Awakened Anesthetist

REPLAY: 5ish Holiday Hacks for the Busy Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant

• Season 4 • Episode 65

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Originally aired December 2022.
I hope this fun 5ish episode leaves you feeling nourished, encouraged and connected to yourself and our community this holiday/4th quarter season. You (still) deserve to feel good behind the drape.

Additional Resources:

  • Try out Lindywell at home Pilates for Free
  • Meal subscription services I have used before include Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Green Chef, Sunfresh, Home Chef

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Awakened Anesthetist podcast, the first podcast to highlight the CAA experience. I'm your host, mary Jean, and I've been a certified anesthesiologist assistant for close to two decades. Throughout my journey and struggles I've searched for guidance that includes my unique perspective as a CAA. At one of my lowest points, I decided to turn my passion for storytelling and my belief that the CAA profession is uniquely able to create a life by design into a podcast. If you are a practicing CAA, current AA student or someone who hopes to be one, I encourage you to stick around and experience the power of being in a community filled with voices who sound like yours, sharing experiences you never believed possible. I know you will find yourself here at the Awakened Anesthetist Podcast. Welcome in. Hello Awakened Anesthetist community.

Speaker 1:

Here in the United States we are preparing for Thanksgiving, which means different things to different people. Here in the Roberts household we've kind of gotten away from the more traditional Thanksgiving and now we just look at it as a time to get together with our extended family. My sister has a very large family that comes up from Ohio family. My sister has a very large family that comes up from Ohio, where I'm from, to Missouri, where I live now to celebrate Thanksgiving, so I'm prepping for that, and because I'm prepping for that and because I host Thanksgiving every year, I decided to air this replay episode, which was from December 2022. I'm not sure how many of you all were listening to Awaken Anestis podcast back in the early days. I believe I posted my first episode in 2021, but I definitely was recording things and sort of hoarding them, sort of scared to release them for a while. So I had a whole bunch of episodes right when I launched and since then this podcast has taken me oh so many places and it's just been such a source of joy. But it absolutely takes my time and energy and commitment, and so I am using this chance to play one of my older episodes, which still really rings true.

Speaker 1:

I actually just listened back to this right before I'm recording this introduction here and it was interesting how much had stayed the same and how there were a few things different. I give you five holiday hacks that have really guided me as I become an adult and have to do things like host Thanksgiving and clean my house and raise my children and sort of do all of these spinning plates at the same time, while, of course, working as a CAA and I want to recognize that a holiday does not mean you're necessarily at home entertaining your family, because it very well could mean that you are working at the hospital and you're the one person there overnight, and it can be extremely lonely and isolating, and I sort of touch on this in the episode as well. One of the hacks specifically has to do with the on-call person for each holiday here, as we're approaching a big holiday season, but I think that all of the hacks are still really relevant. I went and updated some of the links and, yeah, I just think it's an interesting episode. It was interesting for me to listen back to. You can hear sort of early days, mary. Even my voice sounded a little different. I think I maybe was possibly sick in this episode or something, but it was just really cool to listen back and I hope it's helpful for you all. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, a holiday season, however you celebrate, and I will be back next week with a brand new process episode. All right, happy holidays everyone. Hello, and happy holidays to all my Anestis colleagues. This is your host and fellow CAA, mary Jean. Welcome to the Awaken Anestis podcast and the latest episode of 5-ish Minutes of Mindfulness. From the title I hope you can tell this will be a fun, slightly different episode in this 5ish Minutes format.

Speaker 1:

The cold weather here in Missouri is approaching and with it comes all the various holiday seasons, a whole bucket of expectations for us and now in my life, the somewhat dreaded holiday school breaks where my kiddos will be home more. And, to be perfectly honest, the weather change alone can get me feeling pretty doom and gloom about it all, and I for sure struggle with seasonal affective disorder, and I was recently diagnosed with OCD and that tends to flare up around the colder, darker months. With that, my perfectionism seems to come up, my body image, you know, always seems to falter a little bit, and just a lot of the extra family commitments that I would love to do and want to do they take away from the other things that I want to do or the quiet time that I feel like I need with myself, and so there's just a lot pulling at me in these months. And so, after having gone through this for a number of years and been more and more in tune with what makes me feel not so good and what tends to help me feel better, I decided to try to put a little early and extra effort in this season like while the weather is still semi-nice to keep my mood up and more stable before things get too dark in every sense of the word. So I put together this list of five things that I have done in years past during this holiday season this fourth quarter, in terms of surgery and anesthesia.

