December 26

It's Boxing Day. Normally this is the day of the season that everyone gets to stay home in their jammies after an exhausting two days of holiday activity. This year? It's the third day of stay at home holiday celebrating for me. This is the first time I think I've ever had off December 24-26, in, what? Eleven years of nursing? I so desperately wish I could have traveled to see my family. I want nothing more than to wake up and have coffee with my parents, and open gifts around their tree, and see my 94 year old grandmother, and spend time with all my friends, and meet the brand new babies, and snuggle with my parent's cat. I wish I could go to my in-laws' house and watch their kids climb all over their new playhouse, or have dinner with my husbands parents. But I'm not. I'm home, for the third day in a row of this Christmas holiday, and that's just how it is. 

Because I want COVID to go away. I want things to be like they used to, but they're not.

And seeing all the Facebook pictures of big family gatherings, or people posting check ins at the airport, or getting an invite to "stop in and say hello" if I'm in town this year just makes me angry. It's because of this shit that I've been stuck in COVID hell for 9 months now with no end date set. How many 94 year old grannies will we watch die next week in the ER? Will I have to be a part of the decision to NOT intubate someone because it's the last vent in the hospital and someone with a better chance of surviving will need it? Will I be the last person a father of three sees before he dies of a COVID related pulmonary embolism? Will I be the one to turn away the family who just showed up at the triage desk hoping to see their 40 year old sister after her massively debilitating stroke? How many more days will I have to go without that cup of coffee with my family because everyone else is selfish enough to think their actions don't matter?

December 18

I'm vaccinated! 

It's not the end of things, not by a long shot. Our hospital is down to a precious few ICU beds, and we're just now getting waves of the people who caught COVID during Thanksgiving, spent a week without symptoms, and then a week or so being sick at home but not bad enough to come to the hospital and are now 7-10 days into symptoms and crashing. 

It's dire at work. Every day. Our RTs had a discussion yesterday about vent triage - we intubated two people back to back in the ER and someone mentioned that we were down to single digits for available ventilators. But not to worry, "some of those people are going to die soon, so that'll free up the vents if we need them." NOT the reassuring news one wants to hear.

So, yeah. I got my vaccine yesterday, and am looking forward to this being over one day. But that day is not today, and we're going to keep going until it is.

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My pancake plant that arrived in the mail a week ago looked pretty sad when I first got it - most of the leaves were smooshed during transit, so while it looked great as soon as I took it out of the package it dropped a lot of leaves over the next two days. I was worried the plant wouldn't survive, but then noticed yesterday that I have a tiny baby leaf coming up and more on the way. It's gonna make it! Once it's a little bigger and healthier I'll repot it to something better looking. 

Plant babies! I love this!

December 16

Well, that was fast. I got the email from work last night that we've got vaccines and just need to sign up. I responded to the email that I was interested, filled out the survey and signed all the consents, and am just waiting for the response email with a link to schedule a time to get it. 

I'm nervous and excited. Obviously there's the possibility of side effects, as with literally any medication or vaccine out there. But having followed the CDC and other countries' data and recommendations, and trying to keep myself as educated as possible on this process, I can firmly say that I am getting this vaccine as soon as I can. 

Because there might be side effects. Maybe. But you know what else has side effects? COVID. Up to and including death. I've watched more than enough young healthy people stroke out or 60 year old people desaturate and be brain dead on a vent or grannies gasp for air on a non-rebreather a week after their family get together, and I'm at the point where I will do literally anything to make this pandemic stop. 

***

In plant news, a friend of mine gifted me this newly rooted sansevieria. Isn't it pretty? I have just the spot for it, too. When I find the right plant stand, it will live next to our drawer side table in the office. The drawers sit next to the desk, and all of our electronics are on top of it - printer, router, etc. The plant and stand will be perfect to hide cords and cables!

December 15

Our hospital is on the list for COVID vaccines. Soon, like within the next week soon. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's still far off, and although things are still getting worse and will continue to do so for the next few months, I have hope. I laid in bed this morning and tried to identify that hopeful feeling - I think it's just relief, honestly. Pure, exhausted, relief. Like the kind that you see when marathon runners lay down just past the finish line.

I know this isn't the end of COVID. Not even close. But it's a start, and I've felt lighter today than I have in a long time.

This won't be forever, and I can look forward to that.

***

Our office renovation Phase 1 is finally complete! We installed our new fancy desk, hung curtains, and arranged the plants. It's a usable office, and a very happy place for me - it's the sunniest room in the house, and will be full of plants eventually. Phase 2 will be one entire wall of bookshelves, with a little nook for reading (that's the spot of orange you see behind the armchair - everything purple will be hidden behind the shelves). I'm so excited! 

December 6

Obviously when you start sentences with "the new grad nurses these days," it's hard not to sound A) patronizing as hell, and B) like an old fart. It's hard sometimes to remember back to when I was a new nurse at the tender young age of 24, but it's true and I was. I'm absolutely positive that the old fart nurses shook their heads at my antics back then, but here we are today and I guess it's a rite of passage to get to the point where you just shake your own head at the youngsters?

Anyway, one of the things I wish I could scream to the new grads from the parking garage rooftops is to PICK YOUR BATTLES.

Seriously.

More and more, I see a large portion of the new grads getting into a pissing contest with the malingering psych patients over stupid stuff. Like yes, you can and should set boundaries with them and stick firm to those boundaries. But getting butthurt that a longtime bipolar off-their-meds-by-choice meth and crack user is a twitchy bundle of profanity and saltine cracker wrappers? Tweakers gonna tweak, and there's nothing you can do about that. This is the life you chose when you decided to work ER - it's 10% acutely sick people that you can do something about, 40% nursing home based chronically sick people you're never going to fix, and 50% complete bullshit of all varieties. End of story.

And the other thing that kills me - when they try to out-argue these people. You're gonna lose your job before you beat these people in an argument. As I try to educate when I precept, when you're dealing with someone who will willingly shit their pants in the lobby to get back to a bed sooner, you will NEVER be able to shame them into any sort of better behavior. If they're willing to take off all their clothes and lay down naked in the hallway on the way back to the room because you won't promise them dilaudid and phenergan and benadryl waiting on their arrival, then you definitely aren't going to be able to have any sort of rational discourse with them. If they'll be willing to fire you as their nurse, unfire you, threaten to call the news on you, then offer to call the news because you're so awesome, then fire you again, then leave a 5 minute rambling voicemail to the patient advocate in which they forget they're leaving a voicemail and in that voicemail both accuse of you of stealing their crack, denying they have crack, and also saying you're the best nurse they've ever had*, OBVIOUSLY you can't out-crazy them.

Just pick your battles, and ignore the crazy by either rolling with it or removing yourself from the situation.

*THIS IS A TRUE STORY FEATURING YOURS TRULY

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Also, look at the baby plants I have! Basil on the back left, dill and parsley front right, a tiny pothos propagation hidden back right, and a cosmos seedling front left that I got for free from the nursery because they said it looked sad.

Please ignore the yellow sticky traps and fungus gnats, unless you have advice on how to eradicate fungus gnats in which case HELP ME!