It is what it is

I feel the need to offer some kind of explanation for what is happening with the site.  As an aspiring author, I like to know the whole story, and yet this one is not mine to tell.  Not now.  Even though I have this need to know how things end - even if that ending sucks - real life, stories aren't neatly packaged into books, and it can be difficult to pick out a beginning and an end.  I thought the story of Will and Kay had ended 22 years ago.  I never saw the sequel coming. 

All of this is a rather round-about way of saying that Will has left the building.  He will no longer be contributing to this blog or to this site.  I will continue to blog here, and will try to bring the rest of the site back online as I get things reconfigured.  You can expect some shifting in appearances during that process. 

I have a sort of running joke about having a custom Magic 8 ball made.  My custom version would give the same answer to every question asked.  "It is what it is."  This is, afterall, the story of my life, my mantra, and the only answer I can offer right now for the question "Why?" 

How sucky jobs build character

One of my early jobs out of college was working in one of the major area hospitals.  I had zero training in the field of healthcare, but I had a degree in psychology and they were looking for "mental health technicians" for the behavioral health unit.  I did not anticipate the amount of healthcare work that would be involved in this job, but in the culture of hospitals, they tend to cycle between the extremes of specialization and generalization. 

While I was working there, they were cycling through a "Jack of all trades" phase that favored a cross-training approach.  As a result, I had to learn all the functions of a nurses aide necessary on a regular medical unit,  I also had to learn the role of the unit clerk which meant deciphering doctors' orders to update med logs and input and schedule various diagnostic testing in the hospital computer system .  Both of these roles were a huge stretch and well outside my comfort zone.  Let me tell you this... not being able to pass calculus is a crappy reason for chosing to major in psychology.  Believe me though when I tell you how crappy the job market was for new psych grads.  I worked at the hospital from July to May and I probably went on 3 dozen job interviews during that time span.  

I sucked it up and did what I had to do to keep the job, but there was one hurdle I really wasn't sure I could clear.  A few months into the job, the hospital did some reorganizing, and rather than continuing to employ phlebotomists on the units, they decided to cross-train all the aides and techs to draw blood.  In order to become qualified, we all had to do take a shockingly brief phlebotomy course, and perform 5 supervised sticks (they didn't even have to be successful draws . . . just 5 supervised sticks!).

I dodged this requirement for awhile. I worked days, and anyone who has been in a hospital knows that the vampires usually circulate in the pre-dawn hours collecting blood from half awake patients. So, I didn't have much opportunity to practice, but the clock was ticking. I had to get in 5 sticks within 3 months of competing the classroom training.  I kept stalling and hoping I'd land another job before I ever had to put the training to practice on a real live person.  Why did anyone believe I could or should be doing this?

One nurse was determined to push the training along. Unfortunately, she had an almost hostile bearing that only made me more nervous. As if sticking a needle into a person's arm isn't nerve racking enough! So one day I was going about my work and we got a new patient mid-shift.  As with all new admissions, the doctor ordered a slew of labs.  So here we had this vulnerable, potentially suicidal woman who has just checked herself into the psych unit.  They'd already taken the precaution of taking away her shoelaces and removing the drawstring from her comfy sweats.  I'm guessing she was NOT having her best day ever, and now they are introducing me and explaining their plan to have me to pop my phlebotomy cherry on her flesh and blood arm. 

Suddenly this was not my best day either.  But there I was . . . facing my first victim/patient. Under the nurses watchful eye, I looked at the lab order carefully and selected the tubes I needed to fill along with the appropriate gauge needle. I tied the elastic band around her arm, and poked around at her arm feeling for a promising vein. I prepped the area breathing in the astringent tang of alcohol, and snapped my hands into the latex gloves. I poked around at her arm again. Okay, nothing left but to do it.

As a general rule, when I get nervous, my hands tend to shake - something that is probably compounded by my copious consumption of caffeinated colas.  As I reached for the syringe, my hand trembled. Not a subtle sort of tremble that might be overlooked. Oh no! We had patients on the unit who'd been taking thorazine for twenty years who had steadier hands than I did at that moment.

I took a deep cleansing breath and focused my mind on a soothing silent mantra.  "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this."

As I drew near to the patient's arm, I heard a soft sob, and wondered for a moment if it might have come from me. I looked up at my patient and saw the tears slipping down her pale cheeks.

"I can't do this!" she cried shaking her head for emphasis.

It startled me to hear the words that had been running through my head coming out of her mouth.

"I'm really sorry, but I can't. Could someone else please take my blood."

