Health
I'm still losing weight. If I work at it, actually try to eat more food than I want, I can maintain my weight. But that doesn't happen while I'm working so now I'm down to 215 lbs.
I've a handful of migraines since the last post, but none were really out of the ordinary or special.
I got back on COBRA insurance, so my dental crown got finished without another bill. Sadly, I'm now fighting insurance as I got my Low Dose Chest CT and got billed for the entire amount. It's an annual scan so it shouldn't cost me any thing but if I can't get it fixed, I'll have to pay $1,400.
I saw my endocrinologist in September. It went fine since my A1C is vastly improved but lets face it, that's because I'm losing weight and can't eat. I told her about the appetite issues and she's not sure (I'm seeing the nurse practitioner in the endocrinologist's office) if it's Ozempic or not. It doesn't make sense that it'd be Ozempic as I've been on this dose for years. She does want me to check out cancer as a possible issue so she had me get my Chest CT early (it's probably why I got a bill as she might have ordered it as a cancer diagnostic instead of a cancer screening) and I got an appointment with the gastroenterologist for my 3 year colonoscopy. They can 'squeeze' me in... in February.
In the meantime while I wait for the gastroenterologist, I'm lowering my insulin as I keep hitting low blood sugars at night. I was at 18 units per day and I'm now down to 6.
Finances
I've made it through to 'no paychecks' period just fine. I did have to cash in my 401k once I found that COBRA insurance is expensive as FUCK, but I'm fine. I get my first check tomorrow and will be fine.
Money wise, with this new job, I'll be just fine. I'm making $64 an hour as a contractual RN. Sadly, that's all I'm getting. No days off, no holidays, no insurance, no retirement... nothing. I guess it's good that I won't have to worry about cash for awhile but I'd FAR rather have all the benefits that come with true employment.
Family/Friends
Mom fell.
Just one morning she got up, got her rollator, and started heading out of her bedroom. She lost her balance and this time didn't catch herself in time. She fell with her legs crashing into the rollator and her head hitting the floor HARD.
I bolted to her side and offered comfort while she calmed down from the fall. I only got glimpses of her face but it went from 'no mark' to 'a small red mark' to 'a big red mark' to 'some swelling'. At that point it wasn't a question I was going to ask her... I had R call the ambulance. Mom is on blood thinners and they work VERY well. Well enough that what might be a goose egg on either of our heads might be a hemotoma leading to a stroke on mom. And she was already swelling up. Her legs both had big hemotomas where they crashed into the rollator but I couldn't care less about her legs in that moment.
The ambulance came, got her up and out to the ER. R and I followed in my car.
Surprisingly, Mom got out of the hospital a few hours later. She was bruised up pretty bad on her legs and her face, but the scans showed no broken bones and no internal bleeding. The problem showed up later when we were at home... the swelling hadn't stopped. It got bad enough that Mom's skin ripped open on both legs and her forehead. There wasn't much bleeding, thankfully, but it was an ugly split. She was also in a lot of pain. Like more than motrin and tylenol pain.
We got her doc to write a script for a narcotic (Noro 5/325) and that helped but Mom hates taking narcotics and was trying to 'ween herself off' just a day or so later even as I was encouraging her to take MORE.
The first couple days were tough back at home. Mom could barely move and couldn't get out of her chair without help. Getting in and out of bed was completely out of the question. I ended up spending most of every day with one ear listening for Mom to call out. At night I'd sleep with my door open so that I'd wake up when she'd inevitably call out for something. It was... it was bad.
Now, almost a month later, she's maybe at 40% of where she was. Her head and leg are still split open and her doc got her an appointment with a wound care specialist. She can get in and out of bed, but she's said it takes everything she has and she can only spend a few hours in bed before the pain in her legs wakes her.
I don't know. I just don't know. Seeing her with that black mark on her face... it's a good inch and a half wide by three or four inches long, curving around her right eye... is heart breaking. Hearing her in pain while she actively tries to take less and less pain megs is heart breaking. Seeing her struggle to get around even more than she was before is heart breaking.
Everyone else is fine.
