The Sacred Entitlements

Wouldn't this look nice with some clay pigeons, beer cans, and off-road vehicle
tracks,with some jet skis and speedboats on the water, with gunshot sounds?

The past 3 1/2 years have been the pinnacle of misery in my lifetime. The US leads the world in stressing out its citizens and residents, including those who thought they could come here for a better life and instead were greeted with the horrors of family separation, imprisonment, and abuse.

We make the lives of not only our own citizens, but people around the world, and animals and plants and other living beings on this earth, so much more stressful, and cause so many to endure such suffering and pain, than is ever necessary. 

None of it is new to me, none of it is a surprise, and this is nothing I haven't noticed before or thought deeply about. I've endured various flavors of discrimination myself but I've always had one thing going for me- the color of my skin. I never had to worry that if I was pulled over, I might end up being beaten, wrongly imprisoned, or dead. 

I can think of dozens of incidents and events in my lifetime where our country's public responses and actions resulted in much more harm than good. This country imparts upon so many of its formerly demographic majority citizens a sense of entitlement. And I'm really fucking sick of it. 

And this entitlement, they eat it up, internalize it, and it becomes ingrained forever and ever, and if anyone ever dares to question it or suggest change, they react with anger, defensiveness, and gaslighting. They act as if they got everything they have on their own, they built it and created the wealth for themselves, not by using slave labor or abusive tactics. They defend it by turning it around on those who are just asking to be treated fairly and equally- they use the word "entitlement" to mean a handout, implying they should feel guilty about asking for help or even needing help. 

We are seeing the ugliness of these slithering creatures who have been mostly hidden from view, until now, that the savior of hate has liberated them, their entitlement has been exposed for all to see. All it takes is for the stars to line up with a pandemic and a viral video exposure of the intersection of racism and violence. Add an idiot sociopath in the White House, 300+ million people who are exhausted and drained physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and spiritually by the state of the world created by his extorted and/or equally sociopathic followers. 

And they whine about being asked or required to wear masks or being mask-shamed, and about not being able to go eat their crappy obesogenic Chik-Fil-A among other equally deranged specimens of health, not being able to get their tattoos or nails and hair done, or not being able to go out, swill beer and leer. 

What the fuck makes them so special? 

It's their sense of entitlement. 

Entitled to:

1. their hate 
2. their beliefs of superiority
3. not change behaviors or attitudes 
4. not learn new information
5. ignore facts
6. never admit mistakes
7. endanger other people's safety and lives (e.g. carrying guns, spreading infectious disease)
8. not have to think critically
9. live in their own little bubble as if nothing they do affects anyone else around them
10. not contribute anything to the public good by paying taxes based on a fair system
11. special treatment or service when and how they want it
12. buy and consume goods and services without consideration of who might be harmed by their production 
13. take more than they need, and accumulate wealth in a way that takes away from others' ability to survive
14. pollute, litter, and harm the environment
15. property rights as if they were a license to destroy and harm the planet and other living beings
16. drive violently
17. disregard the suffering, pain, lives and well-being of their fellow citizens
18. leave an indelible mark on the earth as a testament to their existence

What pushed me over the edge last week- and I've been over the edge so much lately I could be a cliff jumper by now- was a series of stupid, ignorant, life-in-a-bubble comments by one of my white male 60-something neighbors. Both times I was not there to hear it, but someone else told me about it after the fact. First time, he was complaining about the riots. Second time, he made a totally boneheaded, insensitive, microaggressive comment to a younger black man, who calmly brushed it off. 

I wondered where the hell has my neighbor been living for the past month? The fact that my neighbor can say shit like that and it doesn't even faze him- doesn't think twice about it- he obviously has not been watching the news (other than Fox) and has no self-awareness or empathy whatsoever. But mostly, entitled: to live in a bubble, ignore facts, ignore current events and the impact of your own behavior and attitudes on other people, avoid learning or keeping up with the times...

I know that just writing this could be construed as moral superiority, elitism, and all those other names that people like to call "the libs". But I'm not going to apologize for calling out the bullshit behavior that I, as a 56 year old barely off-white, cisgender female, queer, Jewish-born human being have witnessed and endured my entire life, that has harmed and traumatized me in innumerable ways, and that has done immensely and exponentially greater harm to generations of other human beings, my fellow citizens and inhabitants of this planet, who happened to be born with dark skin. 

