliss that helps everything else just melt away. 
• The schedule changed back
• 06/18/2021
• I'll talk more about this below

So, looking back at it, I can see that there hasn't been much good.  At least not like the bad things.  I can list specific bad things that happened at specific times.  The good things... well, a lot of it feels like searching for the silver lining.  But the computer is specific.  The diabetes is specific.  And the schedule... oh my god, the schedule... that is going to be a watershed moment I'm sure.  

Here's how this went down.  We're changing companies that provide us medical providers.  The doctors, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, mental health professionals.  And technically they pay for all medical care and the state.....

Yeah, and then bad shit happens.  While writing this up, I got a call from work.  A nurse called in sick.  It means I have to mandate a nurse to work a double shift.  When I'm calling other nurses to see if I can get a volunteer, one of the nurses mentions that she'd already told the nurse that called that she couldn't cover her shift.  Wait, what?  So, Nurse C called other nurses the other day to see if she could trade her shift away.  The answer was evidently no across the board, so she called in sick.  Yeah, she's getting a major write up.  Not only is a nurse getting mandated to cover her shift, I had to bother all the nurses with phone calls and my morning was turned upside down.  GAAAAHHHRRHHHEE

Anyway, Technically this company pays for all medical care and the state pays them one lump sum.  I believe its about a billion dollars.  Anyway, they were coming by to look at our facilities.  They were bringing the head of healthcare with them as well as several of our doctors.  Our director of nursing would be there as technically this is 'her' facility.  

I've been wanting to talk to the director of nursing for several months.  About scheduling, about holidays, and yes about my hours.  But this wasn't the time to talk to her, so I let it go hoping she'd be back soon.  Thankfully the HUM stood up and did her job and talked to her about these things.  I'm not sure if the HUM forgot about saying I had to work these morning hours, but she acted like it was no big deal to change my hours back.  That was Wednesday.  Thursday, I and the other nurse supervisor talked to the HUM and she told me the good news, asking when I'd like to start.  I of course said I'd like to start the very next day.  And Friday, instead of walking in at 0800, I strolled happily in at 1100.  

It will take more than a single day to get used to the new schedule, but it's already making a difference.  For whatever reason, my body doesn't let me sleep in late on the weekends.  I'll wake up at 0330, a full hour before I normally get up for work.  Today?  Today I woke up at 0500.  I bet I'll be able to stay up past 1100 without a problem too.  Each day that will get a bit easier until I have to either set an alarm for 0800, or just let myself naturally fall asleep around 0100 and wake up around 0700.  That's the primary way it was before the hours changed.  

Anywho, the whole nurse calling in has pissed me off, so I'm going to leave this post in it's good place and do something else.  Movie, youtube, game... something.  I will hopefully add an update tomorrow.