Fighting Dinosaurs

Welcome to spring in Colorado.

I managed to run a little over 11 miles today and talked with Wheaties Boy, we are planning a 20 mile run Sunday regardless of the weather. We could get 8 inches of snow out of this sudden dump that just started in the past hour.

I felt better running today, I could have gone for more miles than I did, but it's slow and I thought I should save a little for the weekend, maybe there's a chance I could get a quality workout in by Sunday.

Today has been slightly productive, I got some small things done. I got my annual mammogram, the boob smasher. That was the least painful it's ever been, I hope they don't call me back on Monday and tell me they need to re-do it because the pictures weren't good enough. Then I paid the bills. Ouch. After that I spoke on the phone to a nurse in Ohio about wellness programs for nurses.

One thing I learn so often by speaking to nurses from other hospitals, other parts of the country, and reading things online and in the nursing journals, is that the place where I work is way ahead of the game when it comes to all sorts of things. Everything she was telling me about, that sounded like it was a novel approach in her hospital system, were things that we've had in place here for a long time, almost a decade.

The thing about it is, getting nurses to participate is the same everywhere. I have about half a dozen research ideas for a masters or doctoral thesis in nursing, a few of them involve improving conditions for nurses at work, but no one truly gives a crap about wellness for nurses, including nurses themselves. Killing us off seems to be the plan, and nurses seem to be resigned to being killed off, rather than fighting back. No one wants to butt heads with a dinosaur.

I suppose, when you work in a profession that sucks you dry on a daily basis, any thought of giving more of yourself on your time off is about as exciting as cleaning poop.

Most of my runs lately have involved being deep in thought about these things. Not about cleaning poop, but the other stuff...

I guess the next time someone asks me what I think about during my run, I could say, "Fighting dinosaurs!"

When I started writing this blogpost, I took the picture of the girls in the yard. Just a half hour later, this is what the yard looks like now, and huge snowflakes are dumping from the sky.