Work
I reported to the prison at 0730 on September 28th, 2026. I went to HR and was recognized by two officers and the HR director. In HR I filled out the last bit of paperwork and posed for my ID. After that I was greeted by B, the nurse supervisor whom I'd been a supervisor to when she became an RN. I was a bit worried that she'd be intimidated but honestly it didn't seem to phase her one bit. She seemed genuinely happy to have me back.
I went into the HUM's office and saw K, my former and new again boss. She too seemed happy to have me back. She did let it slip that she was happy "they let me hire you back". So, someone DID stop her from hiring me before.
Beyond letting that slip, she didn't really have a lot to say. She's retiring at the end of the year. She "knew" I didn't want to be on nights and had hired another nurse that was transferring in, so I'd be able to go to afternoons. Umm... yeah, I was perfectly happy working night, but whatever. I told her what I've ended up repeating many, many times; I'm a contract nurse so I'll do as you tell me to. They want me on afternoons... fine, I'll be on afternoons.
As they really needed someone on nights like NOW, I offered to not bother orienting on any days or afternoons and in fact coming back that night and stating my night training immediately. The hope was that I could get oriented in just the one night so that I could cover the next night. It was a good plan, but the person training me, J, was of the opinion that I already knew everything.
Here's the rub... he's not wrong. There isn't much that has changed since I was last at the prison. I managed the nurses doing all the jobs that I'm now doing. I've done all the jobs that I'm now doing. But that was four years ago. I had to bug him several times to walk me though basic things like how to do the count, where the emergency bag was, how to use the phone system, how to use the radio, and very importantly how to use the software. By the time morning came around I wasn't ready to cover the 1000 souls in the prison all on my own.
They'd covered a lot of the night shifts with overtime from other nurses so I ended up orienting with them for the next week. I didn't realize that when nurse M came in on the third day that it was his FIRST night. He'd been oriented but I actually now had more time on nights than him. I didn't find that out until like a week later. I think we both thought we were orienting the other!
When it finally came to my first night alone, I was fine. I had to send a prisoner out with a medical emergency, I had three other urgent matters, and I still got all the regular tasks done. I'm now ready to fly alone.
The next week, the normal night nurse, the nurse that's been on nights since I started in 2013, was back from vacation. I picked up a few more things from her and was even more ready than ever. The next day I met the new nurse on nights. Nurse C. C had worked at a different prison and had even been a manager like me. He'd taken the last 6 months off for a medical leave and instead of returning to his prison he came back here. It's been years since he worked nights so we're orienting him for a couple weeks.
All of the nurses I've worked with in the past remember me and seem to remember me fondly. I've been asked many times when I'm going to be a manager again and they seem honestly to want me back as a manager. Sadly, they get the same answer each time; I'm a contract nurse and will work where they put me and don't hold your breath as I'm not sure they'll ever let me be a manager again.
There are obviously internal politics going on and it will take me time to get my head around all of it. Here's what I see about the management team so far.
K, the HUM, is not liked a lot. She's not hated or any thing but I haven't met a nurse yet that isn't happy about her leaving. I've only had those few hours with her on my first day so I can't speak to anything else... but okay.
B, the nurse manager I managed before and met that fist day, is fine. She gets in a the crack of dawn (seriously, shes there most days before the end of my night shift!). She steps in to cover and help when needed. She seems confident in her job and has done everything well that I've witnessed.
J, the nurse manager that I hadn't worked with before, is... young. I only met her the one time when she had to come in early, but she looked like she was in her late 20s or early 30s. Very young to be a manager. She runs the schedule and... well, she's bad at it. I wont' disparage her at work as I'd be obviously comparing the job she does to the job I did... but she's just bad. She had a 4 week schedule out when I got there and it had no holidays on it. Holidays are important on a schedule like that as it tells the nurses how to put their time sheets. It also affects how many nurses are on for that day and there's a pecking order for those that want to work. Yeah, she missed Election day and Veteran's day.
At one point I snuck into the supervisor's office and asked B if this year's election day was a holiday. She looked it up and seemed surprised to find out that it IS a state holiday. Later that day, a new schedule came out where J admitted she forgot about Election day.
I felt bad doing it, but I sent off an email to just J and B reminding them about Veteran's Day. A new schedule came out the following day with both holidays on it.
