Over there someplace --->>>
there should be a new addition to the blogroll:

Hogwarts' School of Grid-Down Medicine.

AKA providing medical help for you and yours, when you're all there is, or is likely going to be, for any number of reasons.

Doc Grouch, Ivymike, and myself had it suggested upon us courtesy of Concerned American over at WRSA.
We promptly all fell all over ourselves thinking what a great idea it was. Doc Grouch and Mike did just about all the work of launching it.
My input was some tinkering, and then I got a vacation, and then my return to reality, as previously noted, has been a bit...bumpy lately.
Thus any credit due to me for it so far is right about nil, so I'm not being immodest to tell you the site looks great, and there's stuff there you should read, learn, and pay attention to, if you think big shiny white hospitals and endless streams of Government Bux to pay for visits there will not last forever, in all places and times, for the rest of your life.
In other words, if you have any grasp on medical and sociological realities, let alone an awareness of the frequency of life's normal allotment of natural disasters.

Doc and Ivymike have done great things there thus far.

As my situation stabilizes, and I get back to regular posting, I'll have more of a share carrying my end of the log, along with Doc Grouch, IvyMike, and anyone else we can cobble together to keep it a going concern, and improve it.

Start at the beginning, read the posts, do the homework.

Our goal is not online medical school. (There are probably laws against that anyways.)
It is that everyone with the time and inclination be provided with the guidance, resources, and gentling prodding (of a solid boot in the ass, metaphorically) to be as prepared as they may choose to be to deal with medical emergencies anywhere, with what's in your pockets, or even better, with the prudently-stocked contents of your home version of Somewhere General Hospital. And anyplace on that spectrum between those two. Guided by what we have invested and reaped from a combined goodly number of decades each and all trudging through the corridors practicing our medical arts.

Go.
Pay attention.
Learn stuff.
Practice it.
Save Lives.

Potentially even those that mean the most to you personally, at a time when you may be their best, or only, chance.


(And though Life's been kicking my butt a tad lately, I'm kicking back, and I'll shortly be back with more Shepherd stories - from a host of new assignments, and a number that have been kicking around for awhile, as well as seeing what Ebola is doing these days besides killing people as efficiently as ever. So whatever you've been coming here for will return in short order, once things settle down a bit for me. thanks for your patience.)

And the other shoe drops...

My vacay was lovely. As will become apparent, I should have stayed there.
(If you have the chance for two weeks on Maui, I highly recommend it. Anytime.)

Upon my return, I found out the reason they were so cheerful about letting me have time off for the holidays, was that in their ceaseless efforts to not go broke implementing ObamaCare, my facility will be "re-organizing", and wished me their best in securing another position. Just. Like. That.
The fact that I'm experienced, at the top pay tier, and recently passed the half-century milestone were all purely coincidental, they assured me. And I have a bridge for sale too, right next to some beachfront property in Kansas.

Step Two was dusting off the resume, and getting a gig with any number of nursing registry agencies hereabouts that are swamped with the need for ED nurses locally, because for some reason, there are a ton of facilities with openings for non-permanent personnel on all shifts. Everywhere.
Doubtless this is just another purely random coincidence, I'm sure.

The sweetener is that they pay on average 10-20% more than my former employer, for doing the same job, and (after a few months not there), even including my former hospital home. So they laid me off to get me a raise, and set my own days and hours forever, including no more holidays at my discretion, and all it cost them was any shred of loyalty or concern for their best interests I might have had after the last ten-plus years in their trenches.

Such a deal.
The other bummer was instantly being ripped from amongst the greatest bunch of people, doctors, nurses, and staff, I've ever worked with. $#!^ happens.

The fly in the ointment was that I needed to do all the pre-employment hoops I haven't jumped through since Clinton was president, and dig up paperwork from the late Pleistocene, as well as document my decades of competencies in everything, from scratch. (Satisfying my inner hyper-anal control freak, I have so far aced everything they've thrown at me. And thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I can do this stuff online, at home, in my pajamas, whenever I feel the urge. Yay, 21st century technology.)

During which, it turns out that between eating like a teenager, no small amount of it grazing on craft service, and the very same two decades of dealing with nightshift ED work and the lovely people deposited on my gurneys, my blood pressure seems to have decided to translate into flight data from a space launch liftoff, after being textbook normal up to at least six months ago.

Oh goody. After a quarter-century in healthcare, I always wondered what it'd be like to be the patient. (Not.)

I have consequently been just a wee bit pre-occupied with securing gainful employment, and not having my head explode, while finding a regular physician for the first time since I was a teenager, managing new meds, and embarking on a new quest to burn off at least a decade of crap daily diet and not enough cross training. With my former health insurance a distant memory.

So the 20 extra pounds around my gut are my fault, and the ED is the ED, but a hearty "Fuck You" to president for-life? HopeyDopey, and his ceaseless efforts to destroy the 17% of the American economy that has been my career, by mucking up the revenue stream for all hospitals. The only silver linings are that having discovered my new health situation, I won't be stroking out from his upcoming State Of The Union, 'cuz I've got meds to fix that now, and because of totally screwing the pooch for the medical industry, there are suddenly no shortage of doctors happy to see me for cash-for-service, indefinitely.

Regular blogging will resume when the recent roller coaster comes in for a landing.

The fivefold teaching moments are thus:

The government is not here to help you. Ever.
Neither is your employer. Loyalty is for dogs. Their end of the contract comes when the paycheck clears. Anything else is icing on the cake, but don't count on it.
Keep your resume current and updated.
More veggies, less pizza.
More PT, sergeant, more PT. Because I miss the Daily Seven like BUDS candidates miss getting wet and sandy in January.

And if you thought I was a non-cheery cranky caustic SOB before all this needless personal drama,

GET OFF MY LAWN.

 

 

Back regularly as soon as I can. The medical chances of me shutting up on the internet are about 8 billion to 1, against.