The First Three Days as a COVID-19 Nurse

"May you live in interesting times"

                ~ Joseph Chamberlain

Quick backstory: I graduated nursing school in May of 2019. Was hired even before graduating at the hospital where I had done my clinical rotations. Took and passed my boards in June and started working as an RN that July. I was hired to the Med-Surg floor. Med-Surg being short for "Medical-Surgical"; we take care of people with stable medical conditions: usually COPD, complications from diabetes, pneumonia, dehydration and electrolyte imbalances, just to name a few. We also help alcoholics take their first tenuous steps towards sobriety (quitting drinking cold turkey can cause numerous health problems including seizures; we have a treatment pathway to help ease the transition). On the Surgical side, we care for knee, hip and shoulder surgeries/replacements as well as spinal fusions.There's also a variety of abdominal surgeries: appendectomies, removal of gall bladders, colon resections, etc.

I was eight months into my first year as an RN when the Coronavirus started affecting my region. Because the Med-Surg floor at my hospital is centrally located - the ICU, ER, OR and medical imaging suites are all on the same floor - we were selected to have half the floor cordoned off to be the COVID-19 isolation unit, staffed (at least for now) by volunteers. I was quick to raise my hand to volunteer since my family and myself are all in the low-risk demographic to experience complications from the Coronavirus. Plus I wanted the opportunity to see and experience first-hand how COVID-19 was being treated and what measures were being taken to protect healthcare workers.

Sectioning off half of a hospital ward was no easy task: the new unit must maintain negative pressure, meaning the air in the unit cannot circulate throughout the rest of the hospital, and it must be at a lower air pressure than the air outside the isolated ward. Air from the COVID-19 unit is filtered and sent directly outside. This involves a lot of fans and hoses that look like drier vents. The integrity of this isolation unit is maintained by water-proof plastic canvas airlocks held in place with industrial-strength tape. The airlock is accessed through heavy duty zippers. There are clear plastic windows so you can see in and out of the airlock. The airlock is just large enough to fit a hospital bed. I call this isolation unit "The Bubble".

With The Bubble being its own self-contained unit, the next problem was the supply logistics. Because there is an obvious need to limit what comes through the airlock, everything needed for patient care needs to be kept within The Bubble. Patient meds are stored in a large computerized locked cabinet called a Pyxis (pronounced pik-sis). Ours looks like this:

https://www.bd.com/assets//images/international/our-products/medication-supply-management/pyxis-medstation-system_2_DI_1011-0002.png

The Med-Surg unit has two of them, so one went into The Bubble and into a room that's usually used as a conference room. This conference room also became the supply room for IV bags and tubing, linens, diabetic testing supplies, a refrigerator and any other supplies/equipment needed to care for our patients. All in a room that was cozy with just eight people before; it now is tight with three or four.

Computers were also a tricky thing to figure out. At our hospital, we use COW's (Computers on Wheels) to document med distribution, patient charting, monitor test results. etc. We have a fair number of them on our floor, but how many should go in The Bubble? Then it became: where to plug them in to charge? In normal times they get plugged into an outlet in the hallway, and there's a fair amount of outlets...or so we thought. Remember all those fans we need to maintain the negative pressure? They need outlets too. As do the chargers for the walkie-talkies we use to talk to folks outside of The Bubble. As do the small handful of other electronics needed to keep things rolling on the inside. So power strips joined the party.

Keeping things clean comes next. Those COW's have a lot of surfaces. Glucometers for checking blood sugar also have to come in and out of patient rooms. They all need to be wiped down after every use. Thank heavens for disposable stethoscopes! There's one for each patient, so they don't need to be cleaned as often. Even so, one becomes pretty obsessive pretty quick about bleach wipes.

So now how to keep the nurses safe from catching this? How to keep them from spreading this virus to each other, other patients, their families, the general public? Enter PPE (Personal Protective Equipment): Gowns, gloves, goggles and masks.
Ah, masks. The polices keep changing on masks due to supply issues and that's a real sticking point. It partly comes down to the question of Droplet vs Airborne precautions. Here's a quick breakdown:

Droplet precautions: according to the CDC, they should be in place when "pathogens [are] transmitted by respiratory droplets that are generated by a patient who is coughing, sneezing, or talking". The pathogens hitch a ride on water droplets which are heavy and don't stay in the air for long. They can only travel about 3-6 feet before dropping down. This from of precaution is used for the flu typically and other catchy respiratory ailments. For these situations, a surgical mask provides perfectly acceptable coverage because water droplets are relatively big. We also wear disposable gowns just to be safe.

Airborne precautions: "pathogens transmitted by the airborne route". Okay; and that means....? This means the contagion can stay in the air for far longer because it's not hanging out on just water droplets. It can travel farther too because it's not drifting back to earth as quickly. In nursing school we learn the acronym MTV for "Measles, Tuberculosis & Vericella (chicken pox)". These are the three most common diseases that are transmitted via the airborne route. Airborne bugs need a more heavy-duty mask to be filtered out. Enter the N95 mask. These need to fit tightly to the face and we're tested annually to ensure the size we've been assigned still works for us.