There's also my personal scheduling. J just didn't tell me what days I was working. I asked B when I saw her, but B knew damned well it wasn't her job to schedule me. I found out I was supposed to work one Saturday night at the end of my Friday night shift... literally about 14 hours before the shift started. It not only was too short of notice (I had plans to watch football all day Saturday and that started in like an hour!), it also would have put me into overtime.
Then there's the switch from nights to afternoons. I guess it was just easier to change my schedule with the new four week schedule. So this current four week schedule goes through the 24th of October and the new one starts on the 25th. That's' the weekend I work (yeah yeah... I'm back on to every other weekend). She went ahead and changed me then... without realizing that meant I'd work Saturday night, get out at six AM Sunday morning, and have to be back for my Sunday afternoon shift (a 12-hour shift!) at nine thirty . Three and a half hours later.
It's not only inconsiderate, it's illegal to schedule me that way. I can volunteer to work 20.5 hours in a 24 hour period, but they can't schedule me that way. I'm not sure which is worse... that she thought she could do that, or that she didn't know she HAD done that. Sadly, BOTH were true.
Beyond the scheduling, I can't really comment on J. I just haven't worked with her enough to say more.
From the scuttlebutt though, it doesn't look like either B or J is set up to replace K as HUM. That means they'd have to bring someone else in (no one else working at our facility wants the position). I was kind of hoping that either B or J would get the gig as that would open up a nurse manager position... and hey, look at that, you happen to have an experience and interested former nurse manager right here!
For now, we'll see how things work out. I work the rest of this week on nights, then next week start my afternoons. I have to orient on days and afternoons as it involves more patient contact like med lines but I don't expect it to take long. I know I can expect to get the RTP block gigs where there are med lines. I wouldn't have the seniority to even ask to have the clinic above any of the other nurses and it looks like all the nurses want the clinic.
Everything is going well and I'm honestly happy to be back in the prison. It really does feel like home. The only problem I have is that I have no incentive to get used to working on nights. That means I'm either sleeping too much or not sleeping enough. I'm not carrying a normal schedule and I'm tired all the time. It would only take me a week or two with alarms getting me out of bed at a normal time each day to get me into that rhythm, but why bother? I'm going to be on afternoons next week.
Entertainment
About the only thing worth mentioning here is that my brother B and his sons joined me in going to the theater to watch the 40th anniversary edition of The Transformers: The Movie. That's the 1986 animated movie. It was AWESOME and I even brought my Optimus Prime with me.
Other than that I've been watching the Fast and Furious movies. It turns out I'd watched the first three, but hadn't ever seen any of the others.
New Tech
It finally happened. My Logitech MX Master 3S mouse died. The primary mouse button was missing clicks left and right and cleaning it didn't help.
I didn't do much research at all as I knew the MX Master 4 was out. I had it in my greedy little hands the next day, but because of work it took me a week to get it set up. And.... ehhh.
There was one big change between the 3S and the 4. The button under the thumb changed. It used to be a literal button that you'd press down. It was tied to the 'gesture' command so that when pressed down and the mouse pulled to the right, it'd move to the next desktop. Press it and move left, it'd move to the previous desktop. It could also show/hide the desktop and show the start menu with up and down motions, but I never used those. I used the next/previous desktop motion all the time though.
On the MX Master 4, they changed that button. First, they changed it to active the 'action right'. Press it and it brings up a ring of other actions on the screen. I mean, it's nice and all but not something I used before (and yes, I could use that feature on the 3S). They added a button ahead of the thumb forward/back buttons that had the gesture features, but it was harder to reach with my thumb. So, naturally, I just went into the software and swapped the buttons. Thumb for desktops, forward thumb for ring.
Sadly, no bueno. The button itself is physically different. The whole thumb pad is now the button. You can activate it by pressing down like before, but you can also activate it by pressing 'in'. Like by squeezing the mouse. Like squeezing the mouse in the same way that I do while moving the mouse around. So now by just moving the mouse around normally I was activating the damned desktop swapping feature. Oh, and the thumb button has haptic vibrations so it buzzes when it's pressed.
I don't like it but I tried to get used to it. I tried various other grips so I wouldn't squeeze the button, but none have worked. Just this morning I gave up on having it be the way I want and swapped the buttons back. Now it's the forward button that's hard to reach that I use all the time and the sqeezy normal thumb button just activates all the time and brings up a ring that I havne't found a good use for yet.
