I was born and raised in a very conservative area of Florida by overbearing parents. My childhood is not very relatable to most people that I meet. We did not have sleepovers with friends or have a curfew to go out for entertainment with people. My bedtime until I was probably a sophomore in high school was 8pm. We were not allowed to watch “bad shows,” so things like the Simpsons were out of the question.
This all resulted in me being a very naive young adult and having to learn a lot of the social skills most get in school after separating from my family.
I am a cis man. As far as orientation, I am never really sure what the answer truly is. I am monogamously married to a man, so the easy answer is that I am gay. But, the reality is that I don’t have much preference physically. I am much more interested in the personality and the mind of the person that I enter relationships with, so probably more pan. I have dated all types of people. Always the mind that brings me in.
For most of my young adulthood my hobbies were work and going out drinking. In my early twenties I always had more than one job.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I settled enough to delve into what I was interested in. These days my interests include learning most anything, sciences with and emphasis on physics and astronomy, arts and crafts of all types, creating things, gardening and reading.
My reading interests mirror my general interests, but I also really enjoy fantasy, sci-fi and dystopian genres.
I am generally a helper personality type. I like to fix problems and help people through tough things. I even made it my career.
My senior year of high school I dropped out, signed up for home school and began working on my nursing school prerequisites. While initially working towards licensure as a practical nurse, I worked at a local hospital as a tech/orderly.
After getting my initial certification, I worked in the nursing home setting as a floor nurse for a couple years. During this time I also went back to school to work towards licensure as a registered nurse.
Once I obtain my registered nursing license, I began working back at that same local hospital. I started on the surgical floor. We mostly handled problems like bowel obstructions, pancreatitis, cholecystectomies and the facility was specialized in bariatric procedures.
About a year after working the hospital setting I began working the PRN float pool. That allowed me to work all of the other general floors, the emergency department, PCU and SINU.
Towards the end of my employment with the hospital I was pulled to work a newer observational unit. This was primarily meant to be overnight observation for patients that had same day surgeries or the emergency department was not totally comfortable discharging someone home. We ended up receiving a few patients with traumatic brain injures, or TBIs, that were high support. We were unable to locate placement for them outside the hospital. So, hospital management decided to convert the unit to a TBI/LTACH unit.
This ultimately did not work out. The patients in this category were unable to make payment for their stays due to long term unemployment brought about by their injuries.
Management then decided to change the unit to a kidney disease floor. It remained in this capacity the rest of the time that I was there. I eventually became a charge nurse on this unit. This required response to all rapid response calls, scheduling and assignments along with record review for JCO compliance.
About a year after becoming a charge nurse, I applied and accepted a job with a state survey agency. These are the people that conduct inspections at healthcare facilities to ensure safe patient care.
Up to that point in my nursing career I saw a number of things that concerned me with the practice of those around me from all disciplines and management. So, I thought that becoming a regulator was the best path to provide good care to people and hold others in my field to account.
I have been a regulator for about a decade now. I started out as a long term care – nursing home – inspector. I later went on to dialysis centers, hospitals, assisted living, rural health clinics, psych hospitals and organ procurement organizations.
I currently oversee a team of inspectors, office administrative staff and supervisors for a long term care division.
I live in a small Midwest town with my husband – Gendr – four cats and a dog. We moved here in an RV with our dog and three cats. I have had the dog the longest, she predates meeting Gendr. Her name is Khaleesi. I know, cringe. She is a chihuahua/minipin. I found her while out at a nursing home. She was an emaciated body holding up adorable satellite dish ears. She is about 10 years old now.
The cats start with Snuggle Puff 2000. Gendr wanted a cat and we were just beginning gardening and the squirrels were bullying us and destroying everything. So we thought a cat might scare them away from the beds at least. The vet said that we couldn’t get her fixed until she was a certain age and she got pregnant before that time arrived. So we ended up keeping Admiral Squiggles and Mister Pickles from the litter.
After our move to the Midwest, we noticed a litter of kittens and a mother cat living on our neighbors car port. The neighbor later accidentally ran over the mother cat leaving for work. We helped find homes for the litter, but kept the little runt orange kitten. His name is Orangums.
About four years ago I was diagnosed with suspected ADHD, inattentive type. It was not a straight line to diagnosis. I have had struggles with depression, anxiety and panic disorder since I was a small child. I am not one for medicating problems away so I just kept at it, trying to figure ways around my problems.
Like most people, the pandemic was a turning point. I ended up burnt out at work trying to keep up with the complaints, changing guidance and dealing with the situations that I uncovered through work.
I finally got a therapist and psychiatrist. They initially thought it was just anxiety and depression. We started talk therapy and some meds. The meds were not very helpful. Later my psychiatrist changed my diagnosis to bipolar type II. She said that since I had a large professional capacity with periods of depression and anxiety, she felt it fit.
We started meds for that and things got much worse. I, apparently, react rather poorly to antidepressants and it resulted in increased panic attacks and agitation. At one point, she was pretty sure it resulted in a manic-like episode.
I then stopped meds and worked more closely with my therapist to poke at things. Through conversations with her we decided that a neurodivergent diagnosis was the better fit. We were in the process of picking ADHD and autism apart to see what was the better match. But, then we ended up moving.