Ready to be Ready

I had this feeling yesterday.  A feeling that I was waiting for something.  At first I thought it was just the fact that I'd slept for over 24 hours, but the more consideration I gave it, the more I realized it was something way more than sleepiness attention.  I was ready to be ready.  Let me explain.  

Light Thoughts

I re-read my last post and.... boy, that might have been the nadir.  The low point.  The end of the line.  While it didn't exactly get better starting two months ago, we did start to hire nurses right around then.  And that little glimmer of hope was enough to see, both in my own actions and in the eyes of the nurses I supervise.  To date, we have two RNs and one LPN out of orientation with three more RNs in orientation.  That's enough to cut down the overtime by about half.   

There might be light at the end of this tunnel yet.  

Work and Nursing

This isn't going to be easy to write.  When I generally go down a path like this, looking at options of how the near future of my life will go, I tend to make a change.  And I'm not sure I want to make a change.  

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.  

Work is Hell

I have to wonder how much of me changing jobs is a desire to do something new and how much is a growing dismay at my current predicament.  This week was fucking hell at work and I swear I haven't thought this much about quitting a job in years.  

Vaccinations and other updates!

This will be one of those 'lots of little updates' posts.  Let's see... I want to talk about taxes, computer upgrades, car dreams, vaccinations, work future, weather, music and music services, new meds, and maybe some more.  Let's start with filing my 2020 taxes. 

'Ronacation

I never heard back from my HUM on whether or not I'd be able to work from home.  I think some of that may be me inadvertently pissing her off.  We've both talked about people taking advantage of the system we work in.  For instance, if you're a close contact you can choose to follow our new guidelines.  Those are the getting a  temp check twice a day, even when you're not working, and getting an instant test every day.  If you choose not to do that, then you have to sit out for two weeks.  Well, we've had nurses that have been close contacts that have chosen to get their 'Ronacation (a vacation that's paid for because it's created by having exposure to the coronavirus) instead of going through some easy to follow safety measures and coming in to help out.  

Wanting to leave both home and work?

So, I still haven't won mom over.  Not completely.  I'm still home and she's still at my aunt's place.  I really have to start thinking of that house as my cousin's place, but that's a hard habit to break.  Anyway, I talked to her a couple weeks ago and told her about how firm I was on the whole idea of both having her come home and be more comfortable and happy, and at the same time not having her or I live in the same place for the foreseeable future.  I'm not talking about weeks or months... I'm talking about seasons or years. 

Out and Over

I've actually talked about moving out a couple of times on this blog.  I forgot about them, but they're here and here.  And while neither are exactly relevant, they do lay out my thoughts on moving out in 2016 and 2018.  2 Years later, and for entirely different reasons, I'm finally moving out.  This isn't about me leading my own life, or setting up my retirement, or directly dealing with Mom's need for my help.  Nope, this is all 'bout the 'Rona.

I GOT COVID 19

For most of my adult life, I tend to get a couple colds a year.  When the outside temperature goes all wonky, my body just seems to open up, take on a virus, and get sick.  I remember back when I was "young" (i.e. my twenties, when I thought I was "old") it was just once a year.  If I didn't get sick in the spring I could bet that I'd get sick in the fall.  But that single year sickness only lasted a short while and it soon became twice a year.

And now I'm scared...

It's finally hit my facility.  Covid 19 has hit several different prisons, but it hadn't spread past those in over a week.  I won't go into exact numbers, but the department has had a lot of inmates test positive.  The department has had a lot of employees test positive.  The department has had several inmates die.  The department had a couple employees die.

This.  Shit.  Is.  Real.

Covid and other updates

None of these subjects are long or in depth enough to warrant their own post, so here's another famous update riddled entry!  I hope to talk about my recently deceased aunt, my thoughts on Covid-19, my specific thoughts about working as a nurse through this viral outbreak, sharing some new music, and my final solution to getting music in the car.

Like My Job. Hate My Job.