So...is the Coronavirus a droplet or airborne pathogen?
According to the CDC, Coronavirus is "only" a droplet baddy so a surgical mask should be fine at stopping it. However if a patient is receiving a nebulizer treatment; or a nurse must handle intubation equipment, the virus is considered airborne and an N95 should be worn.
That being said, most hospitals are taking no chances and staff treating patients who test positive for or are suspected of having COVID-19 are instructed to wear N95 masks.

Here's the problem, because we rarely encounter airborne pathogens on a regular basis, hospitals do not have vast stocks of N95 masks. Pair that with the fact that panic-buying has depleted the supply and Coronavirus took a while to come to the US, these masks are in short supply. Surgical masks are also limited presently partly due to the aforementioned panic-buying, but also because we're just coming out of flu season; so rationing has been put in place. When and how masks are used is certainly a point of contention and guidelines and policies are changing day to day (sometimes hour to hour!).

That all being said, what does a day look like in the life of a COVID-19 nurse?
I get up at 5:30 in the morning, get myself together. Put on my regular work scrubs (just in case I'm not needed in The Bubble that day for some reason) and head out a little after 6:00. It's a 25-30 minute commute for me; very little traffic at that hour and with quarantining in place, traffic is even lighter. Lately I've been listening to Lindsey Stirling's album "Artemis" in the car because her music makes me so happy.

Once at work, I'm greeting by two people: one to take my temperature and one to ask if I have symptoms of Coronavirus and/or have been tested for it. Once through the checkpoint I head up to my floor, clock in and go to the locker room. I've really paired down what I take with me into The Bubble - just a four-color pen, a flashlight, my bandage scissors, some alcohol swabs and IV tubing caps. A small handful of individually wrapped hard candies helps keep the blood sugar up throughout the day.

As soon as I know I'm going into The Bubble, I slip into the patient room that's become the COVID nurse break-room. I leave my water bottle on the table, grab a set of hospital-provided scrubs, hop into the bathroom and change, leaving my badge with my work scrubs (one less thing to clean). The clothing I wear coming in goes into a plastic bag. I make sure my hair is pulled back tight, set my stuff off to the side, and into the airlock I go.

I don a rewashable yellow gown, a pair of gloves and a surgical mask and then step through the airlock and into The Bubble. I receive report from the nurse coming off shift, make sure I have enough N95 masks for the number of patients I have (we try to keep it to no more than three patients per nurse); and off I go! Because policies are always shifting, things are a little different from one day to the next. Maybe our aid(s) will do all the vital signs on the patients in The Bubble, sometimes we're supposed to as we're assessing. We pass meds, we get things for our patients, keep an eye on test results and imaging (X-rays, CT scans, etc). We do EKG's ourselves - something other people did before; to limit the number of people in The Bubble, we're doing more ourselves. We keep the doctors abreast to changes as things can change quickly with a patient. We're mostly Med-Surg nurses; we're used to taking care of "healthy sick" patients, so this is a little new to most of us.

Because our hallway garb is considered "clean" we can go right into a patient room if we have a mask for that room. Once we're done, we stop at the doorway, take off our gown and gloves. The N95 goes into a brown paper bag clipped to the doorframe. We wipe off our goggles, wash our hands and put on a new gown and set of gloves and our hall mask. We're now considered "clean" and can wander around freely until we go into another room. 

What does COVID-19 look like? Well, as of this writing I've only cared for one confirmed case. That person had a low-grade fever (100°) that didn't come down with Tylenol, they had chills and needed supplemental oxygen via a nasal cannula. They remained alert throughout all this, but felt weak. Though their pulse oximetry reading looked fine, their ABG (Arterial Blood Gas) report wasn't so great and their chest x-ray showed a deterioration in condition. For these reasons that person was transferred to the ICU (which has also become a negative pressure Bubble).
But we have discharged COVID-19-positive people who were perfectly stable, with the instructions to self-quarantine.

The vast majority of patients inside The Bubble have tested negative; but that can cause a false sense of security. To get a positive test, one has to have enough of the virus within their body for the test to detect the viral RNA. Easy-peasy. But if there isn't enough virus within your system, it may come back negative even if you actually have it, so we're telling everyone we discharge from the COVID-19 unit to self-quarantine for two weeks even if their test comes back negative. [source]

We're encouraged to leave The Bubble periodically for food, water and rest. We're usually pretty good about lunch and dinner, but we rarely remember to take breaks. When you leave the Bubble, you go into the airlock, take off the gown, and gloves. Your goggles and mask go into another brown paper bag. Squirt some sanitizer onto your hands and you're good to leave the airlock for fresh air and food. (We have a staff bathroom within The Bubble, so we don't need to leave for that). We have been instructed to take our temperature at least two times per shift.

At the end of the shift, after leaving the airlock, I grab my bag of clothes and another bag with shower flip-flops and a hair brush that always stays at work. I hop into the bathroom and shower real quick - someone has lovingly provided shampoo, conditioner and body wash for communal use. After which I put on the scrubs I came to work in, toss the hospital-provided scrubs and my towels and washcloth in a linen bin and chill for a little bit before heading home.

I'm the one getting groceries for the family, so if we need something, I stop at the store on my way home; careful to maintain an appropriate amount of social distancing, but also being as friendly as possible because people are nervous right now and a smile here and there never hurt anybody! I get to chill at home for about an hour and a half before getting ready for bed so I can do it again the next day.

