Month: January 2022

If you are not retired, you may not understand what I am about to tell you. Nevertheless, please read on.

I am running down one of the halls of my junior high school, hand in hand with my previous charge nurse. We are looking for the surgeon, whom I have never met, trying to find the operating room in which I was supposed to be thirty minutes ago, to assist an unknown surgeon, in a procedure of which I have never heard, in a field, in a meadow, that is completely unknown to me. IT NOT STERILE!!! WHAT? Wake up!!!

This is only one example of the bad dreams that I have; and I have them waaay too frequently for my liking.

I am always late for a surgical procedure, in a setting that is completely outdated, in which I am unfamiliar, with staff I usually do not know, and, in a VERY unsterile environment. Then, I frequently need some type of narcotic to administer to my patient, whom I have never met, and know nothing about, but, alas, I cannot find the cabinet where said narcotics are stored, and I have no idea where the key is to said cabinet, because I have never been to this outdated facility before now. It is critical, however, that I administer said narcotic before the surgery because this particular surgeon wants to perform the surgery in a dirty field, and the patient is on a ventilator, with multiple medications infusing, on multiple different machines, and they all need to be moved TO THE DIRTY FIELD. AAAGGGGHHHH.

The surgeon wants to perform, usually, ophthalmic surgery, out in a field of dirt? Really?

Someone, please, wake me up. I cannot understand why, A) I am still working, and B) well, any of the rest of it.

I have to try to fix all of the above problems before I discover that I am actually at the grocery store, about to buy a buffalo.

Ok. Enough. When I finally awaken, I am confused, and exhausted, to say the least. If anyone can interpret these dreams, please, let me know what the heck is going on.

Until then, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

So many of the people I used to work with are no longer in our “home base”; our hospital.

I have lost track of most of them. Some were friends that I had worked with for more than twenty, even thirty years. Some were as close to me as my sisters are. Now, I have lost track of them, and it saddens me.

In the metropolitan area, where we lived, and worked, there are at least seven hospitals, all within only miles of each other. Over the past thirty years, or more, the organizational directors of this hospital joined forces with that hospital, then, the next, and now have acquired four of the hospitals in the area. The other three hospitals are under a different organizational leadership. For many, it was us versus them.

Now, they are each trying to decide how many of these buildings, and staff, need to be kept working, how many need to be let go, etc. Which buildings need the least amount of structural reworking, keeping them in good working order, allowing them to pass their annual inspections by the myriad governing bodies that have the authority to keep the hospitals open, or shut them down?

Which staff members should stay at which facility, and which ones either need to go to a different facility, maybe one that does not function as well as their original facility, and “team members”, or which ones should retire, or be dismissed?

As I said, there are myriad decisions to be made, to be discussed, and to be acted upon; decisions that will change the way the entire area has functioned over the years, and in the future.

It was a very fortunate thing, for us, that I was able to retire a year earlier than we had expected. We were able to, not only sell our home, and many of our valuables, but, to move here, fulfilling a lifetime goal, and more importantly, a lifelong dream.

I do not think I would have liked all of the changes happening in the area; especially not now that the CoVid 19 virus, and its multiple mutations, has entered the equation.

We lived through a similar change, in the late nineteen nineties, early two thousands, and that was enough for me. I was young, and full of energy, with nothing but hope for the future. Then, we only changed states, and had the AIDS epidemic with which to contend. And we thought that was the worse thing that could happen.

Now, we are, once again, living through the complete changing of our way of life: a new country, a new language, a new living space; not forgetting for a single moment, there is a global pandemic, which has an ever changing, mutating virus at the helm.

I believe I have had enough changes in my life to be comfortable with a bit more of a sedate future. Please, do not misunderstand me; I am quite willing to experience whatever the future has in store for us.

Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones. You, too, may be able to enjoy whatever the future has in store for you.