Looking back, it seems I've been ignoring updating this blog about work.  It looks like my last real update was in June when I was thirteen nurses down.  Well, I'm very happy to say that we're nearly fully staffed!  And yet I still had some of my most stressful times this past few weeks.  It IS related, but damn, why does it feel like I get rested up on Vacation only to come back and have the stress backed up and waiting to catch me right back up!

Love/Hate

I started writing this with no idea what all I was going to talk about.   I normally have an idea when I start a post and even have an idea of what I'm going to title the post plus what kind of image I want to use.  But as I started writing I knew I wanted to update you on my brother B's situation, let you know about my trip to Dallas and San Fran, tell you about talking to my friends A and E about my Queerness, and even talk about Nina on the road.  I just didn't realize that almost everything I was going to touch on would involve Love and Hate.  I Love my brother and hate his situation.  I Love my other brother while at the same time Hating him.  I Love driving and Hate that Nina isn't as comfortable.  I Love San Fran's liberal status, but Hate that they can't take care of their problems.  I Love flying.  So... let's go with Love/Hate.

Happy Labor Day!

I’m probably a bad manager.  Not because I don’t strive to make my nurses happy and not because I don’t honestly listen to them and try to either educate them on issues or improve their situations as I do both of those things.  But man, I’m a fan of unions. 

Decisions Decisions

There are so many decisions that sometimes I obsess over them, even though they're not all that important and don't really effect anything.  Sometimes my eyes cross when I look at all the options and realize that no decision is right and waiting is the best answer.  Sometimes I completely gloss over them, even though they're important and impact more than just me.  Sometimes I try to just get it over with and still get sucked down into a soul sucking void full of nothing but wrong turns and hurtful choices.  Yup... cars (colors), friends (romance?),  politics (early front-runners),  and work (screwing over my co-workers).  A normal day of decision making in the strange and wonderful world of my head.

Spring Renewal

Spring is in the air.  Change is in the air.  I can feel myself coming out of a funk that winter always gives me.  Don't get me wrong, I adore winter... the beautiful white snow, the crisp cold air, driving on slick roads, having storms where you don't worry about tornadoes or drenching rain... but it's almost always gotten me down.

But this year I have several 'changes' in progress that are different.  I'm not simply coming out of a funky mental/creative slumber.  I'm making changes to my life.  Lemme put these into the two categories of purposeful changes and unconscious changes.  The purposeful changes including ending my toxic friendship, taking on a more 'leader' role at work instead of just a supervisory role, accepting who Caitlyn is in my life.  The unconscious changes include just being more comfortable in my own skin, and listening to my gut and moving on its instincts.

Thankful Updates

In my last post a month ago I went over three major 'in between' moments that I was stuck in.  Well, I need to update you on all of them.  None are strictly good, but none are strictly bad either.

First is my health.  I saw the neurologist and he was happy with the Depakote results.  He says to keep taking it and we'll check back in 6 months.  At this point, I'm fairly sure I have a long term solution to my migraines as I still haven't had one.  Oh, I still get headaches and some really bad ones, occasionally I'll get some light sensitivity and even rarer some sound sensitivity.  But it's never the combination of symptoms that equates out to a migraine and has never included that confused, "can't think straight" feeling.  So screw the weight gain, I now take Depakote every night and am happy to swallow two of those fucking horse pills (seriously, they're huge!).

Between Past and Future

There's always that funny time between what I've always known and what I'm charging off toward that really excites me and scares the living hell out of me in equal measure.  Here and now is one of those times on many different fronts including my health, my career, and my computer.  I've been at crossroads before.  I've bridged this same gap before and even done so on these same issues.  But I don't think I've ever done them all at the same time.

Can't it be Ideas?

At the end of this post I have a conversation about the whole 'Us vs Them' thing (hence the graphic!), but to start, I have a bunch of issues to catch up on.  First, the job issue.  Yes, I'm continuing on the job search and yes, it is now a job search.  I have been in contact with my former supervisor and hopefully future HUM but her position is not yet available.  BUT as my current supervisor and HUM are now aware of my intent to move on and are both supportive of my intent to move on, they've pointed out that a position nearby has come open. Not only did they point it out but they've made introductions between the HUM there and me but got me a tour of their facility.  And on top of all that, the position DID come open.