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Embrace the suck

As the ball falls and the darkness of December fades into the light of January, a new year is born. With that comes a new found clarity, a rebirth and the opportunity to wipe the slate clean to start again. After 2020 isn’t that what we all want? Hope for better times ahead.

2020 began like any other year for me. When Covid-19 pulled the rug out from under us and excreted its venom upon the world, like everyone else, I found myself swimming in a sea of uncertainty. Would I get Covid? Would I lose someone to Covid? What is going to happen to my world as I know it?

I can’t look at 2020 as the year of suck. Instead, I choose to embrace it. There were plenty of things that sucked in 2020. 2020 taught me how to accept what is, let go of what isn’t and be grateful for what’s in front of me. On the home front, my husband and I quickly adopted that mantra as a coping mechanism, means of survival and a way to keep our young adult children physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. With each new issue or disappointment that arose in our daily lives, we were diligent with that mantra. The social isolation, the frustration, the hopelessness, the beginning of virtual high school and university education, my daughter’s lost senior prom, senior track season and high school commencement, my son’s lost December college commencement. The things that were not meant to be for us in 2020 only made us a stronger family unit and more grateful.

On the work front, I am an RN of twenty six years. For the past eight, I’ve been working in the pre-op unit of my hospital, preparing patients for surgery. Before that, I spent thirteen years as an emergency room RN. When the world shut down and my state’s governor cancelled elective surgeries, even though the only necessary surgeries were being done, the preoperative units were left scampering to find work so their employees didn’t have to go on unemployment or use all of their paid time off. They sent us to screen people as they entered the hospital and satellite locations. They sent us to classes. My boss told us if we had skills in other areas we could expect to be called to use them. Former ICU RNs were sent to the ICU. I was one of several veteran emergency nurses selected to be activated in the emergency department if the surge reached our hospital. On Nurses’s Day in May my father posted a picture on social media of me in my PPE, stating that I was on the front lines, “fighting Covid”. I was so embarrassed. From my Dad’s perspective, he was telling the world how proud he was of me. Deep down inside, it irked me for about six weeks that I didn’t feel like I was doing my part because I wasn’t on the front lines in the Emergency Room. Each of us in the group of ER RN veterans only worked one shift in the ER because our hospital didn’t get the surge some of the others in our city did. During my day in the ER, I took care of symptomatic Covid patients. I transported Covid patients to the ICU. The hospital was like Sombertown. The ICU looked like a war zone. I was as terrified as I was as a young nurse in the early 1990’s, taking care of full blown AIDS patients.

As time went on, my fears were replaced with caution and a new level of awareness. When elective surgeries returned and my department busted our asses everyday to get these patients into the OR, I realized that I am doing my part. All of us who work in healthcare are doing our part regardless if we are on the front lines or not. The custodial staff who clean and sanitize the hospital. The food service who feed us. The people who stock our supplies and take care of the equipment. The command center who direct us. The chaplains who pray for us.

I enjoy listening to XM Sirius Radio on my way in to work in the morning. One morning before Thanksgiving, there was a little greeting blurb from Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. He started out with some humor about how he was learning the ukulele and how he wasn’t very good at it. He said he missed making music with his friends. He wished the listeners a Happy Thanksgiving and not in so many words stated that now was the time to be grateful, to learn, to go within. I wish I could hear the blurb again because it did resonate with me.

It has been over a year since I have posted anything in this blog. In the midst of life I have somehow lost my writing voice. The words are swarming around in my head from time to time but can’t seem to make it to the tip of my fingers, the keyboard and this page. I am hoping to find my writing voice again this year.

Happy New Year

5 Things

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

I like this prompt because it encourages is to focus on what we do have. These are the things everyday that make me happy.

My morning coffee. Whether I am enjoying it at work while I am organizing my patient assignment or waiting for the sun to rise on the weekends. It’s the first thing I look forward to when I wake up. On the weekends I treat myself to frothy coffee with heavy cream. Probably fattening, no F’s given.

Hugging my dog. Unconditional love at its best. He’s one of the great loves of my life. This dog completes me.

A hot shower. After work I use special shower gel for relaxation.

Music. A good song can certainly turn a frown upside down, energize, inspire and heal.

Books. You can enter another time period, be in another place or live vicariously through the characters vicariously with just a turn of a page.

What I learned in High School

What I learned from high school was not to let other people tell you that you cannot achieve what you want to in your life. Listen to people who are going to encourage you, not beat you down.

