We had snow here on Tuesday, a fair bit of snow and some of it is still here.  It's been below 0C at night this week but my plants are hanging in there.  Some of the plants have been covered with sheets or towels and some of the plants are hanging out in my kitchen.

I've been thinking a lot about why people don't change their minds, not even when faced with facts.  I've never understood it, not even in myself.  I try to be open minded but I know I have beliefs which defy logic.  Apparently a lot of research has been done on this subject by pyschologists.

Why people won't change their minds.  The full article is here.

1. We are pack animals.

2. Most of the time what learn from others is reliable.

3. Many fixed ideas are self congratulatory.

4. Changing our attitudes and ideas is likely to imply that we should change our behavior.

5. Perception is so malleable...believing is seeing.

Yesterday we had a nursing meeting about teaching patients pre procedure and what I discovered is that what I teach is not a good idea, or at least that was my take away from the meeting.  Nobody said that but I also know that I'm the only one that mentions wires and dilators in my teaching.  A third party watched us all teach patients pre-procedure and as a non medical person she wasn't comfortable with the inclusion of medical details.  It made her feel uncomfortable.  It makes me feel comfortable because of how I am but I can see how it might scare or intimidate non medical people (pretty much all of our patients).  I didn't say a lot in the meeting but I did say that one of the biggest problems in our department is the phrase, "Well that's how we've always done it.", which I apparently am just as guilty of as well.

We have a chance to change how we teach and I want to embrace it but I also have to look at my own teaching methods and change my behavior which is hard.  I'm getting better at it.  I used to believe that if I changed how I did things it would mean that what I've done is the past was all wrong, a mistake.  What I believe now is that when I know better, I do better.  Change doesn't mean that the past was wrong, it means that we know more now, we can still learn, we can change and do better.  That was difficult and even now I have to catch myself from feeling bad about the past.

When I started working in my department there were no teaching materials.  Everything we have now is stuff I developed on my own without direction from any managers.  It was better than nothing.  And now they want to change my teaching materials and I feel somewhat bereft.  But I also believe that standardized teaching methods are better for patients so I want to embrace this going forward.  It's tough because I believed what I was doing was the right way to do things.  But really, there are many ways to do things and what's important is, patient's getting the information they need.

I can see this playing out in the world right now.  People who believe there is a pandemic and people who don't believe.  People who believe that vaccinations work and people who believe it's about control.  What I also learned while reading this morning is that when people doubt their beliefs, they become more entrenched in defending their beliefs which explains a lot about the polarization of the world right now.  Things are changing.  People are scared.  Lets stick to what we know.  I don't want to change.  It's too scary.  

So I will embrace the changes coming in our teaching.  I will scale back the medical terminology, focus on what patients will feel during their procedure, not why they feel the sensations.  I will adapt and stop defending my previous teaching methods because I can do better and also because this is not about me, this is about my patients.  

It was a beautiful day here on Thursday.  I worked in the yard pulling weeds, planting carrots, seeding the parts of the lawn that the dogs have killed and expanding a flower bed in the front yard.  I mostly avoided housework and took Heidi for a walk at the dog park.  

My son has been leaving me alone which I'm thankful for.  

Our medical director must have been spoken to again but because he's being almost human.  He is a deeply unhappy, angry man who bullies everyone.  I know his anger comes from fear but it's also ruining our department.  He doesn't bother me too much anymore as he knows my husband and I'm sure he's physically afraid of my husband.  I don't call him the big guy for nothing.  My husband is also responsible for keeping the equipment running in our department, so he is indispensable;  so basically, don't fuck with the big guy's wife, which is sad because people should be treated with respect just because.  I do a good job.  I'm an excellent nurse and not a single other radiologist or patient has ever complained about me.  I'm not the problem.

It was very busy yesterday but not crazy thank goodness.  I had one older lady who was so sweet.  She's a farmer and her veins are so difficult to get into.  It took us six tries and I finally got it on the sixth try.  We warmed her arms for over an hour, she drank almost 2 litres of water and I finally was able to get a tiny IV catheter in.  She was gracious and understanding.

It's a lot different working in a cancer hospital.  People are generally there because they want help.  They are generally patient and kind.  They help each other, discuss treatments amongst themselves, compare notes, support each other and laugh. 

The sun is shining today and it's supposed to be warm all day.  I'm going to work in the garden and soak in the sunshine.  Later I'll take the dogs for a walk and maybe we'll have a fire outside this evening.  No drama today.  Peace and quiet.  

 An homage to Mr. YP which combines Easter Island and England.  

This is where I would prefer to be, anyplace else, taking photos.

Work was brutal so far this week.  One of our nurses is off waiting for Covid testing so we're short staffed.  One of our regular casusals had toe surgery and is off for a month and another regular casual just found out her sister has a brain tumor.  The sister was air lifted to Edmonton yesterday and is having surgery today, so both of these wonderful nurses were not available to help out.

Yesterday afternoon there was only me on the floor because the other nurse was in interventionals helping with a central line.  One CT tech is assigned to help us for half the day but she worked pretty much all day with us and two other techs came out to help me.  They rocked because I also had two recovery patients to take care of and we had a code blue yesterday which was only a seizure thank goodness.  I slept well last night but I'm still exhausted.

