August 2021 Reflections

As usual, I’m starting this post mid-month. But not to worry, I have my bullet journal to reference. 

And I apologize, I legit forgot to post pictures of my bullet journal for last month, so I’ll post both July and August soon. 

I’ve had a lot of emotional turmoil these past few months, cut me some slack!

Aug 1-3: We went on our first camping trip in our cargo-conversion trailer! You can read all about it here. 

Aug 4: Back to work after a short vacation. Was grumpy and didn’t want to be there – AT ALL. 

Aug 6: Friday clinic with Dr. S. We had a promising applicant – she was going to medical school though didn’t pass her MCATS, (a college admission test to get into medical school), so while she was waiting to take her MCATS again, she was going to work as a medical assistant in our clinic. She’s from a different state and we were supposed to have a ZOOM interview with her, but she withdrew her application so that didn’t happen. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of this applicant as it seemed a little too good to be true and I wasn’t surprised she withdrew her application but I was disappointed as that means, still ZERO applications and ZERO prospects of getting anyone hired. The girl who was out for maternity leave is back, the other one who was getting married is gone so that still leaves us down two MA’s. I also learned from management that if we lose anymore people, which is a possibility if/when they mandates vaccines, I know of at least three people who will leave, the doctors will be forced to cut down the number of clinics they have due to lack of staffing. Once again, the COVID response is way worse than the actual disease. 

Aug 9: First clinic day back for Dr. M after my COVID “intervention.” (For those that don’t know, my team cornered me and basically had an intervention for me to try and talk me into getting the jab. It was weird and uncomfortable and though I appreciated them caring enough to try, hell will freeze over before I get the jab). It was a quiet clinic. We were all a bit subdued. I arrived to work feeling super bitchy and grumpy, but I forced myself to turn my frown upside down and by the end of clinic, we were close to being back to normal. However, we DON’T discuss all-things COVID. Dr. M. told us he will need shoulder surgery soon so we’re all scrambling to figure out how we’re going to handle his clinic and surgery schedules. This should be interesting …. and stressful. *sigh*

Aug 11: Working A LOT. I got 11 hours of overtime over a two week period. Again, largely because I’m working two doctors clinics and schedules. It’s a lot. And I’m super tired but I’m handling it. I’m getting a flow now but I couldn’t do this WITHOUT working overtime. Kevin is not thrilled about this but my paychecks are nice and fat, so that’s a plus. We still have a lot of people in the hospital with “COVID”. I put that in quotations because I wonder just how many of those cases are actually COVID cases. You can’t trust the tests and you can’t trust administration to be honest about this stuff. It’s all about an agenda so I’m taking everything I hear/see with a grain of salt. The “get the jab” propaganda is still super thick and we’re now up to 70% of employees, including nurses, are vaccinated. So after pushing the lottery incentive and placing pop-ups in front of our faces every day as we work on the computers about employee vaccination clinics – IT’S FREE- I’m a bit encouraged to see that the percentage only went up about 5% since before they started hard-core pushing this jab shit down our throats. We’ll see what happens. 

Aug 14: Experimented with filming myself as I do my podcast. That was fun. Learned a lot about editing as well. Kevin uses the Wondershare Filmora editing program and it’s pretty great. Highly recommend. Obviously, I’m a newbie at this video editing thing but I had so much fun playing around with it I’m hooked and ready to play some more. 

Aug 16: Brandon had his wisdom teeth cut out today. His teeth weren’t bothering him like Blake’s were bothering him, (Blake had an infected wisdom tooth – he suffered for about a year before having his cut out), but Brandon’s dentist told him he had two that were impacted and it would only be a matter of time before he would likely have to have them removed as well, so he though he would bite the bullet and get his removed. Kevin brought him home and he slept at our house for three hours before I came home. We bought him some spaghetti to eat but he was too sore to make much of a dent. I worried about how Brandon would handle the surgery. I feel like his pain threshold is not as strong as Blakes. Dr. M’s team ate lunch together today. We had a few birthdays that we hadn’t had a chance to celebrate so we ate lunch and had cookie cake afterward. It was nice to sit down and have some laughs outside of work. It felt like old times, quite frankly. 

