• Death

    Another one bites the dust. Two deaths in a week at the VA, and one of them was a full code. They still lost him. My humor is dark. Night shift humor is dark. This is true across medical, fire, police, and certain other professions that deal with people at their worst or at least,…

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  • This Far

    The last week of the winter I quarter. Final papers, projects, all due by the end of the week. There is literally no turn around time – winter II starts Monday. Sunday night, really. That’s when the classes appear in canvas and I get right to work. It is all accelerated and I like it…

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  • My Stupid Mental Health

    “What do you think Dr. P? Did you imagine me capable of this?” “How about you, Shirley? – you were the one who told me to take classes again.” I think about them sometimes. The staff and other patients in the hospital with me. Shirley was a nurse who dealt with my sleepwalking, gave me…

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  • Disease

    Disease

    I have daymares. No nightmares in awhile. I take prazosin, for nightmares. I was always kind of skeptical of that – how can a pill get rid of dreams, specifically, the nightmare variety? It probably can’t – the placebo does most of the work when it comes to a lot of meds. We believe it…

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  • Singing as Coping

    I really hate myself sometimes. I worry a lot. I make stupid mistakes I shouldn’t be making. I second guess myself all the time. And I have a brain that breaks apart sometimes. I put it back together though. A few times. I’ve pieced together a lucrative career out of nurse assisting and owning a…

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  • Conversations with Doctors

    Conversations with Doctors

    “I’ll never speak on this again. Looks like I’m attention seeking, I know that’s what you’re all thinking.” “No, we’re not. We think you’re in great danger of hurting yourself,” Dr. P said. I sat in the turtle suit that seemed to swallow me whole. It was far too big. They took my clothes, everything…

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  • Flashbacks and Cringey Stuff

    Heavy flashbacks tonight. I go back in time, my heart races, I’m flooded with memories that cause physical pain. It’s hard to concentrate. I’m so consumed sometimes. I want to talk to the doctor about it but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know that anything can really be done about it. I…

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  • PEG this!

    I stood my ground, I said no, and left the room. A patient had a PEG tube and couldn’t stop fiddling and playing with it. I cleaned him up and got him back in the bed, but he still would not stop going for it. I tried to talk him out of it; I tried…

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  • Untitled post 2585

    I have not been very present. Trying to combat that with mindfulness. Christmas came and went and as per usual, my brother never came with the wife and kids, but it was my mom who canceled and postponed this time. Now they are slated to come end of the month. I will be at work.…

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  • Change

    Maybe something is changing. Even if just a little. I have so much pent-up energy and my bones are sizzling. I used ativan, melatonin, vistaril, and gabapentin to force myself to sleep before work. On my way to work, I drove by the mental hospital as I always do and this time, not the panic…

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