The Mental Funny Bone

Bare Bones Banter with Sam Leibhart

• Gaster Girls • Episode 5

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In this episode of Bare Bones Banter, Sarah and Christine interview Sarah's sister-in-law, ICU nurse Sam Leibhart, about healthcare workers' mental health and well-being. They explore Sam's experiences, the stresses and traumas faced by nurses, and discuss the supportive measures being put in place for medical staff. The group shares laughs, anecdotes, and personal stories alongside their serious conversation, making for a heartfelt and engaging dialogue about an important topic.

How to find mental health help when you're struggling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
https://washingtoncountyhumanservices.com/agencies/behavioral-health-developmental-services
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Services/Human-Services-DHS/Publications/Resource-Guides
Apps - Just search mental health where you get your apps.
EAP programs are a great place to look for help!!

Additional Resources (Sports Related):
https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2020/12/04/mental-health-resources-2/

Sarah:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another installment of Bare Bones Banter. Why are you, why are you hiding your face, Christine?

Chris:

cause I can't look at you while you do the introduction. It makes me laugh.

Sarah:

Fuck you. Okay. Um, okay, so yeah, so we're, we're doing a, it's fine. We're doing an interview today and we're interviewing my sister-in-law, Sam Lebar. See we have the same last name. She's my sister-in-law and I would love to tell you her title, but I don't know it. She's a nurse and we are gonna talk about mental health and mental wellbeing of our healthcare workers. This is interesting for me'cause I don't know shit about it, so I think I'm excited to learn about it. Sam, why don't you give us your title and tell us what that means, like what you actually do in a normal day. I'm fairly certain there's never a normal day in what you do, but. Go ahead and give it a shot.

Sam:

All right, so I'm Sam. I am Sarah's sister-in-law. Um, I did marry into the Lee Park family. Um, I have been an ICU nurse for the last eight years, and of the last three I have been what's considered a clinician in our hospital system, which is middle management. So. My normal day changes all the time. Um, either in the office or I'm clinical facing or I'm a little bit of both. I'm a charge nurse. I'm just a re Christine, I feel like that

Sarah:

should strike an interest with you just because she said clinical more than once. Right. And I feel like I hear the word clinical all the time when you talk about your nerd shit.

Chris:

Yeah, but it's different. It's clinical research. The way Sam and I would intersect is if, uh, Sam's Hospital decided to do some clinical research studies. Well, for

Sarah:

anybody who's not watching on the YouTubes, we decided to make, we decided to make this a, a drinking interview. Sam showed up with a white claw and not to be outdone. I went and got a Miller L and uh, I forced Becca to go get a White Claw. My sister will not participate because she has, I have things clinical research to do

Chris:

later.

Sarah:

Lame.

Chris:

Lame. Yeah. I love what Sam does'cause it gives me all the data to do what I do. So

Sarah:

nerd. Nerds. Nerds. Fucking nerds. Nerds. Yeah.

Chris:

Um, but here's the thing I'm more curious about right now, Sam. Are there, are there bones on your shirt? Does it say human bones? Stick your boobs out. Show us your ticks. Yeah. Woo.

Sam:

Well those are all the bones. Yeah, it's a skeleton. It's uni. Ironically, I put this shirt on today and didn't even think about it and didn't change.'cause I was like, oh, we're not gonna be on camera. Here we are.

Sarah:

Well, here we are.

Chris:

Well,

Sarah:

there's only like a couple of us on camera. No one looks, yeah. And it's nobody, nobody watches on YouTube. I think maybe one or two people do. So it's really not that big of a deal now that we've made that statement. They might, I mean, I stopped putting makeup on for these myself. Um, yeah. So we're good.

Chris:

For the person who has problems with noises, it happens every episode. I feel like that's the best

Sarah:

one thus far. It was really good. It was a pretty good one. I had one yesterday that like macho looked up and was like, and I said, I know macho. Sometimes I even impress myself. Okay, back to Sam and actual interview questions. So as far as mental health goes with, uh, our healthcare workers, I don't know why I find that so hard to say. Healthcare workers and mental health in the same, it doesn't roll off the tongue anyway. What parts of your job take the biggest toll on your mental and and emotional wellbeing, you, yourself and what you might see with other people?

Sam:

I'd say the families, especially in like a critical care setting, so we get the sickest of the sick. They're for all intents and purposes on their death beds when they come to us. So a lot of times the families are either super overbearing or the case is just really sad and it's kind of hard to be a participant. Watch all of this happen and watch it, you know, the bad news roll in and sometimes we disagree with the family's decisions to keep a patient a full code. For those of you that don't know, that means we do CPR, we put'em on a ventilator, we breathe for them, we help their blood pressure, we do all of these things and at what cost. So sometimes I would think the families are the worst part of the job.

Sarah:

Yeah. I feel like it's, uh, dealing with parents when, nevermind, that's not even remotely comparable. Um, it's just like it. My next, my next like it question. I was gonna say, dealing with parents when you're coaching son,

Chris:

it's the same. It's the same. If the parents were killing the children, it would be exactly the same.

Sam:

But I mean, it's not wrong though. Like the comparison is if you really think about it, they think they know what's best and they don't to listen to someone who is a trained professional Right. And knows what they're talking about, and they're like, no, no, I know better. Uh, the Google, the Google machine told me it's like, no, the

Sarah:

Googles no,

Sam:

no,

Sarah:

you're wrong. Googles. So I just thought of something. This is something else that will happen throughout interviews. Like I have all these questions written down and then I won't ask any of those. I'll just ask random ones. This is a fun one though. Are you watching The Pit? Oh my God, yes. Right. Okay. Are, is anybody else watching the Pit

Chris:

already watched

Sarah:

it when it was er? Yeah, no. This is way better. Yes. This, this kicks, this takes er and just, it just shreds it. Fucking shreds it.

Sam:

So it's the

Chris:

same

Sam:

guy?

Sarah:

Yes. No. Yeah, same guy. Whatever.

Sam:

The same gentleman, I believe that was on ER wrote. Mm-hmm. Not just Noah Wiley, but like there were other people in, okay. The original er, excuse me, that, I'll tell you what. So

Chris:

if they bring George Clooney back, I'm in a percent.

Sarah:

So like Back to the Pit though, for real? Sorry. Like how accurate, I mean that's an, that's an ER though, so it's not like the same shit. But what do you think of, of the pit?

Sam:

I think between both ER and ICU to some extent, like being outside of a television show, there's a lot of crossover between what we do and the ICU and what the ER does. They're their own breeds for sure, but I will say like when the Pit very first episode, their superior comes down and talks about the Press Ganey scores and the, the surveys, the patient satisfac, like that's real. That's a real thing that we hear about, not so much in the ICU'cause they don't really do, uh, surveys on dead people, but.

Sarah:

I mean,

Sam:

oh,

Sarah:

like, I dunno how to react to that. Should I laugh? Should I not laugh? Yes. I don't know. So I'll just laugh.

Sam:

I mean, it, it, it is, to be fair, we do discharge people. They survive. They are not always dead, but it's true. Like the ER and the pit says at best, like, this is not a fast food restaurant. Patients are satisfied because they're not dead. That's the end goal. There's a lot of accuracies in the pit and I am a hundred percent on board with another season, which I think they just signed up for. I mean,

Sarah:

I feel like it's, yeah, Becca's shaking her head and she would know. I feel like it's popular. I like it. So of course everybody else likes it. How about that lady and her, the baby coming out of her vagina the other day? No, no, no. Wow. Who saw that coming? Jesus.

