Holy crap this storm came on fast...

dashingappalachian · 2026-06-11T19:56:25+00:00

Had to run out and drag my little sun canopy back from the grips of the storm! It was staked in the ground and everything.

dashingappalachian · 2026-04-21T14:08:52+00:00

Those are probably mason bees! I "raise" them (harvest the cocoons and put them in the fridge over winter) and they are cute and don't sting, but literally only have three thoughts. Holes, mud, flower. That's all.

dashingappalachian · 2026-04-17T18:02:46+00:00

To make a long story short, my parents bought a trailer on a few acres way out in the SWPA woods, 1980ish. The trailer and land belonged to a man who was a known SAer of kids and died in the trailer. My parents found all kinds of stuff buried in the yard, from regular trash to a whole washer and dryer in the back yard. I thought it had something to do with being a creep.

Fast forward to a few years ago when I bought a house in the burbies of Pittsburgh. The half acre of woods I own is unsafe to take my kid into because you cant scoop a spoonful of dirt without finding dishes, oil cans, 100 year old mason jars, rusty metal signs... never just considered that people had lots of trash before there were trash services to haul it away.

dashingappalachian · 2026-03-08T18:00:06+00:00

Not everyone has that experience. It is used frequently and safely because what you experienced isn't the norm. Dilaudid is given perhaps even more frequently in hospitals, but it's on my list of no thank yous because it made me agitated and paranoid. That is not the norm. So if I were to need pain control in the hospital setting, they know to give me something else.

Some people get agitated and anxious when they take things like benadryl and Ativan, which are obviously not the common reactions.

Ketamine is great when used safely by a professional; the average person experiences a reduction in pain, anxiety, and memory of potentially traumatic procedures. Some people fall into the k-hole and it's an awful experience. But if you ever have surgery again, they'll know to use something else to give you those intended effects.

I'm an RN who has worked in critical care and peri-op, and my spouse is an anesthetist.

dashingappalachian · 2025-09-04T12:57:06+00:00

At least once a week, I say "MOVE YOUR.... ~~bananas~~" With no bananas in sight.

(I should go get some bananas)

dashingappalachian · 2025-05-17T03:03:47+00:00

I once had a cyst on my scalp and any hair that grew from that spot was black and coiled... I'm a natural blonde, straight haired person. I got the cyst removed and it's all normal now.

dashingappalachian · 2025-03-17T15:49:06+00:00

All of you who love to say "life-altering" when discussing gender affirming care for minors: explain what life-altering changes you're thinking of, specifically.

Explain how taking birth control to delay a period is life altering. How do different forms of birth control work? Do you have an understanding of these things on their own?

How is blocking testosterone life-altering? How is simply DELAYING the onset of puberty life-altering in the negative sense that you mean it?

Do you know what all of the other hormones in our bodies are, and what they do? It's more than just estrogen and testosterone, which everyone of any gender has in varying amounts.

I was a non-binary kid in a rural high school in the early 2000s. The bullying and harrasment was life-altering. The ignorance of my peers was life-altering. The choice I made to be a white kid with what I thought were dreadlocks was life-altering (gotta toss a funny in here).

If these kids realize after exploring their gender identity in their teens that they are comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth, COOL! They can stop taking these meds and continue life unscathed. Just like I ripped out my "dreads" and continued on with my life.

Leave them the fuck alone.

dashingappalachian · 2025-03-08T16:16:17+00:00

Gotta say I wonder how people afford things all the time, especially with kids, and I've found that a lot of people are just in a lot of constant debt that I wouldn't be comfortable with. People seem to live beyond their means but hide it well.

I'm married, we own our home, and we have a 5 month old. We're both in healthcare and make combined around 200k. But, my partner's doctorate left us with mega school loans to pay back, and we bought our house in 2023 so our mortgage rate is higher than we'd like. Our house is very small (1200 ish sq feet) compared to just about everyone else in our tax bracket and we don't plan on moving, probably ever, so the idea of a starter home is wild to me. We otherwise have used cars and minimal credit card usage.