I'll give it another week or two, but if I can't get used to this I'm going to buy another MX Master 3S.
Writing
Still nothing here. Sorry. Hopefully getting onto the 12 hour shifts in afternoons will help as I'll feel like a normal schedule again.
Hopefully.
Michigan Football
Go Blue!?
Yeah, Michigan has sucked most of the year. Our D is good, on the doorstep of great, but our quarterback is just not progressing. Bryce Underwood was the number one recruit a couple years ago and it was a BIG deal that Michigan got him. Last year, his freshman year, he was... fine. Not a savior by any means, but better than the average freshman. He had glimpses of brilliance and he is built like an NFL quarterback... but he just wasn't great.
It turns out that under that old coaching guard, he didn't have a quarterback coach. Umm... WHAT!? He's literally toted as the twelve million dollar quarterback and you didn't have a specific quarterback coach for him!?
This year, with coach Whitingham and his team in charge, it was supposed to be better. But by this weekend, we'd lost two games almost exclusively because of bad quarterback play. To be fair, our running game isn't as good as it was in years past either, but its damned near impossible to develop a running game when there's not a passing game.
Yesterday's game was the turning point. At halftime, down 3-0 to a dreadful Penn State, coach W made the swap to our backup. Tommy Carr, grandson of coach Lloyd Carr and brother of Notre Damn start quarterback CJ Carr, replaced Bryce. And he not only was good, he sparked our running game back into action. Michigan scored three TDs in the second half to win the game.
This doesn't make Michigan an immediate playoff contender but it does mean we can look forward to being competitive in games. We still have games against Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio State to come and those are still probably three more loses... but next year!?
Transformers
So, without working I told myself I wouldn't get any more transformers. Then early in September, I found out that my credit card bonuses added up to over $300 in cash. There wasn't anything in their bonus pool that I wanted, so I just put it back into my account as 'cash' and immediately bought $300 worth of Transformers with it.
I wanted to make it one big purchase instead of buying several random transformers, but I didn't really have space for another huge transformer. As I've wanted the Dinobots but have found getting the right versions of those to be really expensive, I found the G2 Dinobots for a good deal. These are the same toys as the ones that are coming out now, just colored like the brief G2 versions in the late 80s.
G2 Dinobots - Leader class - Age of the Primes - $319.99 (Amazon)
I also got Cliffjumper as it evened out the purchase to be the full credit card bonus.
Cliffjumper - Deluxe class - Studio Series 86 - $27.99 (Amazon)
A few weeks later I was watching a video on Youtube and saw that the Starscream transformer I wanted might be back in stock at Target. I immediately paused the video and went to Target. A quick aside, Target has the US exclusive right to a subset of Transformers called MTMTE (More Than Meets The Eye). The last set of MTMTE that they had was Studio Series 86 Starscream, Insecticons, and Prowl. Just before they were supposed to hit shelves, Target canceled them. I DESPERATELY want the Starscream to match my Thundercracker and Skywarp set. But as long as they're exclusive, I know I need to snatch up the others before Target stops selling them as no one else gets to sell them officially making them immediately more expensive at Ebay and such. So, once I heard that Starscream MAY be there, I hightailed it over to see.
The bad; no Starscream. The good; Insecticons and Prowl! I know I wasn't supposed to buy any more transformers until I was working again, but I couldn't let this opportunity pass. And good thing too as the very next day, they were out of stock!
Prowl - Deluxe class - Studio Series 86 - $23.73 (Target)
Insecticons - Leader class(?) - Studio Series 86 - $67.83 (Target)
Fridge
The Fridge nightmare isn't over. Home Depot, where we ordered the fridge, has delayed the delivery of it. Twice. We now can't expect it until early November.
Both R and I tried looking around for another fridge that would fit where we need it to fit and be at least almost as good as the one we had... and no good. Nothing. And everybody now lists that fridge as available in DECEMBER.
I tried to talk R into buying a normal sized fridge with an ice maker that we could use temporarily. They had one in town that we could have them install the next day... but R says that would be a waste of money. I just hope they don't delay that delivery again because living with these two small fridges is beyond frustrating.
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