Sam:

I watched. I was like, oh my God. I watched that with Dan and I don't think he was like a hundred percent ready for it. He was like, looking at me. I was like, yeah, this is how babies are born, hun.

Sarah:

Wow. Wow. Yeah. And then I thought like after the first shot, like, okay, it's over. Nope. And then they, oh my, it was, it was a lot. There was a lot, like the

Chris:

whole, whole video, like the video they show you at, at child, baby class? No, like

Sarah:

all at

Chris:

once. They

Sarah:

was, you know, they'd go back up for a, and then they'd go back down. Yeah, yeah. David, David passed out. Yeah. I didn't have my, my baby was just cut outta my belly, which I imagine didn't look much better. Like,

Chris:

um, I mean, not when, not when I was having, just watching the vi, like getting ready to have like the training. I was like

Sam:

two passing out at the birth. It was just the training video.

Chris:

Yeah. At least he got. I mean there we were there and he was like patting me on the back of the head and he's like, come on one little girl, you're okay. Come on. And I was like, get off. You push for a little bit. David's like, David's like a big guy too. If he went down while I was actually giving birth, like he would hurt somebody.

Sarah:

Yeah. Nobody would be able to give him the fuck out of there. Hi Dan. How are you man? Look Dan a mental funny bone, little Dan. He's like, yeah, get, get the fuck outta here. Just for reference, I think when I met Dan e he was, uh, 10 maybe at the wedding. He was, he was, uh, 15 at the wedding.

Chris:

I remember thinking, why are these babies

Sarah:

here? Whose children are these? It was a good wedding, man. It was a good wedding. Anyway, okay, so that's, let's stop talking about the vagina and the baby. Actually, no, I have one more thing to say about it.'cause what I thought was really funny is like the one girl like lifts up the little thing and they're like, how, how's, how's it look down there? Or something? And she was like, I see hair. And everybody was like. And she's like the baby's hair.

Sam:

The writing of this is phenomenal. Like yeah, pretend it does blow er to some extent out of the water. But I always say to Dan, I'm like, it's the modern day er.

Sarah:

Yeah, Christine, you have to watch it. You really do. It's a very good, and I think that we're coming up on the final episode. Yes. Pretty soon. So you'll be able to just binge it. I

Chris:

have to watch Reacher, like I have a whole lot of things

Sarah:

to watch. It'll change those.'cause then you could like think about making out with reacher and then think about making out with the Noah Wiley a little bit. And then maybe going back to reacher like, you

Chris:

know, that same time or No, I'm reading a lot of books that floats your boat. I'm reading a lot of books where that is the plot line. And maybe I should like switch that up with like some nonfiction. Not the smut.

Sarah:

Mm-hmm. That's what we look for. I mean,

Chris:

I,

Sarah:

I read the same book every fucking day because I read like one of them a day.'cause they're so easy to read and I skip through most of them.'cause once you've read so many spicy scenes, it's like, Jesus. All right. Then what am I reading it for? Like, it's the same story, right?

Chris:

Basically it's comforting. It's like watching a Hallmark movie except with Mar Ween. Okay, next question. We're gonna have to cut this whole episode out. The

Sarah:

whole episode. No, I feel like Becca's gonna do a great job at peppering in some of this. I feel like it's necessary. We definitely need to talk about the pit vagina. I feel like that's, or the, okay. Um, okay, so let's get back to questions and let's see which one do I like. Now, do you feel that healthcare workers are expected to tough it out emotionally and how does that pressure show

Sam:

up? I think to some extent the expectation is that we carry a lot of the burden because we're the ones advocating for the patient when, you know, family's not around. And um, but I feel like we are expected to some extent, to just tough it out. It's a bad situation. It's a cardiac arrest, it's a code, whatever you wanna call it, you know, we are that patient's voice. So the expectation is set very high. For us to just kind of grin and bear it and deal with the worst of the situations and just move on to the next room. I think it shows up a lot of the time in our break rooms in my office when my staff need that reprieve and it shows up with tears, it shows up with frustrations with providers. It shows up with a lot of expletives and you know, and then it's suck it up and then you go back out there and you. Get your other patient a warm blanket and a bottle of water. Like we just have kind of programmed ourselves to compartmentalize.

Sarah:

And that's scary to me. That's scary. I don't, um, and I, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how it's possible. I cried on the way home the other day thinking about the dog that was in the stolen car back in September in Pittsburgh. I don't know if you guys remember the thing. I was like, oh my God, we haven't heard about him lately. Oh no. He is probably dead by now. Like, I literally did exactly what I know that we shouldn't be doing. And I made up a whole story about this dog and cried on the way home. I don't know how you see the things that you see and are able to Yeah, I, I, it's, it's amazing to me, and I'm saying that as a compliment, like I, like we obviously need people like you and it's just incredible that you can do that and kind of keep your wits about you.

Sam:

I mean, I think the funniest part about healthcare is, is that we stop. And this is terrible to say, but we stopped seeing you as a person once you hit the door. Mm-hmm. And we see you as like a puzzle and you know, putting the pieces back together and getting you whole again. You look so excited because I said that, and it sounds really shitty to say, oh, am I allowed to swear?

Sarah:

No.

Sam:

You can't fucking swear on our podcast. Oh my God. I just

Chris:

peed a little.

Sarah:

Can I swear? I gotta go get another beer.

Chris:

I dunno the rules. It's not broadcast tv. We could do what we want. We're like Sarah, when she was a teenager.

Sarah:

Yeah. Do what you want. Unless you have to be home by midnight Fair.

Sam:

But it's really shitty to say you sounded very excited by.

Chris:

Well, I mean, it's the, it's the same, it's the same thing, like right, looking at, I am looking at patient after patient after patient and all of this research and I'm like, oh, that guy died. I gotta do a form. I gotta, that guy died. Uh, these people, this whole collection of people are now bleeding out of their nose uncontrollably. But that's a weird side effect. I would like to be the person, like on the Viagra study and just go through the adverse events and be like, um, you guys, this guy's had a boner for 17 days.

Sarah:

You guys, you gotta come and look at this. It's kind of like Jeff Foxworthy talking about poop. God, you guys gotta come in here and look at this. So

Sam:

every day in my house, pretty much. Right? Absolutely.

Chris:

Oh

Sam:

my

Chris:

God.

Sam:

Alright. Yeah.

Chris:

Sorry. Sorry. Distracting. But yeah, I mean it's, that's the, and I think a dark sense of humor helps. Yes,

Sam:

it most certainly does. I think I wouldn't have been able to develop my brain in the way that it is now if I didn't have a dark sense of humor prior to going into healthcare.

Sarah:

So do you think, this is another random question. So the statement you just made is. Prior to going into healthcare, like you had that, you've always had that dark sense of humor, but do you think it's something that you had to, um, hone in on or work on further once you got into healthcare? Do you think that that's like a, a big key thing like that needs to be the be there prior to you deciding to go into healthcare?

