At the moment, my book is out being edited. Once it is close to being finished, I will be posting small sections of the book to wet your appetite

“There is a strange thing that happens once you start life as a real nurse. Four years of education completely vanishes from your mind, like a puff of smoke. Suddenly, you don’t remember a damn thing. It’s as if there has been a complete brain wipe of all that accumulated knowledge. As a student, I had always felt fairly confident. On my first job, I felt like the stupidest person alive. I didn’t seem to know anything anymore, so I blundered around just hoping that no one would notice. It is a very uncomfortable feeling, and it takes about two full years to dissipate completely.”

Ok, I couldn’t wait, so here’s a sample paragraph.

“I have also become a list person. I used to hate list people, I used to make fun of them. Now, every little thing has to be written down. I carry a notebook with me at all times, and I am constantly planning out my every step in there. Lists for what I have to do today, lists for what I need to bring. God help me if I am going away somewhere. Last month I went camping with my sister. It was all very exciting, because I have never been car camping before. Usually, I like to go deep into the woods, away from everything. Well, not only did I have lists galore, but I had everything packed and organized about a week before hand. If you are a list person, I humbly apologize for any of the rude things I may have said about you in the past. Truly, I joke about this, but there is a serious side. The lists are really all about control, and that need is completely new to me. I can’t be spontaneous anymore, because the anxiety just won’t allow it.”

If you have any comments or ideas, please feel free to do so. There’s a comment section on the blog page.

“One of the photos, in particular, is very special. When I was younger, I would often travel deep into the bush with some friends of mine. I even helped to build many of the trails through this area. Whenever we would go there, I had a camping spot that was absolutely breathtaking. It became my spot. One day, a friend suggested that when I start to feel anxious, I should go to my happy place. So, I did. I am quite certain that she meant figuratively, but I didn’t care. I drove down to the area, almost destroying the undercarriage of my car in the process (Apparently, my car doesn’t like off-roading). I then hiked off into the bush for the day. While there, I took a picture of my little spot. Now, I can see it whenever I want.”

   “For starters, let me state right off the bat that I am a firm believer in a publicly funded system. There is no argument that anyone could ever make that would convince me of the need for private medical care. Our system has its problems, and it is very far from perfect, but it is also a far better system than most.”
   “What I do not believe in is a system that is also publicly run. Let me explain what I mean by that. When a system is run by the public (Via our politicians), that system ends up setting priorities that are based on public perception, rather than on medical needs. Politicians are loath to make unpopular decisions, even when those decisions are based on actual science and research.”
   “I will give you a perfect example of this. We have known for decades that addiction is a mental health issue. Every single addict out there suffers from some form of mental illness, either diagnosed or undiagnosed. They are what we call self-medicaters. We also know that giving addicts access to services, such as safe injection sites, needle exchanges, placement in rehabilitation, expanded mental health services and safe housing, saves us money in the long run. It saves us in policing costs, crime reduction, insurance payouts and emergency services. Despite all of the evidence, people still cling to the belief that addiction is a choice. They actually think that people just wake up one morning and say, “I want to be a drug addict.” People with addiction issues are seen as dirty, or as criminals who deserve whatever fate befalls them. As a result, the public doesn’t want to “waste” money on them. One appalling fact is that, in my city, there are presently very few rehab beds available. Patients have to wait weeks to access them. By taking the public’s opinion out of the equation, we could actually reduce costs. And this is only the first example.”

From the book

“There is one thing that we can always count on with inpatients. For some unknown reason, every single one of them will have to pee at the same time. Usually at the worst possible moment, as well. A new patient will come in having a really big heart attack, and every single call bell in the place will suddenly light up. It’s like they all wait specifically for the most inconvenient time. I have also found that elderly people, especially women, all appear to have bladders the size of walnuts. Thus, they will routinely have to sit on the commode once every ten minutes, like clockwork. Then, there is the four a.m. rule. All elderly patients will wake up and have to pee at four a.m., without fail. This used to drive me crazy. Now, as I get older, I find myself in the same boat.”

So, I have started a short story that I plan to include in my book, when it comes out.

“I had retired early that night. My work at the time was rewarding, yet it was also all-consuming. Some days, the activity would whirl around me like a tempest, leaving me exhausted by the end of the day. On such days, I would arrive home in the evening, unable to exert myself any longer. My life force spent, I would collapse as soon as I came through the front door until sleep came upon me. My family had long ago learned to accommodate me when I was in this state. Their own lives continued around me as if I existed in a bubble. Our interaction limited to their futile attempts at feeding me. I would attempt to placate them by acquiescing to their wishes, but all I could manage was nibbles here and there.”
“Still, such instances were rare. On the whole, my life existed in a state of chaotic perfection. Never a day went by that I failed to recognize how lucky I had been thus far. Even on those days that my energy would fail, I was still filled with a boundless sense of purpose and gratification that could not be overwhelmed. Exhausted I might be, but never defeated, never sad.”

