You Googled Me?:  A snowball’s chance in hell…

Go figure – apparently my blog is the sixth unique reference which pops up when this query is Googled:

“will a snowball melt in hell”

Dear Googler, that all depends on one’s definition of hell. 

Oh, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

12:57:37 PM    comment []

Stories that stick with you…

Okay, I’ve already been crying this morning.  No, wasn’t about our sad state of affairs in politics and foreign policy.

I read Dave Fox’s latest installment at No Code.  God, this one hurts.  So good, but it hurts.

Dave and I have something in common – actually, he and my mom do.  Mom’s an emergency department nurse; has been for more than 15 years.  She used to work in obstetrics and in intensive care; for some reason, ED has had an appeal for her that she can’t or won’t shake.

It’s grueling work: you’re on your feet ALL shift long, day or night; you don’t often know when you’ll get a break or get to eat; you must be licensed and keep that license through continuous study and education; there are never enough people in your department; the hours are long and often require working at breakneck pace; you get treated like sh*t by patients and their families; management sucks (as it does all too often inside medicine); and the stuff you have to handle day-to-day just plain sucks the wind out of you. 

Understatement of the year.

We can’t figure it out; Mom has a degree in Healthcare Management, why not a nice 8-to-5 desk job?  She worked hard to earn that degree after years of nursing, then went into the ED.  My sister and I theorize that Mom likes the variability of the work – it’s never the same any day.  One day, slowish, maybe an elderly person or two with slip-and-fall injuries, kids with the flu.  The next day, heart attacks and multiple-car traffic accidents.  Of course, it could be an addiction to the adrenaline rush, or the feeling that you made an immediate difference on outcome.  Paper-pushers don’t get that. 

There are vignettes of her stuck in my head from childhood.  Like Mom getting ready for work, white stockings, white shoes, white lab coat.  White, white, white.  (It’s not that way anymore, most nurses wear colored scrubs.)  The stethoscope in the left hand pocket, her personalized Kelly snips in the right hand pocket (like some people carry a pocket knife).  Holidays, with Mom working, saving the turkey dinner until her shift ended or opening presents only after she got home. 

Growing up, I remember a kind of drill when she arrived home from work, a sort of triage we performed as she walked in the door.  We could tell right away, a practiced assessment – get her a beer immediately if she had that look.  The deep, dark circles, the tight lips, the hollow eyes.  Don’t ask, leave her alone, put the beer in her hand.  Get the foot stool for those puffy feet and ankles.  Stay clear; we could smell it, it wasn’t good whatever it was that happened.

And then, after the beer, it would come out, the nasty genie leaking out of the bottle.  No, it wasn’t good.  It was often bad, very, very bad.  We had to listen, it’s what you do as family: How was your day, Mom?  God, oh God, you knew it wasn’t good on the dark circles-pinched lip days.

There are many stories that she told us that can’t possibly be washed away by the single after-shift beer or the catharsis of recounting.  Years haven’t washed them away; in fact, the only thing which seems to suppress some stories is a newer, more hellish story.  There are two that stand out right now.  I can’t even re-tell them myself in detail; just thinking about them causes tears to well, my heart to ache.  One, a drunk father and his infant son trapped in a burning truck.  The other, a young father who’d celebrated the Fourth of July with roman candles.

I know that Dave Fox will ken the outcome of these two stuck stories without even needing details.  Just as when I read the first paragraph of his post today.  I could smell it; God, oh, God, it wasn’t going to be good.  It was going to get worse.

As another nurse said to Dave, "there's no way they can pay you for what this job takes away."  Oh my God, how painfully true.  There’s a part of my Mom that’s always in pain and tortured, a part burnt and fried to a crisp.  There’s no compensation on this earth to heal those inner wounds.  I don’t know how she does it, put that stethoscope back in the pocket, put on those nurse-white shoes and head for her shift, carrying that psychic injury where the patient never sees it.

How in the hell does Dave do it, too?  Or all those other emergency medical workers out there, day after day?

Got a beer here with your name on it, Dave.  And a footstool, too.

11:16:37 AM    comment []

Administrative crap…

Well, not really crap, it’s stuff some/many won’t care about.  It’s important to me, though.

A huge THANK YOU to those who’ve read my blog and shared their time and thoughts with me since I started out here in September.  You helped me make the 10,000 reads mark yesterday.  While the read count rose, I made a lot of new friends, learned one helluva lot, was motivated to seek out and try new things.  It’s all you – thank you for sharing.

Why the fuss, you might ask?  I’m kind of in a weird state of flux, between gigs; not currently employed, not really a stay-at-home-mom, not a full-time student.  It’s a place where I’m feeling my way along without the roles I used to have which previously defined me.  Blogging’s opened a few more doors (mostly in my head), letting me see that I’m someone entirely more than defined by other's labels. 

For instance, I never thought of myself as a writer.  Now I am, and it’s not a title one has bestowed upon them by others, but one I earn every day through my efforts here.  Weird: me, a writer!  Your role in this shift of mindset has been invaluable, even though I never really intended to write for a large audience (really only for a handful of geeks like me!).  You’ve encouraged me to think bigger, grow larger; even those of you that don’t agree with me push me farther. 

It’s been great fun, and I’m looking forward eagerly to whatever happens next.  Thanks so much!

10:05:55 AM    comment []