Sam:

Well, I was kind of an anomaly'cause I went in a nursing leader in life, so I was probably one of the older kids in my class and a lot of them were like fresh out of high school with no life experience. So by like dark humor comes with life experience. Yeah. So I think to some extent it shouldn't be a prerequisite to get into healthcare, but it doesn't hurt if you've got life experience behind you.

Sarah:

How do you put that on a, a job listing? You've gotta have fucked up dark hammer. That's the only way you can do this.

Sam:

I mean, to be fair, I wrote one of, you know, you do your whole resume and my little essay thing that says like why I wanna become a nurse.'cause they always ask you that question. And I had lost an aunt to a brain bleed and you know, core, which is the Center for Organ Donation and Recovery. They came in, they scooped up her liver and no pun intended. And the whole reason that I wanted to become a nurse was because that core nurse pulled my mom aside and said, Hey, I know you promised her that you would be there for her last breath. Like let's go into the or when we extubate her, you can be there and she will take her last breath with you by her side. So that's why I wanted to become a nurse. And I was 14 at the time, but I didn't wanna accept the fact that I had to do all the schoolwork'cause I was a lazy kid. I didn't wanna do the schoolwork.

Sarah:

Yeah. This is a family trait, even though we're not related by blood.

Chris:

It's a family trait.

Sarah:

Well I feel like it is. Oh, okay. Well now I'm crying, not'cause laughing. Yeah, that's I.

Chris:

Right

Sarah:

at the age of 14, that's when you know, and this is what, that's a hell of a story. I

Sam:

like the plague to be honest. I went to art school, I went to community college, and I finally was like, well, shit, I guess I could get my shit together.

Sarah:

You got a few crowns along the way. You were a dancer. Just so everybody knows, Sam was miss what kind of dancer? Woo. D three College basketball. Yeah. She wasn't, she wasn't a dancer at, what's the name of it? Club Erotica. Club Erotica. She was a laroche dancer. Where do you, didn't you get a laroche? Yes. Okay. Um, but more importantly, Sam is a former beauty queen. So true.

Sam:

Currently she looks great. I think you

Sarah:

always look beautiful. Yeah. I heard when, when her and Dani started dating, Noah said, yeah, Dani has a girlfriend, which is weird to begin with. And then it was like, yeah, she's a, she's a beauty queen. I was like, oh, this is gonna go over really fucking well. And then you showed up and I was like, wow, that's a pleasant surprise. She burped loudly. So yeah, so it all worked out in the end.

Sam:

It's weird when the family acknowledges that, like, again, having a girlfriend is weird. Mind you together for 12 years. I feel like Steve, out of all of the siblings is one that we're all like, Hmm, you got a girlfriend, huh?

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean I think for me weird was the fact that Danny is 10. That's fair. I was like, he's just little. So are they going together? Like who's driving them to the movies? There you go, Sam. Mm-hmm. He's driving them to

Chris:

the

Sarah:

movies. Yeah. Like I was like, it's weird. He is just little. But yeah. Now you, now everybody's grown and that's way better.'cause you guys are way more fun to hang out with when you can legally drink.

Sam:

Yeah. I'm gonna second that. We legally drank, we were drawing dicks on your chalkboard in your basement. So

Sarah:

Yeah. Um, Owen noticed them, what was it yesterday? He said, have they been down there the whole time since the party? He said, yeah, yeah. I'm fairly certain Uncle Danny did that. And he was like, huh, I'm not surprised.

Sam:

Meanwhile, Dan's literally sitting in the living room, I'm sure just. All comments in the whole wide world. Yeah. And when

Sarah:

you draw dick pictures, dick cartoons, dick, whatever, when you draw dicks in our house, we just leave them. We let'em roll where they live. Yeah, and I didn't even notice them, but when Owen yesterday was like, have these been here the whole time? I was like, have what? Has what been there? I just, I've walked past them a thousand times. I'd love to say it was the first time there was, uh, a penis drawing on that chalkboard, but it's not, I think it was actually the first thing that was on that chalkboard.

Sam:

That's

Sarah:

fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Back to real stuff. Talking about compartmentalizing and how you guys are able to deal with the things that, that you see outside of, in your break room and coming to you, what type of resources are available for all of you to be able to manage all of this?

Sam:

Well, I think it starts at home. A lot of the times. Surrounding yourself with a very supportive group of people is key. Um, they don't have to work in healthcare. I think sometimes when we congregate as healthcare workers, we can't stop and not talk about work. We overanalyze and do all the things. I'll come home and I'll call Dan and I'm like, this was a horrible situation. I need to cry about it for five minutes and then we'll go back to like talking about some random thing he sent me on off of Reddit's website. Like, I think surrounding yourself with people that bring you that normalcy is super important to the ability to be able to compartmentalize and express it appropriately. If that makes sense. Yeah,

Sarah:

that makes sense to me. I mean, what the fuck do I know?

Sam:

I mean, there are resources outside of that available. I know that the system that I work for, they have different hotlines that we can call. There's a wellness committee that we've started. In fact, I'm part of the wellness committee at our level and at the system level. So like they're really shifting their focus to the wellness of their bedside staff. Not just nurses, not just doctors, but respiratory therapists. EVS, like it is all encompassing because we all have trials and tribulations at the bedside. Doesn't matter what position that you're in. So there are resources, like resources like that. And then one of the ones that I started following during covid, um, I just screenshot of their website'cause I don't remember anything half the time it's de debriefing the front lines. They have one-on-one sessions, they've got group sessions, they've got CEUs, they do a lot of advocacy for the bedside staff. And it's a nonprofit, so it's not controlled by any healthcare system. It is just a bunch of nurses supporting nurses. So there are apps that's awesome to find outside. What was that website? It is called

Chris:

If. Oh, sorry. Go ahead Sam. And then I'll make my joke. Um, it's debriefing the front lines

Sarah:

just made sure. I just wanted to make sure that our intern got it.

Chris:

If only we had a mechanism like notes about the show where we could put references like this.

Sarah:

Listen, I don't wanna hear you talking about notes. The one time we did an interview, it said that the person we were interviewing was the co-host, Christine and Heather, co-host Christine and Heather host this, like, what the fuck? So you take your show, was that your phone? Yeah, Olivia's calling.

Chris:

At

Sam:

least I put mine on silent. My mom texted me three times, but, alright, so let me look at my question.

Chris:

Wait, wait, what? Wait. Oh, you have something? Wait, go ahead. Go ahead. Wait, go ahead. So go ahead Sam. The approach that that you guys take to supporting each other, do you think that that's changed in the last 10 years, 15 years?'cause I can remember when I started doing the job that I have now. I worked in a hospital with all of the ER doctors and nurses. And those people were hardcore. And if you even mentioned something like I, you know, felt kind of sad. Then there was just a whole bunch of like shit that you had to deal with, like hardcore. Like they would take me to dinner or lunch and try to make me gag, like the first one who would say something disgusting enough for me to actual real gag. Then that person got their lunch for free. So there wasn't a whole lot of, oh yeah, this is hard and kind of traumatic. And there would be people who would be in their car crying and everyone would just walk past and be like, well, we don't see you. Do you think that's moved forward at all, or do you think there's still a lot of, uh oh, we don't wanna talk about it, we're just gonna act real tough and make jokes about eyeballs? I do think it's

Sam:

changed. I think that the newer generation of nurses are a lot more vocal about. Their struggles. I've had staff come into my office and say, I'm really anxious today, or I'm having a bad day. I'm not okay. Whereas my older nurses don't necessarily say those things out loud. So I think it's the generation of nursing and with the influx of the newer nurses, we're seeing a lot more of that openness. I will say it was kind of a part of both generations of nurses because when I started, all of the people that precepted me were the older generation nurses. And then as I've progressed through Covid, we all were a lot more open because there was no filter. We could say what we wanted because there were no visitors in the hospital, there were no family members. So we could talk about this stuff at the nurses station without the shame of it, I guess, is kind of really where we have a hard time transitioning into that new phase where we're open about things.