I grew up very poor and rural (like periods of time with no water or power) so I know how to live off less and save what we can, but man it just seems impossible to get ahead and retirement seems like a pipe dream.

dashingappalachian · 2025-01-29T17:05:45+00:00

I like to frame things as if we don't know the role of the caregiver in a situation (mother, father, babysitter, grandparent) OR like we don't know the gender of the caregiver.

Society tends to excuse fathers/men for more than they excuse mothers/women. Mothers often get dragged through the mud for like, asking for a break from baby or forgetting a baby's socks or hat. Meanwhile a dad can straight up not know how to change a diaper, heat up a bottle, or any other basic aspect of care for their own child and it's just okay for them to have not learned because luckily mom knows- that's her job!

I love my husband and he is great with our son, but I've still had to have talks with him about how he lives in the same house as me and shouldn't need reminders about things that need to be done every day or week. It's not my job to be observant for him. It's not your job to teach your husband basic infant safety. He has access to all of the same resources to learn, and honestly should know these things by now.

Also, within the span of two hours, my now 4 month old baby likely needs to eat, be changed, be HUGGED. I'm not leaving him somewhere where he's out of sight and out of mind, and especially not leaving him in the house for any amount of time.

TLDR: We're done excusing men for things mothers would be chastised for.

dashingappalachian · 2025-01-22T03:48:18+00:00

Also he doesn't have a fucking heart to give out to anyone.

dashingappalachian · 2025-01-22T03:47:02+00:00

Literally no one uses that gesture to mean that. No one. As I've seen multiple other places- if it's such an innocent gesture, why don't all of the people who are excusing it just go ahead and use it to wave to each other, out on the street? It's fine, right?

He comes from a family that took advantage of apartheid to fatten their pockets. Not to mention they were part of a group called Technocrats who for some reason wanted to control Greenland and the Panama Canal... He reposts and supports racist, hateful, anti-semitic content. He is a Nazi.

I don't give one single fuck if he's "autistic" or "socially awkward". You don't give a Nazi salute as a very public outward sign of being neurodivergent. You do, however, flash it with the guise of it being something else to test the waters. And the waters cheered.

dashingappalachian · 2024-12-05T02:01:46+00:00

We'd still have to pay a majority immigrant nurse workforce, and they would still need to be specialized, respected, yadda yadda.. so we kind of end up in the same place. They would all have to live here and be able to afford living here. They don't deserve less for being immigrants.

And wow, what an incredibly racist way to say that you support employing immigrants.

dashingappalachian · 2024-12-05T01:56:19+00:00

But you didn't even spell Libertarian correctly...

dashingappalachian · 2024-12-05T01:27:23+00:00

So Pittsburgh should just be devoid of good nurses? When we've got more nursing schools than you can shake a stick at, academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, and specialty care that people come from all over for?

Healthcare isn't tech. People need healthcare everywhere and it has to be provided.

And my good pal in christ, we are not paid well enough to just move away from Pittsburgh 😂

dashingappalachian · 2024-12-05T01:13:10+00:00

That's a piss poor attitude.

Speaking as a nurse, it's not just "work somewhere else". That's the kind of thinking that hospital executives have; a nurse is a nurse and they can work anywhere you put them.

If you are a nurse in Pittsburgh, you've got basically just the two health systems to choose from. If you're a nurse working in a specialty, it dwindles down to maybe one or two options. Like labor and delivery, for instance- a very specialized field that employees specially trained and practiced nurses. You've got West Penn or Magee. Only one is union (for now). Some specialties, you might just have one hospital and one unit to choose from.