And I'm just, plain, fucking sick to death of all of it. 

On Power, Nursing, and Sunsets: A Long Overdue Rant!!

"My job is ________ (insert true purpose), not to be a cog in the wheel!"

Okay, so as a nurse, I would fill in the blank with patient advocacy.

Why THIS rant, and why NOW?

It's been quite the week, or several...

Recent events have reminded me of why I left traditional healthcare setting to become a nurse entrepreneur and do the work I am passionate about.

One is the Harvey Weinstein scandal and all of the related accusations that have followed.

Another is the latest revelation of an eye surgeon physically assaulting a nurse in the operating room, in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood.

Still another is hearing someone's account of going through the wringer just to get a diagnosis and chance at treatment of her metastatic cancer.

And another is being almost done with my book, and after toning down my passion and enthusiasm so as not to be perceived as angry, I was told I need to put some teeth back in the book by my most honest critic, which I gladly did. (Why can't women be angry? We certainly deserve to be. Those are valid feelings. We don't have to shut up because it makes somebody uncomfortable.)

And finally, today I received yet another e-mail from a nursing organization offering a continuing education module, sponsored by a drug company, about pancreatic cancer.

What do all these things have in common?

They all have to do with a power gradient and how the powerful can push, shove, elbow, sneak, and bludgeon their way to maintaining the status quo.

Hearing about the surgeon assaulting the nurse, according to the allegations, the surgeon was barely slapped on the wrist, while the nurse was bullied by the powers that be, reducing her hours, moving her to a different floor, and not being taken seriously. It doesn't matter that it was not sexual assault. Harvey Weinstein used his power to manipulate, threaten, and ruin the careers of women who did not acquiesce to his demands. Nurses are seen as an expense in the healthcare system, expected to stay quiet, cooperative, and inexpensive. Surgeons, on the other hand, are revered as money makers. In a healthcare system that values profit over patient outcomes, this is what you get.

And if a patient is emotionally needy, scared, and anxious, maybe even a bit dramatic, the doctors avoid her, push her out of the way, write notes to each other about her, and try to push her off onto someone else. Instead of seeing her for where she is and what she's facing, and considering what might be driving her behavior, the doctors are focusing on the behavior and seeing the patient as the problem.

To top it off, I saw this email about continuing nursing education on pancreatic cancer. I like to keep up with the latest in cancer treatment, and I opened the email to read the information inside. I skimmed over it, finding very little useful information, and when I reached the bottom, there it was, sponsored by Celgene.

Just another one of those mind-numbing continuing education opportunities that continue to focus more on the characteristics of the disease and treatments themselves, rather than on helping the patient heal and regain quality of living. Once again, there was plenty of material about the common symptoms and disease characteristics, but at the end , a few crumbs were thrown in the direction of mentioning quality of life, without any substance or real attempt to help nurses develop new tools or skills to make a difference for patients where they exist in their own lives.

And this is the problem in nursing- because nurses are an expense, expendable, and an afterthought, we are thrown a few crumbs by the big powerful drug companies, who make it easy for us to digest what they want us to parrot to the patients, to keep them coming back for more. Meanwhile, the qualities of creativity and intellectual curiosity are removed from nurse education. Who wants to be creative or investigate new ideas when they've been on their feet for 13 hours?

Being a cog in the big wheel of profit-driven healthcare is what is expected of nurses. Even if we get assaulted on the job. And it's happening more frequently. We're speaking out.

It's very frustrating to the powerful to not get their way.

Before I forget, watching Roy Moore's horse's ass ride off into the sunset- his defeat was delightful. It was a wonderful occasion to appreciate a Hanukkah present for this nonobservant JEW. You schmuck. And your evil wife.

I love sunsets, don't you?

And Your Point Is...? Bombs, Boston, Blizzards, and B.S.

Yesterday was a weird day all around. It started out weird. We woke up to 10 inches of heavy snow before work, that we had to shovel out of the driveway to get out to our never-plowed street. Driving to work was weird, you would think that in Colorado people would know how to drive in snow, but it turns out they're not much better at it than if a blizzard dumped a foot of snow in Phoenix.