Chris:

Yeah, I think it just in general, I think that that's exactly the case in, in a lot of places that, you know, we are, we are seeing it kind of, uh, kind of move in a positive direction, which I love. So we can start talking about, wow, I do not feel okay today. I do not feel like I am on top of it and I'm not gonna cover that up with 18, uh, penis jokes, which I like better than the eyeball jokes myself, but. Fucking

Sarah:

penis jokes are funny, man. They are,

Sam:

eyeballs are my boss's ick. He came, he doesn't like the eyeballs. He doesn't like working with the eyeballs, and he was a trauma nurse, so, oh God. I bet he saw a lot of hanging eyeballs. He did see a lot of hanging eyeballs. That's probably why he doesn't like it. Yep. Not for me. No, thank you. Yeah.

Sarah:

No, no, there's nothing. Nothing about being a nurse. The two things I know I could never do nursing and teaching. I was actually majoring in education when I first went to school. Talk about not knowing yourself. Jesus.

Sam:

Get, uh, both of those degrees because my master's is in nursing education and I'm a nurse, so why not take the best of both worlds

Sarah:

baffling to me, fucking baffling. So since you're the manager, like what going, staying on the same lines as how coping mechanisms and how, how you guys are able to cope, and specifically the older nurses and the younger nurses coming in, how do you manage them differently? Is there certain, do you have to really, I don't know what I'm trying to say. The older ones who are just like, no, I'm a tough bitch. I could deal with this. Do you have to be like, okay, you don't have to deal with it, or do you just let them go? It's

Sam:

a little bit of both. Um, with the older nurses specifically, there's that fine line of I'll offer you resources and I'll be your sounding board if you need it. I'm always here, but don't feel obligated if you have other outlets of your own to take care of these things, because a lot of them do. A lot of them have that outside of work, which I think a lot of our new nurses also do, but they just don't know how to hone in on those resources just yet. So with them, I tend to walk that line where I'm here, I'm always an ear, let me know and you rhyme. Other that I don't typically, um, I'm here and I have an ear. Oh, that's gonna be my new slogan. I wanna put it on a t-shirt

Sarah:

as you should.

Sam:

But no, really, honestly, I, I give them that outlet if they need it, but I know myself, I didn't take that when I started in nursing and I left a lot of that stuff internal, which I think slowed me down to some extent as I learned to be an ICU nurse. And then my newer nurses, they just come in and they just, yeah, pull their guts. And I'm like, okay, this, I can work with this. I can tell you how to fix this. I can help you find a fix for. So it's a little bit easier to work with the newer nurses. No offense to my older, my older generation nurses. We love

Sarah:

you. Older generation. You're not old, you're just part of the older generation. That's how we talk about ourselves.'cause I'm in that generation, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I'm, I'm gonna go, I'm actually gonna go personal Okay. From, uh, nursing shit. So I know that you have anxiety like I do and we love the Xanax. We love the Xanax, but you know what I, I don't know when you figured that out. Have you always suffered from anxiety? When did you,'cause I know medication was new for you, so I don't know, give us your story when it comes to personal mental health.

Sam:

So for me, I think around six or seven was when I really realized that like I had an aversion to certain things that would like make me feel different. I had a healthcare experience unironically when I was a kid, that I had to have a colonoscopy very young. Yeah, it was terrible. And I was also, for all intents and purposes, every time I would use the restroom, I would bleed. And I'm six at the time, so fairly traumatic. Now as an adult looking at it, I'm like, that's not that bad. But when you're six, it's. Part of, you know, your developing brain and that should suck to, and I still think about it to some extent as an adult, which is why I have a tendency to not pursue healthcare and not get my labs done. And my husband will yell at me all the time about it. And you know, I'm the worst patient as a nurse on top of it too.

Sarah:

Y'all are, y'all are. We really are.

Sam:

Mm-hmm. I think it's collectively, those of us in healthcare don't like to seek out healthcare, but that was the first time I really noticed that it started. I grew up in a single parent household, so. My mom has always been super supportive. She's always helped me try to find outlets. And then as I got through school, you know, junior high, high school, I lost my aunt. She was not technically my aunt by blood. She was just my mom's best friend of 36 years. So I grew up with her. So it was traumatic to watch that. And then every little piece of my life had some kind of trauma attached to it that I think just formulated this. Portion of my brain that already existed because anxiety is hereditary and my, there are people in my family that struggle with anxiety. So I think it kind of just blossomed from there with traumatic events in to, and not to say that my life was terrible. I have a wonderful mother and I grew up in a wonderful household and my family's super supportive and my husband's family's super supportive. Though they may not understand it completely, Dan took the time to like learn about it when we first started dating and did research on it and understood it at that level so that now when I have those moments of anxiety, he's able to support me in the best way possible. For me, it's always kind of been lingering. It was just, I think traumatic events as I grew up really formed how I am today.

Sarah:

When did you start meds? Because I feel like that's a fairly recent, or am I just a terrible sister-in-law and I just never paid attention.

Sam:

No. So I originally, I had always needed something PRM or as needed when I would go to like the dentist or whatever. Mind you, my mom works in a dental office, so Yeah, that's right. Somehow my biggest fear is the dentist. So she would, um, when I, when she would make me appointment, she would get me to make sure I had my meds and something just to kind of ease the anxiety of getting a cavity filled or whatever. And then as I started to progress through Covid and towards the end of Covid when it really started to slow down, is when I started Zoloft. And, you know, no offense to anybody that takes Zoloft, it just wasn't for me. I didn't like it. I liked that it quieted my brain a lot of the time, but I just didn't feel like I was getting better. So we, I talked to my PCP, who is a great friend of mine, takes care, really great care of me and my family. I had asked him, I said, you know, I just don't, I'm still having these moments of where I'm backsliding and I'm having these anxiety attacks. And then you, you know, if you have anxiety, you slide into that depression because you're like, what's wrong with my brain? Why am I broken? When in reality you're not broken, you're just, you just think different.

Sarah:

Mm-hmm.

Sam:

And he had suggested trying Xanax and he gave me a really low dose of it and one script. And I don't rely on it unless I'm flying or I'm having an absolute meltdown, which I had recently. And poor Dan got the brunt of it, but he handled it like a champ. But I just, I never wanted to rely on medication and not saying that there's anything wrong with that, I just felt like, yeah. I wasn't connecting the pieces of what made me anxious when I was medicating with things.

