Leana Delle

You know those days. Sun’s shining, but all seems black. The news is nothing but accidents and carnage. The vet calls wanting more money that you don’t already have. You can’t zip up your jeans without lying on the floor and using pliers. Nothing seems appealing except drowning your sorrows in a glass of wine and watching repeated episodes of “Orange Is The New Black” in an attempt to prove to yourself that things could be a lot worse (and they most certainly could).

Such was my day today, which led me to ponder . . . obstacles.

I took the above picture recently of an actual street sign. I love the whole concept of “What do you mean I can’t go there? Who says it’s off limits? Here’s what I think of your damned, stupid limitations.” Creative. Brilliant!

I’m torn. I like to think that obstacles are tests that measure our fortitude and determination; that how we move forward with each rough day determines how we’ll handle the next – and how much we grow. It could be that obstacles are just a reality of living and that nothing weighs in the balance of handling them well or not.

Fact is, we’re going to keep running into them. That’s a given. As we’re tootin’ along on the road of life, these glaring annoyances are going to continue popping up in our headlights.

Ever reach an intersection at two in the morning and get a red light? Ever look around at the fact that you’re the lone car on the road and think how stupid it is to be sitting there stopped when there’s no chance in hell that anything’s going to happen if you hit the gas? Have you hit the gas? I have, and I pretty much intend to keep doing so . . .

. . . tomorrow, that is, after tonight’s marathon of episodes eight through eleven and a chilled glass of Chardonnay.

I’m a writer, and I’m passionate about what I do, but I tend to avoid hot topics when blogging. I have plenty of opinions, but so does everyone else, and I like to leave controversy to the controversial. This week, however, I became genuinely riled.

I’m a third generation nurse and have been for 22 years. I’ve worked in geriatrics, oncology, med/surg, telemetry, critical care, and transplant, and I hold nurses in the highest esteem. The hours are long with few breaks (if any), the work is physically demanding, and the insidious emotional toll often irreversible. And – in reality – we rarely feel supported.

I was literally outraged this week to find out that Vanderbilt Medical Center, in my old stomping grounds of Nashville, TN, has made the decision to cut back on housekeeping and have their nursing staff clean patient rooms.

Click HERE to watch/read details of the Vanderbilt announcement

“Cleaning the room after a case, including pulling the trash and mopping the floor, are all infection prevention strategies, and it’s all nursing – it’s all surgical tech. You may not believe that, but even Florence Nightingale knew it was true.”

I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that Flo wished she’d had someone to take care of the floors and toilets so that she could concentrate on safe, effective patient care.

Vanderbilt’s administrator goes on to add, “The priority will be what patients see.”

What about what they don’t see? Who’s going to take care of that, and how often??

“We must continue to care for our patients, and we must do so in an efficient manner”

Efficiency in nursing is a challenge now given the amount of responsibility that RNs hold. What do we do when one of our patients has a crisis, and we’re wrapped in our “personal protective equipment” mopping floors?

When I graduated from nursing, I went through a three year diploma program in Canada that was focused primarily on patient care. At some point the powers-that-be decided that we should all have a more theory based degree under our belts to raise the overall status of our profession. God knows that will come in handy when we’re scrubbing toilets.

This is an overall bad decision. It’s bad for nursing, and it’s bad for patients. I predict poor patient outcomes, cross contamination, increased infection rates, more critical incidences, patient dissatisfaction, burnout, sick calls, and an irreversible dive in an already low morale.

Somebody please tell me that this is a lone decision. This cannot be allowed to become the expectation across the board in our profession.

We deserve better. Our patients deserve better.

Please talk about this to your friends and family, inform the public, and be very concerned. We need nurses, and we need them to be able to practice in a safe and supportive environment. This affects everyone.

 

Remember when you were a teen, and you could find hearts in all things? I sure do, but I went through that phase during the 70s (bravely dating myself here) when peace and love dominated our culture.

My first cousin twice removed, Paige, shared this picture of herself on Facebook recently and gave me permission to share it with you. Thanks, Paige!!

I LOVE this shot for several reasons. First off, it’s of Paige. Second, it’s positive and smile inducing. Third, it instantly takes me back to a younger, more optimistic me.

For years now I’ve been saying that I wouldn’t go through my teenaged years again if paid, but the further I get away from them (oh, the irony) the more selective I am in my memories – and feelings.

I was going to shake things up, make a difference, love my neighbor. I meditated, held hands, and dreamed of being the next Joni Mitchell. I planned to forge my own path and change the system. Somewhere along the way, however, the system changed me.

Oh, “If I knew then what I know now,” right? What I could accomplish. But wait! If I have the knowledge now, and can channel my unstoppable previous self . . .

I know now what I had then – and there’s no reason why I can’t have it again.

Okay, so the physical energy might not be there, but the sense of wonder certainly can be. I can still make a difference, love my neighbor (even if she doesn’t like dogs), hold hands, and play my guitar. And I CAN change things. Maybe not on a global scale, but the ocean consists of a lot of tiny little droplets, and each one contributes to the wave.

Channel the version of yourself that felt the most authentic. Be what you once believed you could be.

Peace

Friendships come and go, but this week I had to back off on one that had incredible sole. No, that wasn’t a typo. I’m talking about the best damned pair of sandals I’ve ever slipped my feet into.

They’ve protected me from the sweltering sidewalks of Dallas, waltzed me through honky-tonks in Nashville, dashed me out of downpours in Portland, and fought to keep my feet on the ground in Paris. But this week, after walking umpteen miles on the streets of Rome, little choice remained but to send them into retirement.

 

Foul, tattered, and beaten, they’re barely holding together now, but they can still become an extension of my own skin and trudge for miles without causing an ache or a pain. Oh, and the looks I got as they carried me through the shoe stores of Venice. Priceless!

I did eventually find a beautiful new pair, which spurred the saleswoman to hold my old friends over the trash and plead, “Per favore, Signora!”

“I can’t,” I replied.

She conceded saying, “These were your love.” She then shrugged her shoulders and gently wrapped them in tissue paper for me to take home.

Yes – come to think of it – they were my love (it’s a girl thing), so full retirement might be the wrong approach entirely, unless I’m willing to have them bronzed. I can still walk the dog in them, right? Or put them on to traipse down a beach?

Semi-retirement . . . that’s where they’ll go. Someplace peaceful in the back of my closet where no one can make fun of them. Someplace where my journey of a billion steps (give or take a few) can pause before being committed only to memory.

You’ve served me well, Tsongas. Thanks for the ride.

Flies. They’re everywhere in my home. Why? Because I have a dog, Toby, who insists on opening the screen door to my deck when I’m not home to bark at his four-legged neighbors. He also enjoys catching flies when he can and eating them. Yes, I could shut the sliding glass door to prevent this, but he relishes in being outdoors, so what the hell?

He wants out, and the flies want in. I envision a swarm of them buzzing outside the door when I leave for work taunting the little guy with chants of, “Open it. Open it now.”

 

Anyway, I always come home to find a handful of the ones that managed to escape Tobias P. Fluffigan’s evil clutches. I stood watching one of them recently as it buzzed around my bedroom in an annoying aimless pattern, and I pondered, “Why be a fly? What’s the point?”

 

In other words, why be aimless? When I feel myself buzzing out of control, I force a landing and refocus. I’m a big fan of showing purpose through action. Aimlessness just leaves us vulnerable to the chomping jaws of wasted time or the crushing blow of an “I should have known better” swatter.

 

Aimlessness can simply buzz off – or, to quote my furry friend, “Snarl, grrrr, CHOMP!”