Into the Family Business

Some people grow up in a house full of musicians and grow into great musicians themselves. Athletes beget athletes and many offspring go into the family business, whether it's owning gas stations, or selling plumbing parts wholesale.* I grew up in a virtual infirmary. As a diabetic, my Mom's monitoring of her health was paramount. We all were acutely aware that she was a couple missed insulin shots away from a meeting with the guy with the scythe. As she aged, the medical dimension of our lives became more complex and by the time she passed away in 2000, the infirmary was virtual no more. Her oxygen saturation dropped to the point where she required oxygen. My father ran nightly peritoneal dialysis treatments, which made it ironic that he eventually spent ten years on dialysis himself. Last, Mom's cardiac bypass surgery had resulted in blindness when she had strokes during the operation that atrophied her optic nerves.

There are certainly people who might have developed an aversion to the medical industrial complex after such exposure. I, on the other hand, became increasingly fascinated whenever I witnessed my parents' treatment in hospitals. After her bypass surgery, Mom stayed unconscious for several days. In her room in the cardiac intensive care unit, she seemed to be the engine driving the machines around her, as if the computers in The Matrix were prototyping their designs.

As his kidney disease developed, my father starting racking up medical frequent flyer miles as well. Shortly before he moved to California, I flew back to Springfield, MA to be with him when a surgeon formed the first fistula in his arm (a tough merging of veins designed to keep them from collapsing from the large needles necessary for dialysis). Once he moved to California, my sister Marilyn became the primary witness to his care, becoming its overseer as his medical conditions worsened and compounded with each other. In the several years before his death, I flew to see him, both in the hospital and out. Each time I marveled, as I did with my Mom, how medical advances granted him additional years. Dad squeezed an extra ten years out of body that kept trying to throw in the towel. Unlike my Mom, he got to know all of his grandchildren and see both of his sons happily married. (Mom was at Marilyn's wedding, a true gift for everyone present, despite the difficulties in travel she encountered due to her medical tribulations.)

Everywhere, there were nurses. I saw them work way more than I saw doctors. Nurses had jobs that combined acute technical dexterity with tasks as mundane as weekly housekeeping. They moved with purpose and efficiency. I marveled at their ability to do things I thought myself utterly incapable of. Little did I know, but my fascination with their work nurtured a growing, though unconscious, urge to join them.

* I always thought that if my family had a crest, our motto would be, "I can get that for you wholesale." Three of my grandmother's siblings (or their spouses) started businesses that still exist. I know offspring still run at least two.

Lives at Stake

I haven’t been posting regularly. I’m trying to write something punchy and cogent. That takes time. If I’m going to get this blog going, I have to write fast and not worry about writing well. I’m going to shoot for one paragraph a day. Here goes.

People ask me all the time why I’ve decided to switch to nursing. Here’s what I tell them. I got tired of working to add a few pennies to the fortunes of people who already have billions. There was a time when I was proud and happy to work in the tech industry, but returns were diminishing. Among the other ways of articulating my impulse to change can be expressed another way. If people are going to demand I work as if lives were at stake, then goddammit, there really should be lives at stake.

Cheers, Merry, and Happy, 

Brett

Welcome to Seeking New Superpower

Greetings!

Welcome to my new blog. I've created this blog to document my transition from a career in technical documentation and content publishing in the software industry to nursing in health care. Mainly, I'd like to answer the question that most people ask me: Why do you want to leave the tech industry and become a nurse. It's a long story and I'll try to tell the short version and keep you up with notable experiences as I go through nursing school.

Background:

• I graduated from Bowdoin College in 1987 with a major in English. From 1989 to 1995, I earned a Ph. D. in English at the University of Washington and could not climb the wall into a career as an academic. 
• From 1997 to 2014, I worked at Microsoft, a startup in Pioneer Square, Microsoft again, and Amazon, always writing technical documentation (aka "content") or managing writing teams. This career, like most things, had a half life for me that ended in April 2014. On the advice of my attorney, I don't say much about that. 
• In September 2014, I started taking prerequisites for nursing school at North Seattle College. I really enjoyed the classes and embraced my new path with eagerness. Classes included a couple quarters of anatomy and physiology, one of microbiology, a quarter each of general and organic chemistry, statistics, some psychology classes, and nutrition. 
• In September 2015, I started to applying to local four year colleges' nursing programs. I did not get admitted to any, although I was waitlisted at one and was #1 on the waiting list when school started this fall. 
• In November I finally gained admission to Shoreline Community College's nursing program. School lasts six quarters and I'll finish with an RN and an Associate's degree in nursing. I'll have collected the whole set: associates, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. 
• I have ambitions to continue my nursing education beyond the RN, but that will come after working as a clinical nurse for a year or two. 
• I am currently 51 years old and am entering a profession I never would have imagined myself pursuing 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. 

Questions and comments are certainly welcome. I've learned a lot on the journey thus far, made big mistakes, and at times been humbled when I was most arrogant and obnoxious.

As for the blog's title, it's a reference to the fact that I've discovered that my superpower is unblocking clogged toilets. Given the corporeal infelicities of a career in nursing, I thought being a toilet whisperer is a good place to start.

#houseswitholdplumbing