From the book

“If someone breaks a leg at work, the whole process for reporting and receiving compensation for said injury is rather simple. After all, breaking your leg is not unusual. The whole system is designed for people who break a leg. As a result, the steps are laid out for the injured party and are easy to follow.”
“When you break your brain at work, things become a little more complicated.”

New sample from the book

“To see what we do and think that we won’t be touched by it is ludicrous. Stuffing it down does not work. There has actually been a rise in suicide rates for health care workers over the last few years. The few studies that have been done show that stress and burnout are rampant in the industry. This is true across the board, in every area. To combat this, we need to talk. We should be talking to each other, to our significant others, to our loved ones. If it helps, tell the guy sitting next to you on the bus. Whatever it takes. We don’t need to provide details. It’s enough just to say, “Hey, I’ve had a really horrible day.””

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote about a year ago titled, “The Elephant in the Emergency Room.” I have now included the entire article on the Short Stories page.

“By not talking about PTSD, we as nurses are doing a huge disservice to ourselves and to our profession. Unfortunately, it is part of our culture that putting our patients first means putting ourselves last. We avoid and we stuff, and we move on with our day. Also, many are afraid of the stigma that can come from revealing mental health issues to our co-workers, or to ourselves. Fear of being judged or our own imposed feelings of inadequacy keep us silent in the face of adversity.”

Something new

“On the first day of nursing school, I can remember feeling very excited. That was somewhat dampened when I arrived for my very first class and found out that it was in a portable. For those of you that don’t know, a portable is a fancy word for a big metal box with no heat. There’s also no sunlight to speak of. There are just a couple of tiny windows high up on the walls, just like the ones you see in old style dungeons on the History Channel. Instead, there are some of those awful seizure-inducing florescent lights on the ceiling that flicker constantly. Essentially, portables are how classrooms would be designed if they were constructed in hell.”

And again

“The reality is that I am quite good at my job. I can spot sick very well. In fact, I am so good at spotting sick people that I easily manage to avoid them on my days off. That way, I don’t end up having to perform CPR in the grocery store. For this reason, trying to make it sound like you are sicker than you actually are will not get you seen faster. I know you’re feeling miserable, but I can pretty much guarantee that you are going to survive. I will often tell patients that waiting is a good thing, because it means that we are not that worried about you. It’s the people who don’t have to wait at all that need to be concerned. The one thing you never want is for the ER staff to get really excited by your arrival. That never leads to good things. That does not mean that we don’t make mistakes, so if anything changes you should come up and tell us immediately. Otherwise, please, just wait your turn.”

Big discussion today on people who don’t want to wait in the ER. This paragraph came to mind.

“To begin with, triage is not like the deli or the bank. There is no number system. It is not first come, first served. The sickest people go to the front of the line. That’s just the way it’s done. This is why we have a big red sign over the front door that says EMERGENCY. I can remember one occasion in particular. I had just finished triaging a patient, so I took a second to scan the waiting room. There was a guy who was coming in through the front door and he looked absolutely awful. All pale and pasty. He was looking at the lineup in front of him with some dismay, obviously concerned about the wait. I pointed directly at him. “You, you’re next”. You should have heard the rumblings from the other people waiting. It turned out that the patient was bleeding internally, so I had definitely made the right call.”

New content from the book again.

“It is a fact, reinforced through first-hand experience, that suffering from a mental illness makes this entire process a great deal more difficult. That is something no one appears to take into account. Again, post-traumatic stress is such a new diagnosis in health care, though it really shouldn’t be. Regardless, there is an assumption that the worker can navigate their own way through the system. A person with fully functioning faculties probably could with little difficulty. Increased stress and anxiety strongly impacted my personal ability to do this, however. Every action I took on my own had a price. I would often go an entire day without getting out of bed at all. On those days, I couldn’t manage even basic chores. After a while, I passed right through depression and on into despondence. There were many days that I was unable to put any effort into the job search at all. Lucky for me, no one official appeared to notice. That total lack of contact did have its upside.”

More new stuff.

“Perhaps the most important thing we can do, though, is we must take a look at workload. We need limits, and those limits have to be policy! They should be literally written in stone. A nurse who is overwhelmed is a nurse who is destined for some type of emotional injury. It becomes a matter of when, not if. Not only do policies around workload limits benefit staff, but they are cheaper in the long run. Constant overtime, having to replace and retrain staff, paying out sick time. These are all huge inefficiencies, and they can be easily solved by increasing baseline staff. I am a highly trained professional. My employer has invested a great deal of time and money in me, so that I could become a great nurse. Now, I sit at home instead.”

This is a quote from a movie called Deep Horizon. It pretty much sums up how I feel about health care today.

"I think you all trying to run out of fuel as the wheels touch down. Running out of gasoline as the plane lands is not smart. It's flawed thinking. It's hope as a tactic." Mike Williams, Deepwater Horizon

Something new.

“The depression that I feel on some days is almost crippling. I just feel like crying for the entire day. This comes on even stronger after a panic attack. It feels like failure to me, as if I should be able to control my anxiety. I have become a fantastic wallower. No one can do self-pity like I can, these days. Sometimes, all I can seem to think about is what a big loser I have become.”