I've had two glorious days off since those first three days in The Bubble and tomorrow I go back for another two days. Likely things will be a little different tomorrow; and things will continue to change and evolve as the presence of the virus changes and evolves in our area.

While things are going on inside The Bubble, the rest of the Med-Surg floor is waiting and holding its collective breath. Patients that usually go to our floor are being sent to the other Medical floor in our hospital. All elective surgeries have been cancelled; so there's very few patients outside The Bubble on our floor at the moment. There's been talk off turning the whole Med-Surg floor into a negative pressure COVID-19 ward. If that happens, we'll go from 10 rooms and 14 beds to 20 rooms and 30 beds.

Who knows where this will take us. In a year one might reread this and think, "Oh, my sweet summer child. You knew nothing." or they may go, "Welp, that was overkill." Right now though, we just don't know where things are headed. Current quarantine measures may successfully flatten the curve and we'll all come out of this just fine; or things can go to hell in a hand basket very quickly and hospitals will become overwhelmed in a matter of days. We're doing the best we can with the information and supplies available to us. Our goal is to keep people safe and healthy.

I absolutely love the outpouring of public support and the desire multiple people have had to make rewashable fabric masks for healthcare workers. Unfortunately, according to this study, fabric masks are not terribly effective and most certainly won't replace those N95's, but I very much appreciate people's desire to help where they can. Right now you can help best by staying home as much as possible and washing your hands. Buy only what you need; but by all means buy a little ahead so you don't need to go out as frequently. Eat well. Love your neighbor and stay safe!

Where Have I Been: Part 2

I assure you, this blog isn't abandoned; I actually come back here fairly frequently to double-check dates on writing projects and life events. It's been a crazy few years (As you might have guessed from part 1 of the post with the same name).

All I can say is nursing school absorbed a great deal of my time. Once my pre-req classes were done and nursing school started in full, I quit my job, dumped all extra-curricular activities and hankered down for a two-year program that only got harder and more stressful as the semesters went! I have significantly more silver in my hair now than I did before nursing school and I can tell you that I wear it as a badge of pride! I worked very hard for my degree and then passing my boards. I was hired right out of clinical and have been working as an RN for nearly six months now.

I'm continually surprised at how well I'm handling the responsibility, occasional "ickiness" and energetic requirements of this noble profession. Turns out I'm apparently very well-suited for being a nurse and that's been a great relief!

But y'all aren't here to get caught up on my real-world pursuits. What have I been doing in the artisic/writing realm?

1) That King George costume I'd been drooling over in the last post has been created. And despite my best efforts to NOT rush it, the fates conspired against me and I was working right up till the last minute making it (yes boys and girls, I got to see Hamilton in person and it was amazing!)

I immediately followed that project up with a rushed Viking Era garb project that I (ironically) haven't worn yet; but I can assure you that those two back-to-back projects have quelled my need for sewing for quite a while! (tee-hee)

2) As far as writing goes: that WIP I mentioned was indeed completed and run through two or three beta readers. I've been wanting to agent-scout it for a year or two, but haven't managed yet. One more beta reader got their hands on it and I haven't incorporated their edits/suggestions yet. I want to get out of post-NaNoWriMo season before giving it a 2020 go.

3) Two summers ago I had a weird dream that sparked an idea for a vampire story (I've been wanting to write a vampire story for a very long time, but felt there was nothing I could add to the genre). This story may not be terribly original, but it's been a delightful guilty pleasure that I started typing up this past summer. I'm about 75% done with it and enjoying it immensely; though it may never see the light of day.

4) "The Kai'us Planet" is next on the docket once that vampire tale achieves a satisfactory level of completion. I'm always noodling on it and making mental tweaks here and there so once I actually sit down and put fingertips to keys, it should go fairly quick (famous last words!)

5) And all those blog topics I hinted at so many years back?
They're still floating around in ye ol' noggin; and on a list on my desk somewhere. I may indeed kick out a series of them to share with you all at some point. It depends a great deal on my general ambition level. I may just start afresh with something else I haven't even thought of yet.

We'll see how it goes.

In the mean time, I just wanted to check in and let you all know that I am indeed still alive and being creative. Thanks so much for stopping by and I'm hoping to pick this back up again and be lexically active again.

Chakras and Civilization

I really enjoyed taking Sociology last semester.  It stirred up a lot of think-juice.  On the first day of class the teacher handed out index cards and had us answer a handful of questions describing ourselves and our views.  The last question asked us to articulate how we viewed society: "Society is..."

Society is what?
The answer was supposed to give the teacher an idea on whether we viewed society along the lines of an Interactionist, a Functionalist, or a Conflict...ist (Head over to the Cliff Notes for explanations on all that).  Neither here nor there though, we didn't know any of that stuff yet.  There was just the question to answer.

I noodled on it for a bit and finally wrote, "Society is like the Chakra system".