Speaker 1:

If you're in a portion of the country that tends to get cooler or darker during this end of the year season, hopefully some things on this list will help you, and I want personally to implement these things in my life earlier than I had previously, and I want to be more intentional with them, and so I'm hoping that a few of them resonate with you, or all of them, and they help you feel a little bit brighter if you're struggling right now in work or life, like I tend to be, and so my first holiday hack is something that I would love our CAA community to take and run with in all our various locations that we give anesthesia. So what I want you to do this holiday season is to identify which colleague, which anesthetist colleague, is going to be on call, either day call or night call, however your institution does it. If you guys do a call day on the upcoming major holidays and ensure that that person receives some sort of special gift or a gift basket in the call room, unbeknownst to them when they walk in that morning or that evening. I think it's a really wonderful idea. Regardless if the colleague is a CAA or a CRNA or an anesthesiologist Perhaps no one's on call at your hospital except for the night team, the nurses you could give them a gift from the anesthesia department that you know appears on, let's say, christmas Day or New Year's Eve in their break room. I just think it is a really wonderful, simple thing to do to build the culture that we all hope to have, I think, at a hospital or the place that we work, and so I offer it up to you and hope that this idea catches on.

Speaker 1:

At one of the places that I used to work, someone did this for us and it was kind of like a secret thing. I never actually understood who was doing that, but it was just so nice. One Easter I received a basket when I was on call. You know, just being away from your family, and it's just so nice. One Easter I received a basket when I was on call. You know just being away from your family and it's just so nice to walk into the call room and know that someone was thinking about you. It was just a really unexpected joy and I really was appreciative of it, and I think I got one on a Christmas Eve when I was on call. It doesn't have to be anything huge, it's just something to let that person who's in the hospital, away from their family and their friends, over whatever holiday, day or night it is, you know. Let them know that their colleagues have thought about them and that because they're there, everyone else gets to be at home celebrating, and that is an appreciated thing, especially in the, you know, medical anesthesia world. So that's holiday hack number one. I hope everyone runs out and goes and does that.

Speaker 1:

The second holiday hack is something I have done for probably the past two or three years, but basically, when the weather gets cold and dark, I really start to go inward and I lose motivation and I just start to feel overall icky, and so I have realized that taking things off my plate during this season is crucial to conserve my energy for the things that I really want or need to be doing, and so cooking meals is something that I have realized that I can more easily outsource or can lighten my load, and so what I have done for the past two or three years is I have just cycled through all of the meal prep delivery services. I've cycled through their intro promotions, so if you're unfamiliar, let's just pick one like HelloFresh is one that I've done before. Basically, when you sign up you get 16 free meals or you get a certain amount of money off, let's say $200 off your first four or five boxes, and so usually the first box you receive, and usually you receive a box a week in most of these companies. They all run very similarly you receive a box a week, and so those first one or two boxes have a larger discount attached to them, and then they spread out the remainder of those free meals or those dollars off over the next four to six boxes. So you're kind of locked in to receive this promotion if you receive the whole thing for a number of weeks.

Speaker 1:

Now what I would do is I would sign up for HelloFresh, I would use the majority of their free weeks or their more heavily discounted weeks. I would then cancel the subscription when the discounts start to reduce. And I would start the same process again with Green Chef or Sun Basket or what are some other ones Blue Apron, I've done, home Chef I've done, and they all have a very similar process. And I know that maybe this seems like a lot of work, but truly, for whatever reason, this system has been created by these companies to be easy to start and also easy to cancel. Now you do have to remember to cancel the boxes. You kind of need to be reminding yourself of when you are going to cancel the HelloFresh subscription and start the other subscriptions, and so you can weigh in your own life if that seems like too much for you or you know it's not a big enough benefit.