Aug 17: My Kindle stopped working. It would turn on for a second, show nothing but black lines and then die. I looked at my Amazon orders and I’ve had this Kindle for almost four years. I don’t feel like that’s very long but to be fair, I use it CONSTANTLY so I feel like I got my money’s worth. I’m now three books behind on my Goodreads goal and it’s stressing me out. I had the worst night’s sleep that I’ve had in quite some time. I had a wicked bout of insomnia and since I didn’t have my Kindle and I’m not about to pick up a normal book and read it, I felt a little lost. So, I stayed up until 2:00 AM watching YouTube before I felt sleepy enough to go to bed. My alarm went off at 5:15 so I worked a clinic on three hours of sleep. I was really struggling to think and I was slurring and stumbling over my words. I’m betting my team though I had COVID. Because that’s what everyone thinks nowadays whenever someone isn’t acting right. Don’t deny it!

Aug 20: What the hell is happening with Afghanistan?? I can’t believe our idiot president withdrew our troops before making sure all American citizens and allies were evacuated before hand. Now, it’s an absolute mess over there and the Taliban are wearing our uniforms, using our weapons and mocking America. And either Biden is not aware of the mess he’s made or he doesn’t care because he keeps taking off on “vacation.” Maybe it’s both. Either way, he’s an asshole and any deaths that happen over there is all his fault. His approval rating is now down in the 40’s. Stupid old man. Those poor people over there must be terrified out of their minds. 

Aug 23: Well, the day has come. Not only did the FDA “approve” the Pfizer vaccine, (but did they though?) but the hospital where I work mandated the vaccine. I have until Oct 15th get the injection or lose my job. As you can imagine, there was A LOT of buzz and side conversations today. I’m pretty sure our clinic will lose three people, one medical secretary and two MA’s, when this is all said and done. A few people have already caved, which, whatever, it’s your life, your body, your choice, you do what you need to do, no judging. But for me? We all know how this will end for me. I feel like this whole get the jab or lose your job thing is sort of like the five levels of grief: Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I’ve gone through all of these stages and am now in the acceptance stage. So when they made the announcement, I hardly blinked an eye. I was expecting it. I was disappointed that the hospital jumped on the opportunity to mandate it mere HOURS after the FDA announced the “approval,” but I’m not surprised. I wrote about all these levels here along with what my future plans now look like. 

Aug 25: Talked to Kevin about filing a religious exemption at work. Not sure if it will work, not sure I really want to, but playing around with the idea. I’ve been understandably very distracted at work and I’m so tired of worrying/stressing about this whole subject that quite frankly, I’m ready to move on. 

Aug 26: Kevin used to be in a band. Way back when. In fact, he’s been in several bands. He plays guitar, for those curious. His truck has been making all sorts of weird noises lately so he took it to a friend, someone who used to be in a band with him and plays drums, who looked it over and did some work on it. The guys started talking and before you know it, this friend asked Kevin if he would be interested in getting together with some guys to jam. They came over today and they’re over at LeRoy’s house now jamming to their hearts content. I’m not exactly happy that Kevin is getting back into it but if that’s what he wants to do, I’m certainly not going to give him grief over it. It does make him happy and that’s all that really matters. 

Aug 27: It was a beautiful, sunny, hot day today and I suggested me, my nurse, our medical secretary and another nurse leave campus and go to lunch together. I drove them all and we went to a sandwich/pizza place. It was great conversation and we had a lot of laughs. It felt so good to get out of that oppressing place and have some fun. I was in regular clothes but the other girls were in scrubs and the place where we went were wearing masks, we were not. I wonder what they, and the other customers though that members of the medical field were not wearing masks. I personally don’t care what anyone thinks, judge away, but the though did cross my mind as we were being seated. We took a group picture afterward. I wanted something to remember that day and my friends for when I move on. Because I WILL move on. 