Over the next few days that notion blossomed into a rather fun, "What if" theory.  What if the growth and development of society is like the seven (or more?) Chakras described in Eastern philosophy?  Curious about what the heck a Chakra is?  I rather liked the descriptions given on Deepak Chopra's website, so I'll just drop that link here.  Fear not, here's the TL:DR, or if you're already familiar with Chakras, here's my (abbreviated) personal take on these critical energy centers in the human body:

1) The Root Chakra - Your connection to your "People"; your base and foundation
2) The Sacral Chakra - The creative center; associated with sexuality and reproduction
3) The Solar Plexus Chakra - Digestion and processing of new ideas and information; this Chakra is considered the dividing line between the mundane and spiritual
4) The Heart Chakra - Love specifically; feelings and emotions in general
5) The Throat Chakra - Communication and articulation
6) Third Eye - Perceiving more than what "meets the eye"; intuition
7) The Crown Chakra - Your connection to divinity; your spiritual awareness

So how does that relate to cultural development?
I feel that society naturally moves through various stages that can be related to the Chakra "ladder".  I can't imagine I'm the first to come up with this idea, but I haven't encountered it before. This is just a fun thought exercise and isn't a perfect analogy, so here goes:

1) A species develops its way up to sentience (yay!).  Family groups band together for protection, companionship and to help increase survival.  Budding culture starts to form as "rules" need to be developed to handle individuals living in larger groups: knowing one's place within the group; knowing that one must act differently/deferentially in the presence of certain individuals.  Social roles start to form: who gathers food? Should certain individuals eat first? Who makes the shelter, or finds the best place to sleep? Who tends to the young? Who keeps order? Who has the right to reproduce? Who isn't allowed to reproduce, etc?

I feel that dolphins, elephants, great apes, and certain parrot species are already at this level.
For humans, this is the early caveman era.

2) Moving along to the creative center.  More refined language develops.  Though rudimentary language forms back in the first phase with instinctual communication (body language, scent and universal utterances); communication leaps forward in this stage.  Grammar develops; vocabulary explodes; body language becomes more conscious and/or elaborate.  Dialects and "accents" form: Members of one group may no longer be able to communicate effectively with other groups.

Tool-making takes off.  Stone Age(s)!

3) In my opinion Humans are the only ones to make it this far (on our planet).  This is where the environment gets "conquered".  The building of elaborate dwellings.  The domestication of plants and other animals.  Mining.  Body adornments become more showy and not just for protection and warmth anymore.  Groups can get larger and more organized as language continues to develop and become increasingly refined.

Going back to Chakras: in the body, the diaphragm separates the solar plexus from the Heart Charka (hence the notion of the diaphragm separating the energies of the mundane from the divine).  This diaphragm "ceiling" meant that humanity hung out here for a very long time.  Speaking of the divine though, let's move on:

4) The religion of love!
Though religions certainly developed before this stage, they were authoritative to reflect and reinforce the (now ancient) cultural rules that have glued society together.  Before this point, even though humanity had been living together in increasingly larger groups for centuries, there was still a selfish "every-man-for-himself" attitude underlying it all.

Along comes The Buddha, Jesus and Mohamed talking about love and compassion.  For the first time people were asked to think of others as themselves instead of apart from themselves.

It's taken centuries since then for humanity to climb up out of the quagmire of a desire for world domination to an understanding that: living things go extinct if you kill them all; that the earth can be scarred if not cared for; that children are not just miniature adults capable of adult thought and reasoning; that oppressed people might actually desire freedom and autonomy.

I think this is primarily the stage humanity is at presently.  There's still plenty of thoughts and notions aligned with the three earlier stages, but there's also a fair amount of movement upward too.  The human race won't move forward as a whole until the older mindsets dissolve (we'll get there!).

5) My optimistic views are driven by the fact that there is clear movement into the communication center.  The printing press, telegraph, radio, telephones, television, the internet (OMG the internet!)  The world is shrinking as we continue to find new and faster ways to communicate with each other!  Societal empathy continues to grow as we communicate more and more with different people.

Previously oppressed people (women, racial/cultural minorities, etc) are "winning" their voices and the right to speak as growing equals to those who have held power in the previous stages.

6) As society equalizes and the thought of killing and oppression becomes increasingly distasteful to the masses, I feel we'll shift into this sixth stage.  Of course there are individuals already filtering upward - think the Indigo and Crystal Children touted about in the New Age movement. (Sorry, no links for this - go hunting yourself.  I couldn't find any good sites that weren't too "flowery").  And that's a big reason why I really don't think we're "there" yet.

At present this stage of humanity is viewed very romantically and (in my humble opinion) over simplistically because it's being viewed/projected through the lens of those old-fashioned mindsets I spoke of earlier. Yes, antiquated social structures that no longer serve our race or the planet will indeed need to break down to get to this point, but I feel the stereotype assigned to this stage is a group of uninhabited hippies wearing flowers and flowing robes; diluting their childish narcissism by chanting OM into their crystals.

I feel that instead of the people of this stage being self-absorbed and mis-/un-informed, there will instead come a sense of personal responsibility to oneself and others.  A thirst for knowledge and understanding of all things, not just what affects the self.  There'll be a universal level of self-awareness and (therefore) social-awareness at this stage.  A knowing and acknowledging that every thought, word and action affects others.  Yes, society will be very different; but that's because the rules of the first stage will be done away with.  The need for second-stage sexual power will no longer hold sway; previously held hierarchies and social roles will collapse.  The need to conquer the world and all upon it will be considered petty and unjust.