Speaker 1:

But I do suggest at least trying out one of those subscription boxes, because even if you just try one and you use the promo period and then you stick with it for the next two or three months, I do think it does lighten your load. It lightens my load. It absolutely adds some variety to what you're eating. It lightens my load. It absolutely adds some variety to what you're eating. Most of them. You can order a few ready-made or pre-made meals that come frozen and then you can put them just directly into the oven. A lot of the companies are starting to offer at least one or two meals every week that way, and so it was just a really nice way to lower my burden. You know, when I came home from work, or when you were home at 4 pm, it was already dark. I could just not have to go to the grocery store. I could just take out the ingredients and start cooking it by this really nicely laid out recipe card and at the end have a really yummy meal.

Speaker 1:

So currently I don't have any codes to offer you. I would love to offer you some codes, but honestly, you should just do a little bit of due diligence and look online. It is so easy. Oftentimes, when you just go to the website, there is a coupon code that you can just. You know it's a pop-up that comes and you just put in that code and they're basically giving you free money, free boxes to kind of entice you in and then hope that you don't ever leave. So you can play it however you want, and I really was not overwhelmed by it. Everything's done online. You can cancel right away. It's not like there's some 30-day notice or anything. So I offer that up and hopefully it helps someone.

Speaker 1:

The third holiday hack is in relation to cleaning. So I don't know that this is maybe too general of a statement, but I would say a lot of CAAs are kind of type A, maybe perfectionists. That's definitely two words that I use to identify myself, for better and for worse, and one of the things that really stresses me out is the fact that I love hosting, I love having people over, but I tend to get stressed, and when I'm stressed I tend to start freaking out about cleanliness and getting the house clean and picking up everything. And so my friend gave me this advice that her grandmother had gave her and I, just like my life was forever changed, and it was that when you are hosting, it is best to conserve your energy by just doing spot cleaning around your house, maybe picking up the big piles. You know, don't worry about the kids' rooms, shut those doors. If you have extra rooms in your houses that no one's probably going to go into, just shut the door, don't worry about it. You can spot clean the kitchen.

Speaker 1:

She did say to do a deeper clean on the bathrooms, just to make sure that the guest bathroom is tidy for any guests who would use it. She's like but don't go crazy about the floors. Like, as soon as your first guests walk in the door, if they see a crumb or step on a crumb or there's like a paper towel on the floor, they're just going to think that it was other party guests or that it was just part of the party atmosphere. It wasn't like, because your house is always in the state of disrepair, and so it really gave me permission to not try to get the house perfect before guests arrive, but just well enough and then scrub the toilet and we're good. And then, after you're done hosting, when your guests leave a day or two later, you can do a deep clean of your house so that it's really nice and clean for you and you know, you can kind of have that clean slate feeling.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing that I would like to offer is that if you are someone who does have a cleaning service, come to your home. We do, we have someone come once every month and it is well worth the investment. The cleaning companies tend to offer holiday cleaning discounts. So I know our company is offering $30 off a holiday cleaning. Our company is offering $30 off a holiday cleaning. And so let me see here we pay $297, I believe, once a month to have our home cleaned, which to me is invaluable and well worth the price. And then if we were to have them come and clean a second time immediately after Thanksgiving or before Thanksgiving, which I don't recommend, but sometime around the holidays you would get a $30 coupon for that clean. Call your local companies, call your cleaning company and see if they can offer you any discounts.

Speaker 1:

Fourth tip has to do with hosting. I guess I host Thanksgiving. I should probably have said that and so a lot of these pain points are things that I have come up as I've hosted Thanksgiving, since we have moved here-ish, at least into this house we live in now, which was in 2012. Helps is just to be extremely clear about what you want people to bring. So what you want your guests to bring to your holiday gathering. I tend to, about two weeks before, email everyone or text everyone who's on my guest list and just be like this is exactly what I'm making. I could use a dessert, I could use someone to bring drinks, I could use, you know, whatever your list is, and then people can pick it, or if you have the type of relationship where you think your aunt and uncle and your cousin would rather just be assigned something.