Sarah:

Yeah. And that makes sense. And, and I think that's very valid. It's, I think most of us don't wanna rely on the meds, but I think we all realize that that's not the same for everybody. And it's, it's also part of the major challenge with mental health in general, and we talked about that a lot earlier in the podcast, is how much it sucks that it takes so long to find that balance. If you are someone who's going to take meds and the meds are really what can help you just to find the right medication, the balance of the medications, it's a, it's a tough road.

Sam:

And I also think that there's not enough resources out there to, for the people that don't wanna take meds or maybe don't mm-hmm. The same benefits from medications. There's not enough mental health resources out there to really hone in on what are the things that we can do to improve it. Not just your standard talk therapy. There's not enough studies, there's not enough information because I feel like anxiety and mental health in general got swept under the rug for a really long time and now it's kind of back in the forefront of things. So I think that's a big thing too, is that it's either medication or nothing. You're right. Raw dogging life or you're can't see your hand in front of your face. I mean, I don't know. Yeah,

Sarah:

I mean it's, it's, that's the shit we talk about because I mean, I'm 46 years old. I've been on medication for a very long time and I've gone on and off the meds and my poor sister can attest to this. I should never go off the meds. Me going off the meds is not a good idea. And the last time I went off the meds was 16, almost 16 years ago, right when I had Owen.

Sam:

Yeah. So like you shouldn't have to feel like you can't. Function with that. Yeah. Like I feel like society as a whole, and this is kind of like my soapbox, I think society has made it so that we feel like we can't get better. And if make it better for you, that's awesome and I'm happy for you.'cause I love the person that you are on or off the meds. So that's, that's what you wanna do. But there's no resources for somebody like me who's maybe like, I don't know if I wanna, I don't wanna

Sarah:

do that. Right. But, and that's what, and I take the long way of getting thing, getting to things because I was always just given meds. Mm-hmm. And they work for me and that's great. And I will continue to do them. But honestly, in the last year I've been, I've lessened, I've taken one of my meds out. Mm-hmm. I think that's because of what we're doing here and because I'm finding alternative ways of dealing with stuff and I don't know if that has to,'cause I've heard of meditation and all of that shit, you know, prior to doing this podcast. But I also thought it was a joke because that's just, just how I was. So I don't know if that's maturity that you get in there, but there's, there's a ton of different ways. It's not just meditation, that seems to be one of the things that has helped me. But I 100% agree with you because I have a thousand pamphlets on medication. I don't have one pamphlet on what I can do outside of medication. Yeah, I can go to therapy and I do go to therapy. But honestly now that, and it's weird that we never talked about this before, but just now I'm thinking, I don't think my therapist ever gives me like alternative ways of dealing with it. Like we just talk.

Sam:

And for some people that work super well, like, yeah, yeah. Medi meditation, medication doesn't matter what it is. And like as a nurse, it's hard to sit here and say, oh no, I don't necessarily love the idea of medication because. I'm a legal drug dealer for all intents and purposes of, of meds. No, I I think that there are ways to heal yourself from within because the wounds aren't outside and to acknowledge them, the wounds that are inside are tend, they tend to be the deepest and the hardest to recover from. But you need more than just a medication or an antibiotic or whatever. You need that buffer of things to help you heal from a wound internally. So it doesn't mean that medication is the end all be all. Yeah,

Sarah:

for sure. I love how you put that. Damn. You should have a podcast.

Chris:

Turns out it's easy to do

Sarah:

shit seriously for a whole year. That's real for the love. So kind of going on that back into the nursing line of things, do you have any personal rituals or hacks or anything like that that you do specifically when you're heading into work, when you know that there's a specific rough thing that might be coming? I say rough thing A, a terrible, I don't, how do you put that? A dying human being coming your way. What? What do you do to prepare yourself and your team in situations like that?

Sam:

Well, I think the nice thing about healthcare, well for some people it's not nice, but for us in the ICU that every day is like a choose your own adventure day. So I never go in expecting the exact same thing to happen yesterday that happened the day before. The day after. Mm-hmm. Like I never go in expecting things to be okay. I don't expect the worst. I kind of expect that middle ground of, if nobody dies today, it was a good day. If somebody dies today, maybe it was their time, but did my team facilitate it in a comfortable manner? Did we make sure the family was supported? Did I make sure my team was supported when I go into work? Those are the things I think about. It's like, how can I show up for everyone else when things get hard? So, no, today might not be the greatest day, but did I show up for my team? Did I show up for my, my patients? Did I show up for the hospital that I work for and did I. Exude what it is that they look for in leadership and management and as a bedside nurse. And then, you know, I think about my family to some extent too, and it's terrible to say, but if my family were in that ICU would I want me as the manager or me as the bedside nurse. Am I teaching my team the right things? Am I showing them the right ways to do these things? So my hack isn't, there is no hack. It's just reflecting on the most important things that you can bring to the table as a bedside nurse and what you can do to positively impact your patients and their families. Because sometimes you're the last space that they'll ever see. And it's really sad and it breaks our hearts and it breaks their heart. But as long as they left there with some peace in a terrible situation, that's how I go into my day. How can I make my team peaceful? How can I make my patients peaceful? And how do I bring myself peace at the end of the day?

Sarah:

I think it, I think that you are older than me and we don't know it. Like the, just the level of maturity and resilience that you speak with is, it's not that I didn't know this shit about you before, but I don't know, you're what, like 15 years younger than me?

Sam:

33 in July, so close to it. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. No, I'm not doing the math,

Sam:

but yeah, that's, it's

Sarah:

very, you are an, an impressive individual, Samantha. Yeah. That's, that's just a level of shit that I would never think of before the last year, honestly. You talk about bringing these people, other people piece and the people that work for you piece and the family's piece and yourself piece, and I'm like, man, I'm real fucking sad. Like sucks. I make no

Sam:

mistake. It took me a long time to get here jokingly, you know, say that. Well, I don't even say it jokingly. You know, Dan is my person and if you're a Grey Anatomy fan, you get the reference of they're my person. But like when Dan came in into my, are you shaking your head? Watch I it when it was er

Sarah:

a dick need.

Sam:

For those of you who don't know the reference, there's two characters and they talk about how they're each other's person. And when I met Dan, I had just started. I was getting ready to start nursing school, so he has been through some of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows with me. And for me, when I think about all of the things that bring me peace, it centers around him, it centers around my mom, it centers, centers around my family dynamics. So to be able to adjust myself throughout the years and move forward with someone in TOW that understands what I'm going through has made me come to the realization that I need to do that for other people too, if that makes sense. I'm rambling

Sarah:

100%.

Chris:

No, no, no. You're not rambling at all. I mean, a part of We're the

Sarah:

of rambling.