I went into work and it was a bizzarro day, is the only way I can describe it. We got some weird characters at work. They were not patients, but people who accompanied the patients. It's already crowded enough in our work space and then you sometimes get these annoying people who occupy more space, make noise, and find other ways to encroach on our foot space while being rude and loud and sometimes invading the privacy of our patients. When people don't feel well, they want to be alone, or with their own carefully chosen family members or friends.

All this crap makes me question the sanity of our human existence. I felt extremely irritable all morning and I was busy. Fortunately my own patients were easy to work with, none of them had been affected by the mid-April zombie apocalypse, or whatever weird phenomenon occurred that ate so many people's brains prior to April 15th.

By 1 pm or so, the irritation had worked itself out, or gone home for the day, I was lightheaded and my hands were shaking. I got someone to cover my 1 pm appointment and I took off for lunch. Our soon-to-disappear, already undersized breakroom was full and I needed quiet, so I ate my lunch in the report room, which was empty. I turned my phone on and started scrolling through Facebook, and then I saw the bit about an "explosion" at the Boston Marathon.

By the time I had to go back to work, it was apparent that it was not just an explosion, but a deliberate bombing. I thought of all the people I know who were at Boston, either as runners, spectators, or support. The rest of the afternoon, whenever I could, I checked Google News to see the developments of the story. All my coworkers were checking, too.

I hate to get sucked into the porn of a tragedy, I tend to never follow these things and wait until the dust settles with more information. I don't have TV at home, either, so I don't get exposed to the dramatic and overblown newscasts, and I don't watch them on the computer. I prefer to read about it after more information is available. So, I tried to avoid the video coverage and the graphic pictures that were coming out.

When I got off work at 6 pm, I saw my e-mail and some posts on Facebook that all the local runners were safe, and that ultrarunner Tammy Massie, who had gone to Boston to cheer people on and spectate, was safe, and reports were coming back about people being killed and critically injured.

What I want to say to the perpetrators is, "And your point is?"

How cowardly and pathetic that someone has to resort to violence to attempt to get some point across, I do want to know who and what their motive was, to choose a large gathering of people at this event. It seems that it was timed to coincide with the largest number of finishers and spectators at the finish line area, around 4 hours into the race. Somebody knew enough about marathons, or Boston, at least, that they figured that out. But I also think to coordinate this many bombs, they had to be an organized and funded effort by a group.

We have seen so many violent events lately, with the mass shootings and bombings, that I think that somehow this bombing might be connected in some way with someone with an extreme agenda regarding the massacres we've seen lately involving guns. I'm not sure if that's even right, but it's what pops into my mind these days whenever there is some kind of mass violence. Some frustrated, crazed sociopathic freak of a monster like a Timothy McVeigh. Who knows, it could have been anything, but I get the feeling it's homegrown and related to that domestic political issue. I might be way off, but it feels that way to me.

What scares me about this incident is that it seems like every time we have a violent event, it is followed by copycat events. It could have been any sporting event, a baseball game, or anything where there are crowds of people. No one ever thinks something like this would happen in running, except maybe at the Olympics.

I heard they had some kind of tribute to the people of Newtown, Connecticut at 26 miles on the course. I imagine there were plenty of people who experienced that horror and were also at Boston. Double traumatization. The people who were actually injured, or killed, and their families and social circles, are the ones who can never have justice.

I hope the crime is solved soon, I want to know, but no matter what happens to the people who plotted and carried this out, there is no justice in these situations, not for the perpetrators, and never for the victims. Justice doesn't exist. They will have to live with it forever. The only thing other people can do, other than supporting the victims, is to refuse to act out in violent ways and to solve disagreements through words, and peacefully.

There are too many people out there who feel that terrorizing other people is a way to get the message across, we have this horrible way of sensationalizing it in the media. Sometimes there is no message, it's just a mentally deranged individual. But in this case, it's more than that.

It always amazes me when I read posts in social media coming from individuals I think are just regular people, who run, go to work, have children, and lead fairly ordinary existences, don't commit crimes, wish to live peacefully and safely, and wouldn't endanger other people on purpose or want to traumatize anyone.

Then they spout things that exacerbate polarization and violence, and support the outrageous assertions of groups like the recent statements coming from the NRA leadership. I suppose that by pointing this out I could be just as polarizing to them, but I really think what we hear coming from those groups is crazy fringe nonsense and doesn't do anything to help solve the real issues we have with guns and violence.