Yep, I made the poor woman cry. In all fairness though, she was clinically depressed already.  The nurse was irritated, but she took over and completed the blood draw with minimal fuss. I was off the hook for a week or so while they tried to figure out what to do about my latest bout of incompetence. In the end, they sent me down to the outpatient lab.

The lady in the outpatient lab was great.  There is nothing slicker than an experienced, well-trained phlebotomist. She steered me toward the "easy" sticks and the hearty souls.  And the patients were awesome.  These were people who came in for weekly bloodwork and were not the least bit squeamish about needles.  They were great sports.  They teased and joked and without the horrid nurse hovering over me waiting for me to screw up, I actually relaxed and my hands were almost steady.  And not one of them cried!  After the first two sticks I was feeling more confident and the next three were easier than I could have imagined.  I learned a lot about what I was capable of, and how far the right kind of support can go in achieving success.  I returned to my unit fully certified. And I never had to draw another vial of blood ever again, because few months later I finally landed a new job.

Banana peels are funny.

In order to share today's lovely story with you I have to disclose something of a medical nature.  I have this large painful plantars wart (Verruca plantaris) on the ball of my left foot.  After some initial screwing around  with home treatments and remedies I found on Google, I finally sought the advice of a qualified medical practioner.  Well, the doctor tried freezing the wart.  The wart laughed.  We then segued into chemical warfare.  The first treatment seemed to be making some headway, so I went in for the second treatment yesterday.  This is why I was limping around the office today.  The treatment causes a large blister to form which makes walking a bit of a challenge. I explained to my work buddy why I was limping and she filed that little bit of information away.

Now, fast forward to this evening.  I was home from work and getting ready to make dinner when my cell phone rings.  I look at the caller ID and see it is my work buddy calling.  This was an a bit unusual,  and so I made the mistake of answering it.  She says to me "I know this will probably annoy you, but I told Richard I would call..."  Now Richard doesn't require much in the way description because his is pretty much your standard issue aging hippie with the receding hairline, and the long pony tail, and the Grateful Dead t-shirt collection.  Richard is also big into homeopathic remedies.  For whatever reason, my friend has told him about my wart and my treatment, and now she is handing him the phone.  WTF!

So Richard quickly explains that he also had a plantars wart, but was able to successfully treat it himself and he's sure that his treatment will cure me as well.  "All you have to do," he assures me, "is tape a piece of banana peel to your foot every morning for 3 weeks."  

"Really?  A banana peel?"  I giggled and waited for the punchline.  I've watched a lot of cartoons over the year.  Enough to know that stepping on a banana peel is about as smart as mixing anvils and catapults.  Banana peels are funny, so it didn't really occur to me that he was being serious.

"It's the potassium.  It will kill off the wart," he tells me in complete earnestness.  

"I don't think banana peels are the way to go here."

"Do you wanna bet?" He is getting more adamant now, and I wonder briefly what we might wager since I'm pretty damn confident I'd win this bet.  Then I returned to my senses. 

"No!  I don't want to bet because I'm not willing to take a pass on an effective medical treatment for the sake of winning a bet."

"But this is gentle and natural and won't blister your foot."

"I appreciate the concern," I said even though I didn't, "but I don't think gentle and natural are going to cut it at this point.  I'm not doubting it works in some cases.  Maybe it could have cleared it up early on, but this is a deep wart."

"How deep?"

"I'm not even sure how to answer that.  It's just... deep."

"Well... but it's just on your toe, right?"

"No, it is on the ball of my foot."

"Oh," he said.  "Mine was just on the side of my toe."  After a brief reflective pause he said "I guess it'd be pretty hard to walk around with a banana peel taped to the bottom of your foot." 

"And slippery!" I giggled.  What can I say?  I'm forty now, but I'm also twelve.

But seriously, if anyone out there is looking for a home remedy for a plantars wart, don't let me discourage you from strapping banana peels to your feet, but if you see someone hoisting a piano over the sidewalk, you might want to cross the street.   

Top overrated experiences

Today I turned 40.  I've gotta say, the experience is totally overrated.  I kind of expected to wake up this morning suddenly needing a hip replacement... or at least reading glasses.  In truth though, I haven't noticed anything different except that I have a new entry on my growing list of overrated experiences.  And since you're probably wondering what else made the list, so I'll give you a few of the highlights - such as they are.