Speaker 1:

I do think people tend to shy away from that very direct communication, especially around the holidays when there's big gatherings, but at least in my experience it has always been well-received. I have learned that I have an aunt who likes to make the sweet potato casserole and she likes to make a dessert, and so I tend to ask her to make the things that she's made previously that have gone over really well. I think it shows that I've appreciated what she's done before. I think it makes everyone feel good when like, oh, you have that delicious potato casserole that everyone likes, can you make that again? Or you have that awesome fruit salad that people love, can you make that? I think it shows some care and concern for the person and it also makes my life as the host easier and I think it makes the guest life easier. Now, that holiday hack may not be exactly what would fit into your life or your family dynamic or friends dynamic, but I think it just is an invitation to just be more clear in your communication around the holidays. It is a high stress period and I think that we all could do better if we just directly communicate our needs to other people and allow them to give the help that we need, and we need to be able to ask for the help that we desire.

Speaker 1:

Last holiday hack is the fact that oftentimes my body, like my physical body, tends to not want to move as much. Perhaps in the winter, I love doing a lot of different forms of exercise and I struggle to stay in the house and exercise. I love going to classes or cycling or Pilates and to be in that group community, and then when the weather gets cold, I tend to not want to leave the house. But because I then don't like working out as much at home, I tend to not move my body as much, and that just sends me in a tailspin, because moving my body is very much linked to my mental health as well as just my physical health, and so I have found this absolutely amazing platform called Lindy Well, it's an online platform that does very short Pilates exercises. With Pilates may just be envisioning yoga right now, and I would say it has a similar mind-body awareness like yoga does, but yoga tends to be perhaps a little bit more spiritual or it tends to be a little bit more potentially forceful, I guess. And Pilates is a much gentler movement as certainly in the beginning can start out very gentle and then you can progress. But it is all about a lot of core work and a lot of like building a strong body from the inside out. I've been using Lindy Well for the past three years and I cannot say enough good things about it. It is so approachable. The, I think, four or five teachers that they have on the platform. They all are likable. They are very clear in terms of explaining the movements to you.

Speaker 1:

If you're new to Pilates and I just love that there are a lot of short format exercise routines or Pilates routines you do not have to change out of the clothes you're wearing. I mean, I've done them sometimes in some stretchy jeans. I've done them in my bathrobe before. It doesn't require, you know, if you're a female, it doesn't necessarily require you to put on a sports bra Like it just is something that fits really well into my life in a very easy, tangible way. If I'm locked inside or if I don't want to do anything, I can just shoot on to this online platform and do something, move my body, and it always feels so good, and so I just wanted to offer that up to this community. If you are looking for something to do when you're stuck in the house or something just to kind of break you out of like an icky mood or icky feeling, I have gone to this Lindy Well Pilates platform time and time again and had that exact result. I'm always thankful that I do at least a 15-minute exercise routine with Lindy Well. So those are my five holiday hacks.

Speaker 1:

I would love to hear any holiday hacks that you guys have that makes you feel good or makes this fourth quarter season go smoother. Anything related to anesthesia or life. You should email me at awakenedanesthetist at gmailcom. If I get a bunch of them, I'll put them in the next Awakened Anesthetist community newsletter and if you have not signed up yet for that Awakened Anesthetist newsletter, you can do so via the link in the show notes. I sent out just one newsletter a month and hopefully will continue to build and to be a valuable resource for you all, and so I really appreciate your input, as always. If you like this episode and want to hear more like it, leave me a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. I really appreciate you guys putting the effort into giving me some feedback and hopefully we can continue this conversation over in the Awakened Anesthes community. I hope you guys all have a wonderful holiday season and a last good few weeks to the end of the year. I will see you next year. Talk soon.

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Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

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