It’s Monday, so here’s some new stuff.

“The first symptom that I noticed was a migraine that wouldn’t go away. Most of the time, it was just a dull ache. When it came on full force, however, it could be crippling in intensity. This started about a year and a half before I left.”
   “This was a little alarming for me, at first. After about a week, I figured I must be having some sort of stroke (All nurses are terrible hypochondriacs). However, strokes don’t usually tend to linger on like that, so I was able to relax a little.”
   “On one occasion, the pain was so intense that I had to check myself in as a patient. The doctor who saw me managed to get me in to see a neurologist. He also ordered some blood tests and a CT of my brain. Thankfully, all of my tests came back normal (Yes, they did find a brain in there). The headache still refused to go away though.”
   “It was only about a week or two later that I got in to see the neurologist. He decided that the next step was a spinal tap, in case it was some type of meningitis. I can still remember showing up to the neurologist’s office. I was shown into an exam room to wait, and there next to the exam table was a tray with the biggest damn needle I had ever laid eyes on. Picture a straw with a pointy end. I just about fainted right there, and I immediately began to plot my escape. Fortunately, I had not quite cemented my plans when the doctor came in. Turned out that the needle was not for me at all. In fact, he had decided against doing a spinal tap entirely. I was so relieved that I just about passed out a second time.”
   “His official diagnosis was lack of sleep brought on by shift work. Apparently, this type of headache is quite common in nurses. Constantly switching back and forth between day and night shifts disrupts the normal sleep patterns, so that we never get adequate rest. He told me to start taking melatonin, which did help a little. The headache never went away completely, though.”

Wow, another Monday has come.

“There were other considerations as well. For instance, I didn’t own a single set of scrubs. In the ER, these had been provided for us. They were ratty looking, but we didn’t have to pay for them, so we didn’t care what they looked like. We also didn’t have to worry about washing them ever. Now, I had to go shopping. Being a guy, I have always hated shopping, even before the anxiety came along. To make the experience even worse, you can just imagine how common guys’ scrubs are. If you can’t, the answer is not very. Also, the price of scrubs had gone up exponentially since I had last bought some. They were all designer floral prints, for fifty dollars a pop. Some had frills. They were all tapered, as well.”
“I do not have hips. I do, however, have a belly. They were definitely not tapered for my figure at all. When I did find scrubs for men, they were completely devoid of pockets. For those of you that are unfamiliar, nurses absolutely love pockets. We want pockets everywhere. Big ones, small ones, ones that are shaped like scissors. It’s all good. The perfect pair of scrubs would be made from nothing but pockets, all sewn together. Apparently, someone in the scrub making industry does not know this, or they have simply decided that this rule does not apply to men. They are wrong.”

Ok, so I promised something fun today. Here it is. I had to come up with an author’s biography for the book and wasn’t sure how to do that without revealing my secret identity. So I came up with this.

About The Author

“T. C. Randall was an emergency room RN for 14 years, until
being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. During his career, he was
considered by many to be the finest emergency nurse ever, as well as the best
looking. His vast nursing knowledge led to the discovery of insulin, most
modern-day antibiotics and many other miracle cures. He single handedly cured
heart-disease (patent pending). Before becoming a nurse, he served as emperor during the Ming dynasty, slew the great dragon Rhamatem, wrote the Kama Sutra (well, parts of it anyway) and invented powered flight. As T.C. Randall is a pseudonym, parts of this biography may not be 100% accurate.”

I have started writing a new book, titled Aspis (That’s not set in stone yet). This is only a first draft, so it is still pretty rough, so keep that in mind.

      Her movements are relaxed, fluid. He
imagines the sense of contentment she must be feeling, enveloped as she is in
the sweet caress of water. He can see the steam rising from behind the curtain.
He can almost sense the warm rhythmic pulsing against her back, filling her
with serenity, a peace before the hustle and bustle of the day intervenes and
snatches that peace away.
   Does she know what awaits her, now only
moments away? Does she know the path that fate has provided for them both? He
is here, for her. Her knight, come to carry her away from the cares of the
world. Destiny has provided her with a hero, sent in earnest to rescue her from
the banalities of existence. Through him, she will be lifted to a higher plane,
never to have a care again.
   First though, there must be terror. If only
for a fleeting moment she must feel the very essence of her soul being torn
away. In that moment, when he and she are truly one, only then can the hand of
God reach down to carry her away.

As I am an author now, I thought it might be interesting if I listed some of MY favorite writing. I am a voracious reader, so these are just my top picks. Here goes.

Anything by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide and the Dirk Gently series)

Anything by Terry Pratchett (Discworld series)

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (The book that got me interested in science fiction)

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

Anything by Jack Whyte (Historical fiction)

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (yes, it’s a huge read, but well worth it)

Crazy Enough by Storm Large (Inspired me to write my own memoire)

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

The Making of a Nurse by Tilda Shalof (Another inspiration)

Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Profeta by Yuliya Dewolfe (Friend of mine, who is also a great writer)

Anything by Edgar Allen Poe

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (I think it’s tragic what they did with the film)

Hi.