Our so-called "elected" representatives, who are really bought, don't do anything to help these situations because they are so polarized. They set a horrible example for the people. They don't get anything done, they just obstruct each other and waste the taxpayers' time and money, while working to advance the agendas of the lobbyists' organizations who pay them much better for it than we taxpayers do.

There are too many people who are just freakin weird. Like the latest idiocy coming out of the Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group in Kansas that likes to blame everything bad that happens on God's wrath due to something to do with gay people. These crackpots are grabbing media attention by saying they will boycott the funerals of those killed in Boston.

Really makes you wonder about humanity. But I still think that the overwhelming majority of human beings are not bad people, and I think it's time that the good people harness their power and drown out the voices of the tiny minority of crazy, evil ones.

Regardless, we go on and move forward. We will run more marathons, and ultras. We will continue to have large events with spectators lining the streets. It won't stop runners. It will change the way some of the larger races are managed, and it will probably increase entry fees due to in the increased cost of security, but it won't stop people from going about their business as usual. It will leave people with an uncomfortable, eerie, nagging thought in the back of their minds when they remember what happened at Boston in 2013.

It's in the Mirror

This week has been a whirlwind.

There was the news of the school shooting in Connecticut. I've hesitated to weigh in on that until more is known, though I do have strong feelings about it.

I've heard people blaming everything from gun policies to media coverage to lack of mental health resources, to more outlandish things, such as Obama, atheists removing God from the schools, lack of birth control, to poor parenting skills, hey, you can blame whomever you want to but really, if you want to point fingers, the real blame is in the mirror.

If you live in the U.S. and you pay taxes and vote, are a citizen, and are educated and/or intelligent enough to understand that there are multiple factors that contribute to this type of violence, you can point the finger in the mirror.

We're not doing enough. We're not vocal enough. We have our heads up our asses, busy texting, Facebooking, jabbering on the phone, watching the pornographic news coverage of events like this one on the TV and the Internet. And the lessons will be repeated until they are learned. I think it's time we learned. Which means, it's time to DO something and quit arguing and praying about it. Praying is a nice gesture, but it doesn't cut it.

Personally I think that the first three things I mentioned do play a large part in this, but the dust hasn't settled yet. Doesn't matter if the dust settles, it's time to act, because by the time the dust settles, there will be another shooting somewhere.

On Friday I went in to work a little four hour shift, just to help out and work until we closed. Just a quick little shift, make a few bucks, no big deal, right? Well, my first patient of the day coded, so that turned my little four hour shift into an action-packed couple of hours followed by a paperwork fest. Fortunately the patient is okay, for now, anyway.

I got my 100 mile week in. This weekend I ran 20 miles Saturday and 20 on Sunday. Saturday I ran up at Horsetooth and got some hills in, and Sunday I ran in town on the flats and rolling hills on the southeast end of town, with a Hail Mary thrown in at the end for fun.

I felt good both days, could have easily done more miles, legs felt good the whole time. It was cold because the humidity has been high, and there was no sunshine. Today I needed a good butt kicking so I texted Wheaties Boy and he texted me back to get my butt out the door. It helped.

The only question I have is, where's the snow?

Goblin at the No Goblin, and Silence

Signed, sealed, delivered. Not that I had any question about who I would vote for. I don't expect any magic solutions to society's ills in the next 4 years as a result of this president or any other, but I vote with my conscience, and I can only vote in the direction I'd rather see us moving. Now if I could just get the phone calls to stop, it would be delightful.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Denver to hang out, not run, with a group of ultrarunners I've known for many years. We're all old fart ultrarunners, except me of course, most have been in the ultraworld for at least the past 20 years, and the premise is "No Goblin Gas".

There usually is a race in Utah that is a day's drive away for most of us, called the Goblin Valley 50K, and it has been cancelled indefinitely, so this year they are staying home and doing a 50K training run in southwest Denver. And what would an ultra be without a party, food and beer afterwards?

I'm going to walk with Steph for a couple of hours, then we'll set up for the post-run BBQ. I plan to do a lot more of the goblin than the no goblin. I will also get to meet Sylvia, who is my friend Ed's new girlfriend. That's Ed who ran with me in the Black Hills this summer. He was just starting to date Sylvia when we were there in June, and things seem to be working out.