I spent seven years of my childhood, ages 10-17 living in a place that I absolutely hated. It was a geographical state that my family had no business moving to. I attended two different high schools. The first three years of high school were spent living in this horrible state. I never felt like I fit in. Ever. My grades were mediocre. On the outside I looked like a girl that didn’t care about her academic career. On the inside I was a girl who was hurting. When I was 15 years and nine months old, I asked my guidance counselor for a work permit so I could work at McDonalds and she told me that working at McDonalds was all I was going to accomplish in my life. That guidance counselor’s words were amongst the meanest words spoken to me up to that point and I had never felt so worthless and insecure.

A year later we moved to a different geographical state and I spent my senior year at a new high school. My new guidance counselor asked me what I wanted out of my life and helped me to develop an education plan to get there. I followed the plan according to his suggestions and I became a nurse.

Two different guidance counselors, two different approaches. The mean guidance counselor could have destroyed me had I chose to listen to her or stayed at that school. I do not credit her for my success.

On a lighter note, the most useful skill and my favorite thing I learned in high school was how to type. Unforeseen circumstances led me into two typing courses. Do you have a paper to write Jen? No problem because you know how to type. Did knowing how to type help you on busy days when you were assigned to triage when you worked in the emergency department? It sure did. Do you smile when you type, because you know how to type? Yes!

Daily writing prompt

Describe something you learned in high school.

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My Preceptor

Each time a nurse starts a job in a new setting or transfers from one department in the hospital to another, they have to be in an orientation period with a preceptor. In my hospital for experienced nurses it’s four to six weeks. For new grads it’s up to 12 weeks.

Rewind to shortly after I had transferred from telemetry to the Emergency Department. I was five years out of nursing school at this point. My preceptor was a baby boomer nurse with 31 years of experience and kids my age. One morning, I approached the nurses station at 0700 and my preceptor was already there. She pointed to a room with a patient on a ventilator with all kinds of tubes and wires connected. She said, “that’s your patient, call report to the ICU.” I started to panic. I told her I didn’t know anything about that patient. She pushed the thick chart across the desk at me and firmly said, “Call report.” I had about 30 seconds to figure out what was going on with that patient but I did figure it out and I called report to the ICU. I made it out of orientation unscathed.

Flash forward to 13 years after that day. My preceptor had since moved on the become a nursing supervisor. I was by that point 18 years out of nursing school. The Emergency Department and its current leadership had burned me out and jaded me. I had already accepted a transfer to my current department and was working my last few weeks as an ER nurse. I remember one day shortly before my departure, my preceptor while on duty as a nursing supervisor made her morning rounds to the Emergency Department. I told her, “I am transferring out of here.” She said she knew. I asked how she knew and she said, “Word travels fast around here.” After that she looked at me and said, “this move will be good for you, you’ve earned it.”

That compliment meant so much to me coming from my preceptor. It validated all the blood, sweat and tears I had put in working there. I had come full circle.

Daily writing prompt

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

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Pre-Empty Nesting

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

I remember one positive thing about the quarantine in 2020 was that it was a perfect time for my husband and to spend with our adult kids. The kids were annoyed of course that they were trapped in the house and my daughter even said we will be able to see the tire tracks from her Jeep when they lifted the quarantine. My daughter was a senior in high school, my son a senior in college. We knew we would never get time like this again so we embraced it. We cooked good food, watched movies and played games.

Four years later my daughter is about to graduate from college and move 2.5 hours away. My son is applying for the final portion of his educational journey and has another year left at home.

So we will be empty nesters. While I am excited for them and very proud, I know that times are a changing. How will I adjust?

My Ideal Day

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

My ideal day would be waking up feeling refreshed and energized without feeling stiff or in pain. I would get out of my head and silence my overthinking. It would be a day where I didn’t feel worried about something or insecure or afraid. Nothing would annoy me or irritate me. I would just float through the day full of joy without a care in the world.

14 Hours

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

It was 27 years ago and the road trip of my life. I remember my husband and I overslept that day. My parents fed us breakfast, helped us pack the car and pushed us out the door so swiftly that I didn’t even have time to think about the fact that I was about to leave home.

It was a fourteen hour drive from the state where I was living with my parents to the state where my husband and I would be begin our married life. I don’t remember where we stopped or what we talked about. What I do remember was realizing that I would have to unpack, write thank you notes for wedding gifts and find a job because I was finally a grown up.

Gifts from Italy

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

My grandma went to Rome in 1973. She brought home a gold cross and necklace for me that was blessed by Pope Paul VI. It was a connection to God and to my grandmother and my most cherished material possession.

