New beginnings, bittersweet endings

So, a lot has happened this week I guess. I've been hired to be a full time SPED instructional assistant. I will officially start on the first day of school, and meet the teacher a few days before then. I am so excited, and can't wait to get more classroom experience.

I have ordered all my books for my ECSE classes, and decided to drop my morning Spanish class (I couldn't do it with this new job anyway). Dre and I have started Rosetta Stone for Spanish, and so far so good. I'm a little curious if one can learn a language via a computer program . . . I guess we'll find out. I'm one test away from being done with my online graduate research class, and fall classes start August 24.

I will be leaving the long term care place in two week's time. I will miss a lot of the residents, and the tangible sense of helping that I got from working there. Maybe I'll volunteer there, I'm not sure yet.

Dre and I are taking Moby to the Freedom Dog Park in Evans tonight, one of my favorite places ever (and where we spend at least 50% of our nights and weekends). On Saturday we're going to a martini bar to celebrate a friend's birthday . . . it will be casual and fun so I'm looking forward to it.

Longing

Sometimes I feel like I left a big part of my heart in New Zealand. I truly felt alive when Dre and I would walk down to Mangawhai's beach, or we'd play in the ocean. Once we kissed by the moonlight on the beach, and it was more peaceful than anything I could imagine.

I'll be honest: I would go back to New Zealand in a heartbeat if my parents and Dre's parents were to say, "What the hell! Let's relocate too!" If Dre and I were to immigrate to NZ, it would be for good. Maybe we could come home during the summers and what not, but we'd be centralized in NZ. The thing keeping me here is that I know our families will want to be around when we have kids, and I will want to be here to take care of our parents when they get older.

A few weeks ago, Dre and I helped clean up after the demolition derby at the Greeley Stampede. Our job was to pick up all the trash people left behind. The Stampede includes all of your regular big event fare . . . nachos, soda, funnel cakes, etc.

After the entire stadium had been cleaned up, I counted at least 30 bags of trash. It broke my heart. At one point, I opened up some of the trash bags and started filling up a recycling container by one of the exits with plastic bottles, cups, whatever would go in. After about two bags, the container was full.

Just imagine how much of that stuff going to the landfill could have been recycled!! It kills me to think about it. It also kills me to think that some people in our society will label recycling advocates as "hippies" or "treehuggers," and refuse to change their ways. Have they seen what our waste is doing to the oceans?

There's a giant mass of trash in the Pacific called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It apparently holds 100 million tons of crap, and stretches 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast. According to this site, 90% of all trash in the oceans is plastic, with every square mile containing 46,000 pieces.

How hard would it have been for those people at the Stampede to drop their soda bottle or beer can into a recycle bin on the way out? It makes me crazy!! A quick search on Google images with the query "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" reveals the skeleton of an albatross that mistook plastic for food, its body filled with the stuff. It's awful.

What needs to happen so that we change this?

I was just reading about this surgeon, Dr. Bryan Mahan; I went to school with the guy's kid. Mahan is being named in a lawsuit for throwing human tissue at a nurse during an open heart surgery and joking about it. Apparently he had harassed her before the incident, and when she complained the hospital demoted her and took no action against Mahan.

Firstly, mad props to her for not backing down (given these claims are valid). Secondly, it's infuriating to think the hospital did nothing. Apparently common decency ain't so common.

Nurse sues Memorial, claims surgeon threw human tissue at her

June 26, 2009 - 7:07 PM
JOHN C. ENSSLIN

THE GAZETTE

A nurse has sued Memorial Hospital, charging that shde was demoted after complaining about a heart surgeon tossing bloody tissue at her during an operation.

The eight-page complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court by Sonja Morris alleges that Dr. Bryan Mahan tossed the 4-by-6-inch piece of tissue at her, hitting her on the leg during an open-heart surgery in August 2008.

She contends Mahan made a joke about it to the other surgeons, saying, "Oh (expletive), I hit her. Can we get cultures on that?"

Morris said she felt humiliated as the other surgeons chuckled.

Mahan could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Morris claims that the incident was part of a pattern of harassing behavior by Mahan toward her.

She also alleged that in June 2008, Mahan came up behind her and hit her in the head.

She told him to stop, but two weeks later, he did it again, the suit alleged. Again she asked him to stop.

Chris Valentine, a spokesman for the hospital, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

"Obviously, because it's in legal hands, we're not in a position to comment," he said.

Mahan is the chairman of cardiac and thoracic medicine at Memorial. He is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Morris has worked at the hospital as a nurse since June 1999. She has been a member of the heart surgery team since October 2007.

The incident with the bloody tissue occurred on Aug. 28, 2008, after normal working hours during an operation in which doctors were doing a procedure known as a pericardiectomy.

The surgery involved removing a protective layer of tissue from the heart. Morris contends that was the bloody tissue that Mahan tossed at her. She said she was standing at a work station about 15 feet away from the operating table.

Because the operation was still in progress, she was unable to immediately clean the part of her leg that the tissue hit.

She filed a complaint about the incident but said that resulted in no disciplinary action.

On Dec. 10, she filed a notice of claim against Mahan and the hospital. Her complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged that she was subjected to a hostile work environment because of her gender.

Seven days later, she said hospital administrators removed her from the heart surgery team, considered a prestigious position, and transferred her to the main operating room.

The suit alleged that this action violated her First Amendment rights to petition the hospital to correct something she considered wrong.