I survived another two days of work. Thought I would never make it through the first 12 hour shift, but I got 9 hours of sleep afterwards, a rare event for me on a work night, because I didn't have to go in until noon on Thursday. Then I only worked 9 hours because I had the closing shift. It was nice to not feel exhausted at work for a change.

Lately I've talked a lot about work and work hangovers and I vent because I do get tired, 12 hour shifts are hard, especially with the psychosocial components of the work I do. That's why nursing is a profession in which it is so easy to burn out.

It's easy to hang a bag of chemo or a liter of fluids, but taking care of the patient's needs demands not only attention to their physical condition, but also to everything they need in their lives when living with a serious illness.

One of the things you see in nursing, that is more the norm than the exception, is the propensity for people's past life issues to come out when suddenly they are faced with a life-threatening illness and the rigorous treatments that go along with that.

So many people have not worked through their past traumas to the point where they can consciously identify them, and have the awareness that something they are experiencing in their body during cancer or other treatment is a result of their past psychological history, and not the current physical condition.

When they experience the trauma of cancer treatment, all the unresolved issues come charging to the surface and it can be a huge obstacle for them as they struggle through the intensity of staying on track with medications, appointments, procedures, follow-ups, treatments, side effects, and dealing with the issues that come up in their own families surrounding their illness.

I'm not even going to delve into it here, but who knows how much the trauma of past experience affects the immune system to the degree that genetic mutations that happen at the cellular level are allowed to flourish unchecked and become cancer.

I had my review at work yesterday. It went well, there's always an element of anxiety before you go in to find out what they think of you and what your peers have to say. I am so thankful that I work in a place where I can get useful, valuable input and support to go along with it, that truly helps me professionally and personally. I think I work in one of those rare workplaces, which I attribute to careful, consistent, and conscientious management for many years. That is rare these days in the workplace.

Which is the exact opposite of what I experienced in my previous workplace. How fitting then, that Patricia Singleton posted this post on her blog yesterday.

If you feel like reading her blog, there is a link at the bottom under "blogs I read" on the right hand side of this blog as you scroll down. A blog about sexual abuse doesn't really fit in to a running blog, but I find Patricia's blog applicable to everything in life, because of the theme that underlies her writing. It's about ending violence and abuse, and shedding light on the forces that perpetuate abuse. And that applies to all kinds of violence, not just sexual abuse.

The way I found Patricia, was way back in the days when I was a new nurse working in ICU, I was having one of my sleepless nights and dealing with a lot of the workplace violence that nurses often experience, called "eating their young".

When I worked there, there was a culture of abuse, not only directed at new nurses, but at anyone who failed to kiss the narcissistic boss's ass along with her minions. Almost everyone was intimidated into silence, except for a few of us who spoke our minds, and we became the targets.

Eventually, after a large percentage of the staff turned over within a year, the administration got wise and got rid of that boss. The reason it was allowed to go on so long was that there was a person in a high level administrative position who was protecting her and looking the other way, and until that person left the organization, nothing happened.

Justice was served in that case, but not before many of us experienced a lot of physical and mental stress that was costly not only to us as individuals, but to the organization.

I stumbled on Patricia's blog with a Google search on some topic related to violence or abuse in the workplace. I found Patricia's insights to be enlightening and perceptive, and since someone important in my life is a sexual abuse survivor I also found the insights on sexual abuse and its consequences to be valuable and eye-opening for me.

I think this blogpost from Patricia and the links she includes within the post are excellent and thought-provoking reading material, they are short and easy to read, but worthwhile. The violence associated with silence affects everyone, in some way. There is no person who is immune to any type of abuse. Perpetrators of abuse don't just become that way by themselves, they have experienced abuse in order to learn how it's done.

I think it's important to bring silence to everyone's attention because we are all indoctrinated with compliance at an early age, don't make waves, don't speak up, keep a low profile. It's easier to ignore injustice than to act on it.

There's much work to do, it's a political issue as much as a personal issue, that could be a whole blog in itself. I think it's a good idea to check ourselves every so often. Am I speaking up about issues that I care about? Am I serving someone's best interest, or am I hurting them by being silent? Silence that allows violence to continue, is violence itself.

I thank Patricia for the reminder, and the inspiration. She's an amazing woman and if you're interested in these issues, I highly recommend her blog.