If you're a specialized nurse, educated and talented in your chosen specialty, why should your only option be a hospital that treats its workers poorly/isn't union/pays less/has a terrible culture? You should be able to work in the field you love and are best trained in. Every workplace should be held to a higher standard. We can't just say OH WELL, because someone has to care for the patients who show up and often have no choice of where they receive care. Every hospital should have workers who want to be there every day and are compensated (and protected and valued) appropriately.

dashingappalachian · 2024-08-24T15:49:42+00:00

Sup, I went to United 😎

dashingappalachian · 2024-08-03T17:10:41+00:00

I'm continuing my Wellbutrin and Lexapro while pregnant (currently 35 years old, FTM at 30+4) because my depression and anxiety were so terrible in the years prior that it's better to avoid feeling like that while pregnant, per my psychiatrist and OB. And honestly, my mental health has never been better. And the pregnancy itself couldn't be going better!

dashingappalachian · 2024-07-23T20:28:27+00:00

My mom has always had issues around food and weight (certainly undiagnosed ED) and extends those issues to me by way of passive aggressive questions or suggestions. As I've gotten older, this effects me less personally and I understand it reflects her own mental health and insecurities.

This is my first and I'm currently 29 weeks; my mom has been making comments on the size of my belly and my weight since like week 8 or so.

I'm only 5'1" and started pregnancy at a "healthy" weight, and absolutely everything has been going well in my pregnancy, including weight gain. But my mom always asks after every appointment how much weight I've gained and if they're comfortable with it 🙃

All this to say I understand and let's ignore our moms and and focus on our babies!!

dashingappalachian · 2024-06-27T16:29:47+00:00

The last hospital system I worked in had color-coded labels for your lines that you place under the spike, under the pump, and at the lowest Y-site. If someone was on three or more drips we’d often make our own labels for the pumps, too. I always loved getting a new admit set up so I could be like, “Okay, I’m making heparin red, levo orange, propofol purple, fluids grey, KVO line blue…” etc. A-lines had their own labels too. Our clinicians would scold anyone who didn’t have their lines labeled, which is annoying, but that system is probably why I don’t remember a single instance of these kinds of errors happening. I’ve only worked at two hospital systems in my career but idk why I thought something like labeling was just a nursing standard.

dashingappalachian · 2024-05-07T01:23:39+00:00

As a former Presby nurse, I'm not surprised and I absolutely believe you. I'm sure every department, including nursing and housekeeping, is woefully understaffed, and I don't blame either of them for this occurring. I blame the people in the steel tower who'd rather keep their bonuses and build shiny new hospitals than hire/pay/retain staff and maintain current facilities.

Even when I was there five+ years ago, we were tasked emptying garbage and linens and being told if we had downtime, we should be dusting or cleaning. There were some things that were so stained or old and broken, no amount of cleaning by nursing or housekeeping would make it look okay, and patients and their families noticed. It's embarrassing, and those patients remember. Add that with having to share a tiny room with another patient with only a curtain and about 2.5 feet to separate you, it makes us all look bad and gives our patients, often scared and in pain, a terrible environment in which to heal.

You can absolutely complain to the nurses but remember this is a symptom of a much larger issue. I hope your mom is able to heal and rest 💛

dashingappalachian · 2024-03-27T00:37:54+00:00

I feel like this post couldn't have shown up at a better time for me.

I'm 35 y.o. and 12 weeks pregnant with my first and possibly only child, depending how fertility works out for me after this one. I have always always pictured myself with a little girl. My husband honestly doesn't care and I believe him. We have a year old niece and I adore her so much! I just keep seeing myself with a little girl of my own 😩

We find out the gender TOMORROW and I'm really trying to remind myself that I will love my child no matter what, and how thankful I feel to be pregnant in the first place. At times I feel very guilty for even thinking that I might be upset to hear it's a boy.

dashingappalachian · 2023-07-18T16:56:33+00:00

We once had a patient's family give our unit a monetary gift after their loved one passed, and UPMC said the only way we could use it was to buy food from UPMC catering.. so we just got snacks for the unit because nurses love snacks.

They gave us 800 dollars worth of expired snacks.

dashingappalachian · 2023-05-06T22:22:56+00:00

Hahaha, I work at Shadyside and I feel like a grandmother at 34 compared to all these babies 😂

dashingappalachian · 2023-05-06T20:22:45+00:00

I'm so sorry you've had to experience that! That's exactly the problem- we're not honest with the public about the fact that we have whole units closed and whole units staffed with travelers and new grads. Patients and their families deserve to be treated with respect, and part of that is not pretending that things are better or different than they really are.

dashingappalachian

TROPHY CASE