Instead people and society will flow consciously, intuitively, and empathically.  Love and communication with become the new foundation for the world ahead.

Another thing I predict for this stage is a great lessening of communal fear.  What I mean by that is events of the world (either societal- or nature-driven) are presently viewed as random and therefore scary.  Entering into the Third-Eye stage of development, the causes of things will be more clearly seen.  The seeming randomness of the world will evaporate.  A pervasive fearlessness will fill humanity. 

7) Oh boy!
This stage is so far above my head (Get it? Get it?) that I can't even begin to speculate.
A constant/conscious connection with Divinity.  A knowing of "Who You Are" (humanity's greatest question) without even needing to ask.  What will that be like?  Who knows.
Lets go find out!

Where've I Been?

Not writing, obviously!

This winter/spring has been crazy with school (three classes, one with a lab & lecture to boot), working full-time; and, oh doing a play and participating in a belly dance show because I'm crazy like that.  Have I mentioned that we've also taken in my (now) ten year old niece?  Yeah, things have been busy around here of late.

Happily, the spring semester finished up over a week ago, suddenly freeing up my time.  I won't have class again until July (yay!).  So in the meantime I'm planning on laying low and keeping my extracurricular activities to a minimum (cue canned laugh-track).

There's been no meaningful martial arts practice in my life for well over a year.  This is bothering me less now than it did a few months ago, but I'd really like to get back into it if I can.  Rather thinking of giving Wing Chun Kung Fu a try; and maybe taking a Tai Chi refresher class here and there.  Karate is going to have to take a long hiatus unless something new and exciting pops up.

Haven't been doing any sewing/crafting to speak of in about as long.  Fortunately I've discovered the Hamilton soundtrack (thanks to the theater kids in the afore mentioned play), and I'm chomping at the bit to make a King George III cosplay.  Of course the niece will want something too, so I'll have to plan accordingly for that as well. 

In the writing department, my thoughts keep returning to the WIP that I'm close to finishing, as well as "The Kai'us Planet".  Those aside though, school has really lit a fire under me concerning blog ideas.  I have a whole list of topics ranging from whimsical, esoteric pieces; to seriously researched and cited articles; to everything in between.  It was really hard not to work on them earlier, but food and sleep won out (seriously, these past few months have been insane!)  I'm hoping in the coming weeks I can set some time aside to hammer out a few of these ideas for your reading pleasure.

So that's the long and short of it.
This blog hasn't been abandoned, just set aside while life did its thing.  Here's to hoping you hear from me again sooner than five months from now!

A Year in Review - 2016

Welp, that year didn't go as expected.
There's been some pretty interesting highs and lows this year.  Here's the breakdown:

Illness Leads to Education

I started off this year "right" with a rip-roaring case of mono.  Though it knocked me on my ass, I apparently got off pretty easy.  I slept a lot, didn't have a huge amount of stamina, I tired really easy, and standing in one place for more than ten seconds (like waiting in line at the store or bank) was terrifying as I felt I could collapse at any moment; but I could function.  Maybe because I was in the best shape of my life when I fell ill.  I was just thinking about gearing up for my next Karate rank, and had just started taking boxing lessons to improve my sparring.  I was assistant teaching Tai Chi and was doing daily exercises in the morning before work.

So instead of staying at home in bed sleeping, like I should have been, I'd go into work for four hours (since I was at my strongest in the mornings), then go home and sleep for a little bit and then remote into work for a couple hours in the evenings.  Looking back I'd say this arrangement was suicidally crazy, but I needed money and I really hate doing nothing.  Because of that, during a stretch where I couldn't work even under those conditions, I decided to apply to a local community college with the intent of going to nursing school. (I get bored easy you see; if you leave me alone with nothing to do, I end up doing crazy things like that.)

I got in!

Now some of you might be asking, "What?!"
While others will be cheering, "Finally!"

For the first group: I've been toying with the notion of becoming a nurse for a very long time; I just never felt I had the level of maturity and emotional wherewithal to handle being in that noble profession.  However, a lot has happened in my life within the past five or so years to make me feel I might actually be ready to give this a go.  Being home-bound, (supposedly) recovering from mono was just that little nudge I needed to take the plunge.

I just finished my first semester of prerequisite classes earlier this month, passing with flying colors (while working full-time).  I put in my formal application to the nursing program as soon as the final grades were posted.
Next semester (which starts at the end of January) will be ten credits (three classes) of general education classes that I'd like to get out of the way before doing "real" nursing school (which starts next fall if I get in).  The summer semester will also be just gen-eds.

I'll know if I've landed a coveted a seat in the Class of 2019 about halfway through this coming semester.  If I get in, I plan on dropping back to part-time at the 9-5 job, or stop working completely to focus on school.  We'll be playing that one by ear as it comes.

The current game-plan is to get my RN and work in a hospital for as long as I can tolerate it.  During that time I'd like to see if I can find an employer who'll pay for me to get my Bachelor's degree.  After which I want to get even more nursing experience before going on to get my Master's and become a Certified Nurse Midwife.  We'll see where and how that all goes (you know, the way to make God laugh and all that...)

As for my health: it's taken most of this year to recover my strength and stamina.  I'm still seriously limiting the extracurricular activities, but happily there's plenty of others things going on presently to keep me occupied (more on that later).