Chris:

Oh my God. We have a whole podcast about it. We, we could have done this a whole year's worth of podcasts probably in like four sentences. And, and yet, here we are. Right? Can't shut us up. But I think some of what you're saying, Sam, is a lot of what, like the conclusions that we've come to is like lining yourself up for, you know, be where, where you are with your, with your values. This stuff is important to me. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show up in the way that that makes it so that everybody can do what, what they have to do. These are the people that are important to me. These are the things that are important to me. And being able to, um. You know, approach your life where, uh, where you have those things kind of lined up makes it easier for you to keep your eye on your mental wellbeing. I think. And I think in certain professions, a lot of that is, uh, is really in front of you all the time, right? In order to get through the day, I have to have this dark sense of humor. But I also have to have people who will underneath that really understand support and help me to, to do this thing that I, that I really love to do. There are some professions where you can kind of fake the funk for a little bit, but there are others where you have to pay a lot of attention to your mental health'cause it's being attacked all day. And if you're not in a place where, where you're able to find that support, then it is a, it is a big struggle, right? So most definitely, definitely. Yeah. Definitely. I feel like Sarah's getting there.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean she, she had all this shit figured out and I Right. You were like, I don't, I don't know what's important to me. She didn't even have to do a podcast or coaching. No. I had to start my own fucking podcast, get a personal coach, and I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I still don't know what my purpose is.

Sam:

Listen, there are times I come home from work and I'm like, what the fuck did I just do all day? Why do I do it? I think there are moments where in time where you find your purpose and it makes sense and you're ready to go, and you greet the day with that attitude and then you get home and you're like, Nope, what

Sarah:

just happened? But that, I mean, that's the other thing that we talk about is that, that these things change. Mm-hmm. I am always jealous of someone like yourself who seems, who are passionate about their job and they really enjoy their job. And, and this is, this is truly their purpose and, and they love what they do and they have a commitment to it.'cause I've just never been that excited about railroad ties. Like, I mean, I, I can't get it up for the railroad ties. I'm sorry. So I'm just, yeah. It's, it's amazing to me. I get jealous, but it's also inspirational to me because it doesn't matter how old I am, I can still change and find things. So I'm fine and then I'll get there one of these days

Sam:

we, I'll get there.

Sarah:

I don't know. I like myself. That's like what I figured out so far.

Chris:

Right. The things that I like and I'm passionate about, me being happy. Me, me,

Sarah:

me.

Sam:

It's okay. Me, you gotta be selfish sometimes

Sarah:

macho, like, I don't know. Okay.

Sam:

Real sound. He wasn't at the St. Patty's Day party.

Sarah:

We're having some problems with Majo now. Um, I'm gonna have to do some research. He seems to have slipped on the hardwood floor or the fake hardwood floor, whatever you call that floor that we have. And he is now afraid of the hardwood floor.

Chris:

She says So funny, Mary. So he will,

Sarah:

Joseph, do you have to carry literal him

Chris:

everywhere now?

Sarah:

I'm trying to force him. I, but it's so sad'cause he will literally stand at the end of the area rug and bark and get and like cry. I tried to line up, like I got old rugs that we had downstairs and I tried to line the monster window. This is what I do. I spoil the dog, but he doesn't like the new carpets or rugs. They were a different texture.

Chris:

So my dog has autism. It's okay. Lots of pets do. I think Uno does. He's on the spectrum for sure. That cat is

Sarah:

man. Yeah. I'm like, dude, what? Like I thought at first baby he was just having, I thought there were some spirits in the house.'cause I totally believe the dogs see that shit. I know with our old dog, jigs, jigs was, he was in touch with the spirits in both of our houses, and I knew it. And so I thought that that's what it was. But, um, unless, unless he thinks the spirits are coming out of the hardwood floor, it it, to me, it appears that he has, he has developed an aversion to the hardwood floor and I don't know how to fix that. I'm gonna have to. What's that? He's not little enough for that, but maybe a backpack. I don't know.

Sam:

There is, um, a dog that I have followed for years on TikTok that they created a backpack for Maxine MCC Corgi. So I might have to check it out by macho backpack.

Chris:

Maxine, how can

Sam:

you imagine

Chris:

for all everyday use? Like, just how is he going to eat? Well, we put the dog down when he gotta eat. She won't. Yeah, she won't. Sam, you know, she won't, she'll just carry ice just like

Sam:

this on the shoulder, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure Maxine has received treats while in the back.

Sarah:

I'm fairly certain I have spoiled this dog.

Chris:

I'm picturing it more on the front. Like

Sarah:

a, like a, yeah. Wow. And he could just lick your face. Mm-hmm. If he's on the front. Wow. There you go. God. Yeah. We have to bring the food into the living room now on the carpet. Yeah. Fuck that. That dog's not getting. Just

Sam:

get a baby backpack and put him in it. That's refurbished ones I think on that website. They do like the refurbished ones that like didn't refurbished re Yeah, no pun intended. I think they literally say like, they may come with dog glitter. So, wow. Wow. Space making my head hurt.

Sarah:

Sorry. I was asking Sam if she knew of any ways that I could deal with my anxious dog. She seems to be much more knowledgeable and in tune than I am.

Sam:

So one of my best is a vet tech, so let me know if he Nice.

Sarah:

Yeah, I'm gonna see what Google tells me. Um, I just go out of sight and keep yelling for him to come to me and eventually I say treat and he's like, okay. And then, but if you watch him, I'm gonna have to record it.'cause he, now, it's like every time the carpet comes or the, the hardwood floor comes into place, like he hesitates and he's like, and then when his little feet touch the hardwood floor, he gets skittles like now. Yeah, it's rough. It's rough. He's definitely not living up to his name at all.

Sam:

Opposite of macho. Yep.

Sarah:

I guess that's like the calling the the big dog, tiny. Right? That's what's happened. Alright, back to real things. Let's see, let's see. We're getting close to the end here with my questions. Which one of these do I want to, I wanna ask both of them. I think if you had a, if you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about how the system treats healthcare workers, what would it be?

Sam:

That's a loaded question.'cause there's a lot of different things that I would like to change in the healthcare system as far as the healthcare workers are concerned.

Sarah:

Let me restate the question.

Sam:

Name as many as you want. I think the biggest thing is just the overall acknowledgement of how hard we work and how our voices need to be heard too. Whether it's. As far as like improving safety in the hospital or improving the units with, you know, when they come in and do the, the fixing of the lights or whatever. Like, they don't ask nurses what they would like to see done in some of our patient rooms. They're small, there's not enough room for the equipment. So I think just the overall idea that let our voices be heard too.'cause we are the ones at the bedside for the longest. You know, I love my docs. I work with some of the greatest doctors I have ever been around. They're the smartest, they're the most knowledgeable, but they're not at the bedside. As long as my staff is and as long as I've been, they don't always hear us. So I think just kind of that respect would be one of the biggest things I'd change.

Sarah:

Yeah, that makes sense. And I, I don't, I mean, me being not a healthcare worker or a nurse, it, like, you don't think of those things though. Like, you really don't like the amount of time that you're, you are bedside, the amount of time that you're in that environment is way more than than. What the doctors are seeing and yeah, that totally makes sense. So kind of the same question, but out to us general public, like what are the things, what's something that you feel we should know about you as a nurse, your team, something that we might not consider? Does that make sense?

Chris:

Yeah, it makes sense. You could

Sarah:

tell I made that question on myself. I didn't ask chat sheet for that, that GPD didn't help

Chris:

at

Sam:

all.

Sarah:

Because it didn't make any fucking sense. But go ahead.