On September 1, 2009 a 17 year old boy who lived around the block from us thought it was a good idea to move our grill to use it to climb up and enter our second floor bedroom window to burglarize our home. He stole that necklace, other jewelry and some electronics and cash. My then 11 year old son came home from school to discover that our home had been burglarized. Fortunately the burglar was long gone by the time my son returned home from school.

The burglar and his counterpart did get busted, tried as adults and punished. It took 16 months to go to court. Fortunately the judge made a fool out of him in the courtroom.

The punishment those boys received was bullshit probation and will never suffice the emotional damage that was done to my husband and I and our two children. It gave us an added sense of awareness that only victims of a crime could have.

My grandma passed away four months after the burglary. She had dementia so she never knew about the necklace being stolen. I know she would be more concerned about our safety than the necklace though.

The burgler is living his best life as if nothing happened. I pray that karma finds him.

Just give me a Jeep

What is your all time favorite automobile?

I have been a Jeep chick since January of 1996 and in no way is that depressing. Nurses don’t get snow days so I like a trusty Jeep. Plus I am still driving a manual transmission. My dad once asked me when I am going to buy a grown up car. The answer was on the first day of never.

My first Jeep vehicle was a 1996 Jeep Cherokee Sport which I named Jasper. I special order purchased it 20 months after graduating from nursing school. It was moss green with a tan interior.

My second Jeep vehicle was an Atlantic Blue 2006 Jeep Liberty. Also named Jasper but my daughter changed the name to Charlie when I gave it to her. I purchased this one in fall 2005. I told the dealer if he wanted to sell me a car he should find me a manual transmission and he did. I taught both of my kids how to drive a manual transmission in this car and gave it to my daughter after she got her license. My daughter had a fender bender in fall 2022 at 5mph, she didn’t even have her foot off the clutch and it was totaled. Literally only the fender was damaged. After having that old Jeep for 17 years it was hard to let that one go but I know it was God’s way of showing me my daughter needed a more reliable vehicle.

My current Jeep which I call my midlife crisis car is a 2011 Jeep Wrangler. I call this guy Maverick. He’s sexy and rugged and I love driving him.

All three of these vehicles have gotten me to and from work safely in terrible weather. I could care less about bells and whistles and fancy schmancy sports cars. Just give me a Jeep so I can go to work.

Memories of my Grandma at Christmas

I may be the middle aged wife, mother, nurse and woman of the house but on Christmas I still feel like little Jenny, that American born Sicilian girl, growing up in Buffalo, New York.

As I write this, Barbra Streisand’s version of My Favorite Things echoes in my mind. My dad is a huge Babs fan so that Barbra Streisand’s 1967 Christmas album was frequently played in our home.

My heart yearns for my Grandma every year at Christmas time. Widowed in her late 40’s after my grandfather’s sudden death three years before my birth, my maternal grandmother lived with us until she remarried when I was a teenager.

Granny was a devout Catholic and she was a great influence on my early life as a Catholic. We would go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve with her and because of that I do not feel complete on Christmas without attending midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. She cried every year at Christmas Eve midnight Mass because when she was only nine years old her own mother died of a heart attack while walking home from Christmas Eve Mass in the snow.

In my mind I still see Granny waiting at the bottom of the steps for my brother and I on Christmas morning. She would quietly lead us to the beautifully lit Christmas tree while we waited for our parents to wake up.

Even through her own heartbreak she poured her love into everything she did for us and she always made Christmas special. I will carry that with me forever.

1970

Share what you know about the year you were born.

I love the year that I was born because it’s the beginning of a decade.

The Vietnam War continued to rage on in 1970. Thank you to all men and women who served. 🇺🇸

The Jackson 5 was introduced on American Band Stand. The Beatles broke up. My husband was born. Apollo 13 attempted to fly their mission but couldn’t go to the moon because of an oxygen tank explosion. The first Earth Day is celebrated. Elton John performs in the United States for the first time. Christine Perfect (Christine McVie) joins Fleetwood Mac. (I love Fleetwood Mac) Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died of drug overdoses. The 1970 Thundering Herd Marshall University Football team was killed in a plane crash. PBS becomes a network. The Ford Pinto is introduced.

In my personal history, my great grandparents were Sicilian immigrants. The last of them, my dad’s maternal grandmother died months before I was born but she did know my parents were expecting.

My dad received his draft notice for Vietnam when my mom was pregnant with me. He would spend six years in the Army National Guard and miss my birth because he was in basic training. My mom threw my grandmas out of her room when she was in labor because they were driving her crazy. My Papa Charlie was smoking cigarettes in the waiting room.