Martial Arts

Though I had every intention to push for my next Karate rank this year, thanks to mono and changes at the Karate club, I've been laying low in regards to the martial arts.  I also had to drop the Tai Chi assistant teaching due to my illness; but I think the couple months I did do it served their purpose.  I still practice the whole short form on my own periodically, which is quite lovely.

Recently I tried to do my morning exercises again (something I just haven't had the strength to do for most of this year).  I was happy to see I could stick with it for a full week, but because I'm not really doing anything physically challenging at present, I didn't see the need to keep up with it.

We'll see what next year brings to my martial arts journey.  It might be another time for a hiatus.  Who knows.

Cabin in the Woods

As soon as I was well enough to do any level of physical labor this spring, my husband Rick and I headed up to Raquette Lake on any and all available weekends to continue cleaning out his father's camp (a project we'd been tackling since last summer).  We had hoped to get an offer on it this spring and get it sold ASAP so we wouldn't have to pay another year of property taxes on the place, but it wasn't to be.

Still, we toiled through the summer as we slowly lost hope of selling it at all this year.

Then out of the blue, a serious offer came in.  The couple were happy to pay the list price but on one condition: the camp had to be completely cleared out by the closing slated for November 1st.

Can do!
Rick and I hauled ass wrangling up friends and family to help get that place cleaned out.
An outsider may wonder, "How bad could it have been? It was after all just a little camp in the Adirondacks!"

Yeah well, Rick's Dad was a hoarder and avid collector of all things not valuable.  He'd lived in the camp every summer for several decades.  Slowly and methodically he had haul things to up one boatload at a time.  Books and furniture, and he NEVER threw out mail, newspapers or magazines.  He loved all things Disney, so long as it could be fished out of a trash can for purchased for five bucks off ebay.  Happily most of the stuff was meticulously cataloged and stored, but it didn't make getting it out of there any easier as you could only access the camp via a five-mile boat ride.

It was not a fun or easy project, but we prevailed and the camp was "broom-clean" before the end of October!  The closing went through without a hitch and we couldn't be happier! 

Writing

You might have noticed that the blog hasn't gotten much loving this year (apart from a couple really fun Kai'us-related series that I posted this summer).
It's not that I haven't wanted to write on the blog: I've got several half-baked drafts sitting in my queue waiting to be finished.  Lack of time and energy is what I'm blaming (see above, lol).

Really though all my writing has suffered this year.  I haven't even been working on my other WIP's, nor did I have much interest in participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

So what else could be keeping me from writing apart from recovering from a debilitating illness, helping to clear out my deceased father-in-law's Adirondack camp and going to school?  Glad you asked (see below)!

Co-Parenthood

This summer, Rick and I became legal guardians of my nine year old niece in partnership with her parents (my brother and sister-in-law).  She started living with us in mid-August.  She started the fourth grade in our school district this September, and is loving Girl Scouts and Karate (when we go).

Our days now tend to go as follows: Rick gets her up and ready for school as I get ready for work.  I drive her into school as it works well with my work schedule and route.  She and I get a few minutes of in-the-car-bonding time, which is fun; then I continue on to work and do grown-up things.
Rick gets her off the bus in the afternoon, makes sure she does her homework and makes her dinner.
In the evenings I come home, eat whatever is left of dinner and give Child my undivided attention so that Rick can get some alone time as she unwinds for the evening.  Every evening, the three of us read together before bed.  She has an early bedtime, so I get a good hour and a half, to two hours after she's gone to bed to do my own unwinding before I head off to sleep as well.

So far it's been working really well for all involved.  I honestly don't mind spending my evenings this way as otherwise I'd just be on the computer, probably not being terribly productive as I haven't been writing much lately.

So what do I hope for 2017?

School will likely dominate my life for the next couple years, which doesn't bother me too much.  I love learning.  My current boss knows that my days at the printing company are numbered and he'll hopefully get me a replacement that I can train soon.

The small business that I run with a friend is humming along nicely.  We attended a couple events as vendors earlier this year and thanks to a new product we had to offer, we nearly doubled our sales from last year in just the first few months of this one!  We also have a quiet etsy presence that's continued to generate tidy sales throughout the year.  Interestingly enough my business partner will also be going back to school next year, so there's no hard feelings about me being busy with academic pursuits.  It just means we'll have plan our crafting days a little more carefully than in the past.  (She blogs too btw.  Feel free to give her a read!)

As mentioned before: what I'll be doing in the martial arts department next year is a little up in the air.  Right now I'm just taking it one day/week/month at a time.  I AM a martial artist though, so I'm sure something will present itself.

Same goes for writing.  I have a WIP that's very close to being ready to go agent-hunting.  It'd be nice to get the ball rolling again on that soon.

2017 Holds a lot of promise and potential.  We'll see how it goes!

Kai'us Racial Genetics

This is the last of series of posts regarding Kai'us culture (for now).
The first bit was a five-part series last month going into the Kai'us creation myths.
Earlier this month I also talked about the system Kai'us' use to prevent inbreeding.

This post will talk about how interracial Kai'us pairings work on an over-simplistic genetic level.
Kai'us races are different from Human races.  What we consider different "races" are just regional and ethnic variations.  Any human can successfully produce viable offspring with any other human.  In short: every "race" of humanity can interbreed.