Sam:

I think the, the biggest thing for the general public is, is that we're trained for this. We are trained professionals. And it's not to diminish, you know, your fear as a family member or the things that you are questioning because nine times out of 10, like, you know that person better than we do and you're gonna catch it. But let us get through the process of getting them the things that they need.'cause we see it from a different angle. I also wish to some extent that the general public would understand that, you know, we, we carry this shit home. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good you are at compartmentalizing or how good you are at leaving work at the door before you walk in the door of to your house, we still think about that family member. We still think like, what could I have done differently? What could I have done better? Could I have advocated harder? Could I have pushed this physician to do different? Tests or scans or whatever, we're still human and we still carry that stuff home. And we think about you guys and you know, we think about you when your family member has passed and you know,

Sarah:

we

Sam:

send our condolences and we pray. If you're a prayer person, we pray. And if you're not someone who prays and you just think about them and hope that whatever is their soul is, you know, in a good place, we're still people. So we're doing the best that we can in the situations that we're doubt. It's not always pretty and it's not always the best outcome. But you can't, you can't get mad at us. You can get mad at us to some extent, but you can't lash out at us.

Sarah:

Well, so now I have another question on top of that. Sorry, Christine, if you have any questions. I'm, I'm on it now I'm into Right,

Chris:

right. You're in it a year and

Sarah:

a half.

Chris:

This is what we need and I'll never have to talk again.

Sarah:

So I imagine that there are times when you encounter families who are trying to tell you what to do and what is the best way to go about, like they, they do know this person better than you do, and they do really, they're very convicted that you need to hear something. What's the best way for that person to go about that and have you guys here? I guess

Sam:

So what's nice in, in our ICU, we have like a formalized process with myself and my counterpart and my boss. We all are. Trained in a, a certain style of nursing, I guess, um, where we're able to have these kind of bridge conversations where we're the advocate for the family as well as the patient to our physicians. Now we're really lucky. Like I said, we have a really great physician team. I work in a non-teaching hospital, so I don't have residents, I don't have interns, I just have attendings and that's it. And a lot of them have been doing this for a very long time. So I don't get a lot of the pushback that maybe some of these teaching facilities do. So our job is to help kind of facilitate that conversation between the physician or the other teams that are involved in this patient's care and get the family members the answers to the questions that they have. A lot of the times in healthcare, everything is slow, just like everywhere else. So we may not have all of the answers, but we're able to kind of corral the family and say like, okay, we don't have the answers right now, but let's meet tomorrow at noon with the critical care physician and palliative care and bring them both in and we can talk through the results of this test if we have them. By that time. So I think leaning on more experienced in, for hospitals that don't have this program, leaning more on your charge. Nurses who have experience that can kind of handle those conversations.'cause that's what kind of leads you into leadership is being a charge nurse. So like I had a lot of experiences as a charge nurse. Some of my most favorite nurses that I work with, I've been in charge nurses since I was born, lean on, just feel old to facilitate those conversations and kind of temper the, all the flares of all the different fires.

Sarah:

Gotcha. Christine, do you have a question?

Chris:

No, I was listening to that and um, it's so interesting to me, like all of, uh, like the way that people decide to get into this and the way that people decide to stay in this is just amazing. Do you, speaking of that,

Sarah:

do you see a lot of people that come in Sam and they're like, fuck this shit, I'm out. Like, or by the time they get to you, they're pretty committed to

Sam:

it. I would say a lot of the times, by the time my nurses get to me. Now, that's not to say that like we hired a ton of graduate nurses, like fresh out of college, brand new to the healthcare field, not jaded, not a chip on their shoulders. Sweet, shiny and bright,

Sarah:

sweet and shiny.

Sam:

Not so much me. Um, but we do see a lot of them. Like they're ready for ICU. They, you know, they did their year of progressive care, they did their year of floor nursing. They know what it means to be a nurse. And then they come to the ICU and they're like, shit, did I really wanna do this? Yeah. And then they, those like string of good days where they feel like they're helping and they feel like they're doing a lot, which they are. And then it kind of renews your, your faith in, in that particular role. But I will say when Covid hit some of my most senior nurses left, like truly. And I know that we talk about Covid a lot in general in healthcare, and it's four years, five years later and we're still talking about it, but I lost a lot of great nurses to covid. Do you think it's a bad

Sarah:

thing that we're, I'm sorry, I interrupted. Do you think it's a bad thing that we're still talking about covid? Like I, I think that we need to, I think that we should

Sam:

be talking about like, or tired of, of hearing about it in the sense that like, okay, we've progressed, we've gotten through the worst of it. It's still pretty bad, but it's not as bad as it was in March of 2020 where people were dying faster than we could keep up with. Yeah. So I think it's with anything, any pandemic, like you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and that's where we're now. So people are tired of hearing about it because it was pretty much beat over our heads.'cause we had nothing better to listen to.

Sarah:

Yeah. I mean it was boring time. Not for us. I was just gonna say, so where were you? Where were you? When, where were you five years ago?

Sam:

Um, I was in Vegas with Dan, uh, March of 2020. We had flown, we flew, hello? Flew, flown, flown, I think for like, either one works,

Sarah:

I mean, whatever.

Sam:

We had been in Vegas with his company for like, you know, a week or so. Everything was kind of like filtering into the United States where they were like, oh, we're gonna shut down international flights. And then it was, oh, we may shut down domestic flights. And I looked at him in our hotel room and I was like, how in the hell are we getting home if they shut down domestic flights? Like, I need extra Xanax. So luckily we were, we were able to make it home and literally days after we got home, the entire biggest trip was shut down. Yeah. Like, I mean, the world went dark. We just gotten home. Um, I stayed away from my family. He stayed away from his family. Like we didn't go out. Um, yeah. And then I walked into work right after my time off and we had our first suspected Covid patient, and it was a younger kid, ended up having a. Vaping injury, lung injury that they thought originally was covid because we didn't know a whole lot about Covid at the time. So I mean, full stop. We had the isolation room, we had the negative pressure. We thought that he had covid and everything came back negative, thankfully. And then after him, it was like the whole world exploded in our ICU and we were typically a 16 bed unit. We opened up one of our extra ICU pods that is like not really functional. It's functional in the sense that we can see patients in it, but we don't need it. We became a 24 bed unit. One side was like the clean everybody's, no, no covid. One side was suspected and one side was full. So yeah,

Sarah:

that had to be, I mean, it was a crazy time for everybody being in healthcare though. I can't even, it was wild. I can't even imagine. I mean, it may have almost been like living with your mother-in-law in a, an apartment, but I mean, almost,

Sam:

I don't know.

Sarah:

My

Sam:

mother-in-law was so.

Chris:

It was the best of times for me. It's okay.

Sarah:

I love the fact that there was nobody like out on the road. I like the fact that like I could go pick up my groceries and I didn't have to yell at people. Everybody was living a

Chris:

hermit. It was amazing. Yeah. I did puzzles and people were like, wow, that'ss weird.

Sarah:

Yeah. Remember you couldn't find a puzzle Like you could not, right. You had to

Chris:

like buy them at

Sarah:

Goodwill.

Chris:

It was insane thing. Remember that?

Sarah:

Yes. Yes. I didn't, I did not watch the Tiger King.

Chris:

Oh my God. It was way better than er.

