let freedom ring

Well you just never know what a day is gonna' bring.  I was fairly well rested and showed up on time.  We worked and talked and worked some more.  Our cafeteria is closed most of the time on holiday long weekends so we shared food from home.  A normal holiday eve in paradise.  Martha brought me some sand from Key West to go with the Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Hilton Head samples.  All are proudly displayed on the bench.

I began to work as an MT in 1977 following my graduation from UTCHS in the Allied Health program.  At that time the program was three years of pre-reqs and one hell year at UT with rotations at various Memphis hospitals to learn phlebotomy abd the basics like processing blood in the basement of John Gaston.  With Eva Quinley and Camille Pridgen :)  Brenta Davis was our fearless leader.  She became politically involved in trying to gain recognition and respect for the lab.  The world was wide open to us clinical laboratory scientists!

Pathologists are the ones who oversee clinical laboratory operations and histo and cyto and such.  We once had two people in that department and our core lab absorbed the loss of those FTEs by attrition.  The decision was made to outsource the tissue path to a lab in Memphis which is where our processing man hours come in.  

Anyway, my bossfriend decided to hang up the lab coat so it was kind of umm...a different day.  We got it done but it was  sorta like walking around at a wake in a daze.  The entire team came together via technology to hear the news.  There were stunned looks and more than a few tears.  We carried on as usual just as the team does when their leader makes a good decision.  Whatever comes next is not our problem.  

Other than that it's all unicorns and rainbows.  Mamye dropped off some roman candles and sparklers so I could have  a happy Independence Day eve.  My dinner last night was squash baked with olive oil, garlic pepper and balsamic vinegar.  O.M.G.  The more that my focus turns toward being creative rather than a worker bee, the better my soul feels.  I just accept it as karma for always trying to do the the next right thing.