When I refer to "race" in regards to Kai'us', I'm actually referring to different sub-species.  The seven genetically-unique Kai'us races can successfully interbreed and produce fertile offspring, but the racial genetic markers do not hybridize and it's possible (easy actually) to "breed out" specific genetic markers.

This hasn't always been the case however.  When their world goes through its periods of great geological instability, everyone's DNA becomes unstable and hybridization occurs much more freely.  During the time period I'm working in though (Post-Second Cataclysm onward), Kai'us DNA is incredibly stable to the point where chromosomal abnormalities are practically unheard of.  Even identical twins are incredibly rare (though fraternal twins are actually more common than among humans).

Before I go into the details though, let's refresh ourselves on basic genetics.  Remember that every person typically has two genes for any particular trait: one gene they get from their mother and the other they get from their father.  Using that Punnett Square I mentioned in the last post, let's do an easy one and lay out the probability of parents producing a boy or a girl child.  (Genetic) gender in humans is determined by the x- and y-chromosomes.  If you have two x-chromosomes, you're genetically female.  An x- and a y- together makes you genetically male.

Let's step it up a notch and pretend a person's height is determined by one of only two genes: "T" would produce tall people, "s" would produce short people, and a combination of the two would produce a person of medium height.

Okay, so now that you've recovered from flashbacks of Biology class, let's apply these principles to Kai'us'.  As mentioned before, I'm going to over-simplify the following explanation significantly since no one gene determines all of a Kai'us' racial characteristics, but to make both our lives easier, let's just say that Kai'us race is determined by either a dominant (D) or a recessive (r) gene.

Pairings made from the same race can produce viable offspring no matter what combination of genes are expressed (DD, rr, or Dr would all be viable combinations).

When you start blending races however things get tricky: to produce viable (live) offspring, one parent must provide a dominate racial gene, and the other parent must contribute a recessive racial gene.  Two dominate genes or two recessives will not produce live young.  Interestingly enough, when interracial pairings do occur, people are often more drawn to each other when they're genetically compatible.

Another nice thing is that any children produced with the requisite dominate and recessive genes will be fully fertile and able to produce offspring of their own.

For our first hypothetical pairing, let's put together a Spider Kai'us (represented by a "$" for dominate, and an "s" for recessive), and a Cave Kai'us (C for dominate, and ¢ for recessive) as this would be the most probable pairing, especially among the Ka-Kiu.

Spider Kai'us' are a tall, desert-dwelling race with four arms.  Red/orange mane colors are not uncommon among them, but various shades of brown are the norm (running more to the lighter end of the spectrum).  Brown eyes are by far the most common, but other shades pop up here and there and run strongly in families when they do appear.

Cave Kai'us' bear the "basic" Kai'us form (two arms, two legs, and average build).  For mane colors, nearly every shade of brown can be found among them, though the extremes (blond at one end and black at the other) are very rare.  Like most races, brown eyes are what you're most likely to find, but Cave Kai'us' are the most likely to have dark blue or dark green eyes of any other race.

Obviously this isn't the only combination that will produce viable offspring.  A $s Spider Kai'us parent could have children with a ¢¢ Cave Kai'us (with a 50% success rate; all children would have four arms), or even a CC Cave Kai'us (50% as well; with two-armed children).

A $$ parent could have children with a C¢ person (with 50% success; all children would have four arms), as well as a ¢¢ person (100% success; all children would have four arms as well).

A ss parent could also have children with a C¢ person (also with a 50% chance of success; all children would have two arms though).  Mating with a CC person would provide a 100% chance of Cave Kai'us hybrids.

Even though statistically there's a 50/50 chance of a genetic mismatch with most combinations; nearly every attempt at conception will produce a viable baby.  This is because Kai'us' tend to only mate six times in their entire life. (The reasons are many) and Nature will do everything in its power to ensure the right genes match up to produce live offspring.

Now let's pair up a few hybrids and see the interesting combination that get produced:

For chuckles and giggles, let's introduce a third race.  Though this is rare, even among the Ka-Kiu, let's put together a Cave and a Spider hybrid that both carry the racially recessive genes for Mountain Kai'us' (represented with an "m").

The Mountain People have a heavier build than the other races. They're known for their physical strength; and they have thick, bristly hair that runs down the backs of their arms and legs the same color as their mane.  Both their mane and eyes colors are consistently darker than the other races, almost always dark brown or black. 

From this combination, you can see there's a 25% chance of no viable offspring, a 25% chance of a Cave/Mountain hybrid, a 25% of a Spider/Mountain hybrid, but a 25% of a genetically pure Mountain Kai'us.

And so there's the long and the short of Kai'us racial genetics.
I hope you've enjoyed this peek into the science end of Kai'us'.
If you liked what you've read these past two months, be sure to bug me periodically to get the book finished so you can read a whole novel about these fascinating creatures!

Kai'us Clans

Last month I posted a series of Kai'us creation myths (check out the intro here if you like; it will also lead you through the rest of the myths).

I was having so much fun writing all this Kai'us stuff that I thought I'd spill things over into this month and get science-y; discussing a little about Kai'us genetics and how they avoid inadvertent inbreeding.  Both these topics are very briefly touched on in the novel I'm working on (currently called "The Kai'us Planet"), but obviously they're far too involved to go into in-depth in the book, so I'll post about them here.