Sarah:

No. I watched Chimp Crazy. Did you watch that yet, Christine? I know. I told you to watch Chimp Crazy. You gotta watch Chimp Crazy if you watch Tiger. Haven't watched

Chris:

anything. I haven't

Sarah:

watched anything. It's on Sam, it's on Max. And I really want you to watch Chimp. Crazy. Isn't that like had, uh, a monkey and that ripped her face off? That's part of it. Because that's part of talking about why we shouldn't own them. Just a little bit about it. But it's about a woman. It's about they think that they're doing good for these animals and they're, they're not. And um, yeah. It's about how fucking crazy this lady is. Like she's fucking bonkers. Yeah. You would really like Tiger King then. I feel like I just can't with that guy. My

Chris:

God, it's the best part. He makes the whole damn show. I am never gonna financially recover from this. I

Sam:

said that all the time.

Sarah:

All right, well Noah and I are running out things to watch, so maybe, maybe I'll suggest that.'cause I don't think he's ever watched it either.

Sam:

We just watched Barry on Max. If you've not watched it. So good.

Sarah:

So good. Becca has seen it. Becca, you're allowed to unmute and participate. It's fine.

Chris:

You could just delete yourself later. I mean, not in a bad way. Not in, not in a, oh God, it's

Sam:

terrible. It was really good. I was pleasantly surprised. However, I was a little disappointed in the last episode. Not gonna not dam it. Damn it.

Sarah:

Yeah. I'm gonna have to check it out. I was miserable for like a year after Game of Thrones. Yeah. I didn't watch Game of Thrones and now I will never watch Game of Thrones. Not just because of you, but because of everybody else and how it ended. I'm like, well obviously I'm not investing the time in that. It was worth the watch

Chris:

even with, do you want me just to tell you the plot of the books?'cause I could do that.

Sarah:

Well I think you started with the books and I started reading the books like,'cause you said you have to read the books and it was ta like, the beginning of it was terrible and made me sad and there was death.

Chris:

It doesn't get any bad. It's like having a, it doesn't

Sarah:

get better from there. A lot. There was a lot of bad stuff that made me feel bad and I was like, I can't, this is, I need, I need to read a nonsensical, spicy novel. It's also an option. Or I need to read more about Vampires and dogs. Yes. Or wolves, whatever you call them. Where was

Chris:

series So good. That's why Sarah reads books now.

Sarah:

What? Twilight. Yeah, that's the first book. That's the first series like I ever got into outside of school. What about Harry Potter? We're just gonna leave that one out there. I read that after I read Twilight.'cause Twilight is literally the first series. I was 30 years old. I had just had Owen and that was the first time like that was. It's a big deal in our marriage.'cause Noah's like, when we got married you didn't read. Now that's all you do. And I don't like it'cause I don't read. Yeah. But twilight's what started it. Yeah. There you go. This, this is the ne this is gonna be my next one.

Sam:

I have heard so many people read these books and I, I can't, I can't bring myself to do it. I'm actually right now reading a book about a girl that works in the morgue sot escape the things. Yeah. I mean,

Sarah:

hey, you're into it.

Sam:

Stick with what you know, what you like. Right? Yeah. De always asks me, he's like, how do you go to work for 12 hours a day and come home and watch the pit or watch er or graze anatomy me? I'm like, no, no, no. It's probably'cause I like to yell at it and tell'em that they're wrong, but.

Sarah:

That'll never happen. I'm never making out with that guy in the closet.

Sam:

Those closets are small myself. You don't, you don't shock asystole. You don't. You don't, yeah. No. Okay. Yeah. So you're

Chris:

thinking different things than I am thinking. Okay. I'm like, I would definitely make out with George Clooney in a closet.

Sarah:

Yes. Well, that's my problem with the latest episode or latest episode, latest season of reacher. Like, not like any of them are really believable, but the latest season of reacher is like, I've started to now look at now and be like, no, it wouldn't happen. It just wouldn't. I don't, I can't even, I can't even act like this is okay just for film. I can't, like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Christine's stop. I can't. I am on mute then. Yeah. What's gonna trigger you? Currently we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up. Let's see. I think I already asked that one. Um, all right, the last one, Sam, if someone is listening to this and struggling right now, uh, from a nurse perspective, what would you want them to hear from you?

Chris:

Cool. That's a good

Sarah:

one. That is a good one. Provided somebody makes it through this whole thing and listens to the end,

Sam:

Becca's gonna make it work. I would have to say, if I was that nurse and I was that nurse when I started as a gn, um, it was really rough. I had a really terrible unit director who made me feel like I wasn't supposed to be where I'm at. Um, I'd say to them like, truly, at the end of the day, it's the impact that you have on your patients that matter. It's not the formalities, it's not the the surveys, it's not the discharge surveys, it's not the Press Ganey scores. It's what you do for your patient in that moment when they're at their most vulnerable and their most weak. And if you can feel good about yourself and what you did for them at the end of the day and go home with your head up knowing that you made an impact, whether they remember you or not, but they remember the care they received from you, if you can go home knowing that, then stick with it. Because sometimes that's gonna be the only thing that gets you through a day. Like, Hey, I changed, I changed the trash bag in somebody's room, but it had been unchanged for days. Now the room doesn't smell like feet. I don't know. Like it's stupid shit. Yeah. That like I washed my patient's hair and braided it for them Today. The worst days can be horrible. And you can see the worst things happen in a 12 hour shift and it is unnerving. But when you walk into another patient's room and they're smiling at you and you've braided their hair and you've gotten them fresh water and you changed the linens in their bed and you gave them a bath because they haven't had a bath in days and they can't bath themself, like, don't ever stop doing those small things because that will make you feel like a super per like a superpower at the end of the day. Like you walk out and you're like,

Sarah:

I'm a superhero. I did it. And I love that.'cause I feel like most, most nurses, I would guess, got into it for those reasons to help. I mean, that's what they wanna do. They want to be be the shining light.

Sam:

I mean, we're often overlooked as the shining light and a lot of, we're the punching bags and like we've talked you and I about

Sarah:

mm-hmm.

Sam:

Healthcare worker violence and, you know, not to dive into that because I'm sure that'll be a whole other hour long conversation that we can have. Yeah.

Sarah:

It's a thing.

Sam:

We, we typically are the punching bags. So like we don't go into it thinking that's what we're gonna be, but if we can provide something that impacts them in a positive manner and they don't feel like they are alone or scared, or no one cares about them, then we've done our jobs.

Sarah:

Awesome. Um, yeah, and I'll say again, you are more mature than I am and. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. We really appreciate it. Um, yeah, you continue to amaze me with how you deal with things and we love it. I love it. I'm assuming that my sister and Becca also love it. I'm just speaking for them, so cheers. And you

Chris:

deal with Sarah. So, I mean, that is also, we on the brightest

Sarah:

part of Sam and I are the brightest part of this

Sam:

family. And let me tell you, I mean, Dan's standing in the kitchen. He may disagree, I don't know. He hurried up and away quietly.

Sarah:

We, we make this family fun, we make holidays. This is true. I mean, Noah and Danny and Steven are kind of funny sometimes too on their own, but, and I, I mean, I guess you're mom and, and Sue. They're okay too, but, I mean, but, but really, and, and Jen, Jennifer's great too. Okay. We'll just shut up. Alright. So Sam, what we're gonna do is we're gonna stop recording, but don't hang up yet. Okay. Stop the recording.

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Christine Kanalis

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Sarah Leibhart

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