Aug 28: Kevin’s truck is out of commission and he’s super bummed about it. It wasn’t anything his buddy did, he only worked on the truck itself. Kevin updated his computer software in the truck and now it won’t run. Well, it runs, but he can’t drive it. The previous truck owner modified it quite a bit and Kevin thinks those modifications messed up the update. He’s kicking himself for updating it. I’m not a huge fan of updating anything because it always seems like every time you do that, something gets messed up. He’s got an appointment with a guy who works on car computers but it’s not until September 8th. In the meantime, he doesn’t have a truck and he’s not quite sure what to do with himself. He took his car out treasure hunting today but he will have to keep his purchases on the small side so he can get them into his car. I encouraged him to call the guy on Monday and check for any cancellations hoping that will get him in sooner. I hope he gets it fixed soon because we’re supposed to go on our second camping trip the end of this month and I’m selfishly not wanting to cancel that. Speaking of vacation, I’m asking my manager on Monday if I have to work two weeks after my vacation in order to get paid. If I do, then I’ll likely cancel the vacation as the deadline is not quite two weeks after my vacation. That answer will likely determine when I put my two weeks notice in. I still can’t believe I’m planning on leaving the hospital. I had fully intended on retiring there, but they forced my hand and NO ONE puts baby in the corner. (Dirty Dancing reference, if you didn’t catch that). 

Aug 31: I’m absolutely blown away by the fact that it’s September. Do you all realize that we’ll, (well, I will be, I don’t know when you guys are), be putting our Christmas tree up in two short months?!? That blows me away. But I LOVE this time of year. Fall is my favorite season, hands down and this Fall will be extra special, I will starting a new job. 

I’ve been sort of obsessed with this whole COVID topic. (Which is evident if you listen to my podcast – which I have two episodes to post and haven’t yet, but I will). I can think of NOTHING else right now. I want my exit to be as smooth as possible as I want to try and avoid any mushy goodbyes. I hate crying in public and I really don’t want to do that in front of the people I work with. Kevin text me a picture of my 10-year pin that I received in the mail today. How sad is it that I will be leaving very close to my work anniversary? I had a conversation with my boss the other day and asked a few questions about when my insurance will run out, etc. and I told her, flat out, I felt like the hospital was treating people who chose not to get the vaccine as second class citizens. I think she was a little taken aback, but that’s how I feel. 

Though the policy doesn’t say this yet, it will, but if you file an exemption and it’s accepted, then you will have to agree to take a weekly test for COVID. So I asked my boss what the logistics of that would look like. Let’s talk this out, shall we?

So. I’m forced to take a PCR test. Which is faulty and can’t be trusted as the FDA are recalling the tests at the end of the year because they’re having trouble distinguishing between influenza and COVID. I’m now forced to take a faulty test and if it comes back positive, because let’s face it, it likely will because the tests are faulty, what does that mean? My boss told me that if I’m asymptomatic I will be off work for 10 days and will use vacation time, if I have it. If I’m symptomatic, then I’m out for 14 days. Okay, so I’m out for ten days, come back, have to take another test and it comes back positive again. Now, I’m out for almost three weeks out of the month, I’m out of vacation time, not getting paid and it’s putting a strain on my co-workers. 

Sounds like a hell of a deal to me. 

I understand why the hospital is doing this. I get it. They are trying to protect themselves and don’t want to get sued, but they are purposefully making it extra hard for people who choose not to get the experimental injectable so that they basically give up and quit. 

No thanks. I will not be playing that game. I told my boss I will not be filing an exemption. So now, it’s just a question of timing for me. I do have a plan, but I won’t be sharing that plan with you guys, yet. 

We shopping at the Wal-Mart that Blake works out the other night and he told us that Brandon was still in a lot of pain from his wisdom teeth extraction. He says he’s doing better but still needs medication to help him sleep at night but he’s okay during the day. It’s Labor Day weekend this weekend, hopefully we can all get together. 

Things are tense at work. I’m sorry I keep talking about work, but it sort of consumes me right now. I feel like everyone is cranky and on edge, which, I guess they are, to be honest. And I feel like everyone is watching me and treating me differently. I’m sure it’s my imagination, but … everything just feels different. I feel like an outsider, which is sad but I guess not to be unexpected. At least a decision has been made and I can move forward. Being indecisive honestly drives me nuts. 

I’m not looking forward to learning a new job and I think the rest of this year is going to be unsettling for me, but I’ll soon settle into a new routine and it will be nice not having to be subjective to all the propaganda, bullying and bribing that I’m experiencing now. 

It’s so weird to think that (hopefully) this time next month I will have a different job.