This week's post will be about the complex clan system Kai'us' use to ensure couples aren't too closely related.  It's not fool-proof though because people as close as second cousins would be able to marry, and sometimes people who we wouldn't consider even remotely related wouldn't be able to wed.  Still, it certainly keeps siblings and first cousins away from each other at the very least.

Though the dynamics are there (and have been for years), there's certain details I'm still hammering out, like: should each race have 24, 32, or even 64 clans?  How much bearing should a person's clans have on how they're viewed in society?  Are there "good" clans and "bad" clans for instance?  What should the clans be called?

I've thought of the Cave Kai'us clan names being after birds and things related to birds (they REALLY like birds!); Spider Kai'us' having insect and small, desert-dwelling creatures names; Mountain Kai'us' having names to do with stones, jewels, and metals; Winged Kai'us' after types of trees and plants; but that's a whole boat-load of vocab I've haven't even begun to hit on yet! (And that's just the Old Races!!)

So for the sake of argument, I'll do this break-down with just numbers (which is how I've been doing it thus far).  Even with this simple labeling system though it's likely still going to get confusing, so I'll do my best to keep things simple.

Unfortunately it gets insane right out of the starting gate: each and every Kai'us is identified by four separate clans, and how they're ordered is slightly different depending on if you're a boy or a girl.

First I invite you to re-familiarize yourself with the Punnett Square that you likely learned about in biology class concerning bean plants, fruit flies, and blood types.  Though it'll relate more to my next post about Kai'us racial genetics, it's general principle will come in handy with the clan break-downs as well.

With that in mind, you get your first clan name from the parent who's the same gender as you.
Your second clan name comes from the first clan of your opposite-gendered parent.
You get your third clan and fourth clans from your grandparents (that part will be easier to show than tell).

Let's break it down from the beginning starting with the "first man" and the "first woman".

 

The colors are arbitrary by the way.  I’m just using them to separate things out a little better visually (you’ll thank me in a moment).

The boy’s first clan is the same as his Dad’s.

The girl’s first clan is the same as her Mother’s.

And their second clan is the first clan of their other parent.

(Obviously for this example their parents only have one clan, but this will work even if there’s the normal four clans involved; we're starting out simple here.)

Now, these kids can’t hook up because they share clans. 

Even if just one clan is shared between two people, they can’t get married.

Lucky for these kids, their parents had neighbors of completely different clans!

Now let’s see what happens when all these young people get married and have kids.

This chart is likely going to look like an overwhelming mess, so let’s take a looksie at just one grandbaby.

Following the numbers (and handy colors), you can see that this young man’s first clan is the first clan of his father and his paternal grand-father.

His second clan is his mother’s first clan as well as his maternal grand-mother.

His third clan is his father’s second clan, which is the first clan of his paternal grand-mother.

And his fourth clan is his Mom’s second clan, same as his maternal grand-father’s first clan.

If you scroll back up, you can see that his sister’s clans are the same as his, just reversed.  

His cousins' clans are also the same, just flopped top to bottom

Now let’s go one more generation and see what happens.

As you can see, half of the clans get lost by the fourth generation, but the first clans of all the men carry through as do the first clans of all the women.

This is why it’s so important to Kai’us parents that they have at least one boy and one girl.

Boys carry on their father’s clans and girl’s carry on their mother’s lines.

Because the people living in a village can become very related very quickly, the clan system helps keep straight just who are cousins and who are a little too closely related for comfort.  

To give young people more options in the potential mate department, groups of villages gather together once every four years or so in a great festival called, "Keush-na-eekai" which translates roughly to the "Gathering of Young People".  Here eligible folks wear colored ribbons or beads to clearly display their clans.  They show off their skills and talents in various games of skill involving archery, races, and the like; or they'll set up "booths" where they can show off their crafts in weaving or pottery-making, etc.

Obviously these games and displays aren't just limited to the unmarried; anyone is welcome to participate.  These gatherings are an excellent opportunity to trade with others outside of one's home village and to see new techniques for making products and tools.

Village chiefs also have an opportunity at these festivals to discuss crops, births, deaths, and any problems they may have run into in the years between Gatherings.

There's music, singing, dancing and story telling in abundance at these multi-day events, and of course plenty of food.

If two people meet up who like each other, they'll spend time at the festival to get to know each other.  It typically doesn't take long for Kai'us' to determine if they like a particular person or not due to their telepathy.

Matches are made purely at the young people's discretion; parents are rarely directly involved in who their children choose to marry.  It's actually the villages chiefs (each village is run by a husband/wife pair) who make the ultimate decision if a potential match is a good one.

If the two young people are from different villages, the two sets of chiefs will sit down together and discuss what the young couple will contribute to the village they would live in and then determine which village needs those particular skills more.  If both villages already have a glut of what the pair has to offer, they'd be encouraged to move to another village where they'd be more useful.

Either way, once married, a young person leaves their parents' house and moves in with their new spouse.  When a person marries, they're considered part of the whole village rather than just their parents' families.

And so there's your glimpse into Kai'us clans and how they work.

Be sure to come back next time for an explanation of Kai'us racial genetics!