We've had Jack since last Thursday because Gracie has been working.  She came over last night and took him for an hour to the park before she had to go to work.  It was a nice break.  He goes home today after she wakes up this afternoon.  And Jack slept all night last night!  

I'm off today so I'm making more cinnamon buns, tweaking my recipe and I'll the enjoy cinnamon buns.  It's supposed to be warm today so I plan on working in the garden.  

We're back on a lockdown which makes no difference to me.  I still have to work and we don't see anybody really anyway.  I invited a coworker and her daughter over this weekend for a weiner roast but that will have to be delayed.  All of us at work are struggling with depression, fatigue, burn out.  It's been a tough go and I don't even work with covid patients.  I can't imagine how the nurses on the covid units, in ICU and ER are managing.  We have the highest rate of covid cases in North America per 100,000 right now thanks to asshole Albertans and our asshole Premier who is more worried about reelection than he is about doing what's needed.  He likes to talk about freedoms and rights but fails to recognize that alongside those rights and freedoms are duties and obligations.  Sigh.

I'm tired but okay.  We have a birdhouse in the backyard that a pair of sparrows has moved into.  It's literally right beside the bird feeder on the pergola.  Location, location, location.  The female sparrow must be deeply impressed with her new nesting site:)

I moved a clematis last weekend as it was stuck behind a huge dogwood shrub.  It now sits at the end of my garden where I can see it from the deck and from the family room.  I bought a new trellis for it, which the big guy screwed to the fence, and I'm looking forward to enjoying the purple blossoms.  The allium bulbs I planted last fall are coming up which I'm also looking forward to.  I have a small garden but I want to pack as much into it as I can.  I've planted peas, carrots and green onions in my planter boxes.  Beans, sunflowers, broccli and tomatoes will follow when the nights are frost free.

It's quiet right now which is bliss.  I was going to write about change and hearing Stacey Abrams talk in an interview but that will have to wait.  What I did take away from what she said was that change is constant, nothing is forever.  She sounds like a hopeful woman and she gave me hope.

The cinnamon buns turned out well.

My brother is coming out to visit this month.  I haven't seen him in almost eight years.  I was mad for a long time after mum died.  I'm letting go of that now.  Everybody deals with grief differently and I get angry.  From the amount of anger I've felt during my lifetime, it would appear I have had a lot of grief.  But I'm not special, everybody has grief in their lives, everybody has had bad things happen in their lives and I wonder though why my main go to is anger.

When I was not quite three my mum said she wanted to leave, which I still remember.  I remember feeling shock, or the shock that a three year old can feel.  Is that when I stopped trusting the world?  Or was it my dad and his deep distrust of the world, fueled by his alcoholic mother and a world war in which he lost any innocence that he still had when he signed up?  I don't know.

Was it watching my parents trying to deal with their own grief?  My sister was in a horrific accident when she was twelve years old, something barely mentioned in my family growing up.  I was born four years after that accident.  My parents lost five babies between me and my sisters, again something only mentioned in passing by my mother.  My father lost his best friend in the war.  My mother left all of her family behind when she joined my father in Canada after the war.  My grandparents divorced after the war.  My mum didn't see her mother for years after the war.  My father lost both his parents before I was born.  He lost his mum earlier than that to alcohol.  So much grief to carry around.

I look at my own failed marriage which I knew was a failure when I had only been married two years but I stayed for my kids.  I look at the worst grief I've ever experienced, which was Katie's diagnosis.  That grief dragged me past anger, down into a despair that took years to recover from.  So much grief but how did I settle on anger as my response to this grief?

Anger is big and anger feels like control.  Anger also doesn't leave me feeling vulnerable.  My need to control, my anger, they make me feel safe.  I hate feeling vulnerable, even with the man I love.  Somehow I got it into my head that I feel safe when I am in control, which of course is bullshit.  I think my dad felt the same too.  I think he was so afraid of the world that he got angry and stayed angry.  

Of course when you get angry and stay angry you have to push people away, even the people you love.  You build a wall around your heart, certain that this will protect you but all it does is keep everyone out.  You're not safe, you're just alone.  

I wonder how much of my depression is just grief.  Is it where I got stuck?  My husband talks about ruts in our brains, how we get stuck in them, these neural pathways so used to anger and sadness, how hard it is to get out of those ruts.  And how do I get out of depression and move onto acceptance and hope?  

Work I'm guessing, lots and lots of hard work.  No wonder people drink, it sounds much easier than hard work.  It never ends it seems, this ongoing process of becoming, but it is something I want.  Although I always quit whatever it is I'm doing to feel better before I feel better permanently.  Am I afriad of feeling better?  Or am I afraid of losing that hope that I have that there is a way to feel better?  Because if I stop, there was still hope, it wasn't a failure.  I'm the one that failed.  As Jack would say, hmm.  

Bloody hell, more work.  Do I have what it takes to feel better is the question?  To let go of my grief and let go of my anger?  Am I brave enough to face the world without anger?  That's a scary question.