1.  Halley's Comet.  I remember getting carted off to a dark, isolated patch of field so I could get a good look at the famed comet tht ancient civilizations took as a sign from the gods.  I stared up into the blackness of space confronted by the enormity and ancientness of it all knowing that I wouldn't see it again unless I lived to be 89.  And do know what?  I wasn't very impressed.  Turns out that once in a lifetime opportunities to see comets are overrated, and as I found out almost 10 years later when Hale Bopp blazed across the night sky, if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

2.  Breakfast in bed.  Yesterday being Mother's Day and all, I was kind of glad my husband wasn't around.  He's big on this idea of helping the kids "surprise" me with breakfast in bed.  I don't like eating in bed.  It is logistically awkward, and there is nothing that makes me feel quite as special and appreciated like having to stay in bed and wait for a breakfast tray (so I don't spoil the surprise) when all I really want to do is get up and go pee. 

3.  Company in the shower.  Without getting all 50 shades of Kay on you, I'll just say that I love a long, hot, steamy shower, but I don't want to share.  I don't want to step out of the spray and stand there wet and shivering while someone else takes a turn.  Now, maybe if there were two shower heads and some pulsating body jets and . . . hmmm . . . now that I think about it, if I have pulsating body jets, I'm not sure I need company.

4.  Watching Titanic on the big screen.  Yeah, yeah, yeah... friends from work told me I had to go see it with them.  Seeing it on the big screen did not make up for the fact that this was just an annoying movie and if she'd just climbed in a damn life boat they both could have lived instead of him sacrificing himself needlessly to save her.  Not that I cared what happened to the characters really.  It was just the principle of the thing.

5.  My first kiss.  First kisses must be overrated because I absolutely don't remember the who, when or where.  I'm not even sure I remember the first time my husband kissed me.  I mean, it must have been sometime during our first date, but I don't remember the moment.  I can only clearly remember being kissed for the first time by two different people.  One was a guy I met at a party in College.  He had incredibly long dark lashes, and he gave me and my friend a ride home.  I was really hoping he would kiss me, and he did.  Then there was this guy I met while volunteering at a campus blood drive.  He was irritating, but for some reason. I agreed to go out with him.  It was a mistake.  I was really hoping he wouldn't kiss me, but he did. 

I'm sure there were plenty of other experiences that were equally overrated, but it is much easier to remember the stellar, the tragic, and the ridiculous.  The mediocre experiences that never lived up the hype are very forgettable.  So all things considered, I doubt my 40th will prove to be very memorable. 

Office Shenanigans

Things are really intense at work right now, and I've notices this strange correlation between the amount of work that needs to be done, and the amount of time we will invest in various shennanigans.  As an example, I noticed a huge bottle of laundry detergent sitting on the desk in the cubicle across from my office. It was really big . . . probably 96 loads or so.

It was a big bottle in a little cubicle, and it seemed oddly incongruent.

What was it doing there?  I couldn't stop obsessing over the presence of the laundry detergent in that cubicle on this day.  It had to mean something.  What would cause a person to have a lot of laundry to wash that they couldn't wash at home?

Now, the cubicle is occupied by a friend of mine, and  to the best of my knowledge she's an upstanding, law-abiding citizen. I was a character reference when she applied for a permit to carry concealed and attested that she was not, to the best of my knowledge, a criminal.  And so, there is certainly no reason for me to sit in my office imagining the pile of blood splattered clothing she needs to wash in order to conceal any evidence to the contrary.

I don't really think any of my friends are inclined to murder, but this one friend does have a lot of anger. She also has handguns and presumably likes to spend her Saturdays at the shooting range. Oh . . . there's also her obsession with Jodie Foster's role in "The Brave One." I think her morning routine probably includes posing with the gun in front of the mirror and asking that fateful question "Who's the bitch now?"

Just for fun I did a quick Google search. "How to remove blood stains"

I pulled out a pad of Post-it notes and started to jot down the do's and dont's my search turned up. I did my best to ignore the nagging voice in my head which kept reminding me that in the event of an actual murder, my actions could be construed as abetting.

So I put a Post-it on the bottle . . . "Remember to use cold water. Hot water will set the blood stains and make things really easy for the forensic team."

But there were lots of other good tips.

"Pre-treat blood stains with salt and liquid soap or shampoo."

"For really stubborn blood stains, try pouring ammonia directly on the fabric."

This became a group project.  Several of us took time out of our busy day to transpose the collective wisdom of the internet on to Post-it notes and tape them (they weren't sticking well) to the bottle.  In the end, there were at least two dozen notes with helpful hints and suggestions.  Unfortunately I had to leave the office before she made it back from wherever she was, so as shenanigans go, it wasn't very gratifying, but learning is never wasted.