While you were in the lab inhaling chemicals the culture of medicine changed and your work is not so relevant anymore.  I imagine that is the fear driving the banshee cries for credentials when solid queries from the layman arise about the nature of healing and the resources allocated for it.
Where the relationships happen, where decisions are made, where people get hurt or get healed, is in the prescribers office and the pharmacy counter and with family....not so much in the lab.
Knuckle dragging chest thumping scientists who refuse to use their minds instead to defend burning towers and crumbling institutions--so last century.

Following an intuition to go to my alma mater UCSF School of Pharmacy for career guidance I e-mailed four professors.
My body is broken to a degree preventing me from performing the tasks I have for 17 years as a pharmacist: repetitive lifting above the chest, opening bottles, cradling phones and writing, looking up and down all day.  I am looking for a new way to make a living.
I contacted professors with similar interests to mine: all keep a hand in academics and writing, diabetes, psychopharmacology and supplements and integrative medicine.
Two did not respond.
One very graciously explained that I am too old to do residency and academics and should consider government regulatory or sales jobs.
One is recently deceased in Las Vegas apparently having left the university attempting to open an internet pharmacy.
But there may be some volunteer mentoring opportunities.
And I would genuinely like to do that.

My housemate murdered another person this morning.

My housemate murdered another person this morning.
Brutally over the course of two hours.
I was powerless to stop it.
He apparently has a new victim nearly every morning.
And I am afraid to leave my room until the carnage is over.
It starts in his bathroom--which adjoins my bedroom wall-- with the opening and slamming of approximately 20 drawers and cabinets.  I can only imagine he is frantically selecting the perfect weapons.

Then I believe he transitions to waterboarding and various forms of electrical torture judging from the sounds of toilet flushings and vibrato buzzings and coughs and belches.

It really ramps up as the melee moves to the kitchen.
I can only imagine the terrible war crimes and atrocities committed involving knives, metal pots and pans thrown around like axes, and ... coffee grinding?  Vitamix blending?  I am sure it is much more sinister.

It comes to a close with several door slammings as I can only imagine the larger body parts that were not ground in the Vitamix and coffee grinder are dragged out for dispersion and disposal so as to be undiscoverable by satellite imaging or the latest K-9 search and rescue techniques.

I check that the coast is clear out my shower window and emerge with forensic intent to discover that the place doesn't look too bad.  An occasional dinner plate chip, sometimes an oven burner still on or microwave door open.   Nothing I can really call the cops or the FBI about.

I keep looking for clues.

Breath.

Something that has fueled me and put me at ease:
Still in bed I follow my breath: past my heart into my lungs
I really savor each breath.
Just a few breaths even.
Imagine watching the easy breath of a sleeping baby...then watch your own breath with that magic and wonder.  Follow it for a bit.

In a morning dream someone called it "Priming the pump" for the day.

If I can get to bed early and awaken before the alarm this is has a profound positive effect on my day. I can then set intentions for a good day.  Just like my gratitude practice at bedtime this helps me be more centered and rested and it can be done alone or with a partner-- it feels good to me.


Breath is amazing as it happens without intent.  I had a self defense instructor who emphasized that we were meant to survive and to prove his point he asked us to hold our breath until we died.  Even people with the will to refuse to breath to asphyxiation and pass out will awaken and breath. Breathing is integral but can be influenced by anxiety (unconscious) or by intent (conscious) and just its mere observation makes it more easeful.

Breath is bigger than the mind.  Breath fuels life from life (i.e. the  animal and plant respiration/photosynthesis cycle) so it connects us to the whole biome--to all of life.  Following the breath is a ticket and a key.

I just have to turn of all the screens and electronics long enough to do really enjoy it!

Musing: In the wild and free states like Montana and Alaska there is a common sense of both individuality and community and people feel the obligation to stop senseless violence.  There firearms are like cars or power tools: dangerous but part of making life work.  They are tools responsible people maintain and secure.
In the "TV states" like NY and CA people's association with firearms is that only criminals have them.  It is a dangerous assumption to perpetuate as criminals/predators need to know there may be consequences to criminal behavior.
I take inspiration from the Monarch Butterfly-- as do many species that mimic them.  Monarch's contain the toxins of the plants they ate as caterpillars and are unpalatable to many predators.  Google "Batesian mimicry."  Society benefits from the knowledge of the presence of ethical armed people.  Thats where the free states seemingly confounding statistic of crime decreasing with more guns/less gun laws originates.  Like the French Paradox in health where the French eat a high fat diet and drink alcohol and live longer than Americans who appear to do the same: the mechanisms are obscure on paper but more obvious in life.  The source of the food and moderation are likely key.
Maybe working in healthcare I've seen more of the equation of life-- e.g. for a time I gave shots (long acting antipsychotic IM injections)  to formerly psychotic pedophiles that allowed them to have normal lives in the community-- maybe near you.  I've helped the so called good and bad and seen them both behave completely out of character.  And felt the pater/maternal instinct to protect loved ones and employees with less than favorable odds.  I currently pay the rent by selling narcotics-- as a pharmacist-- in a higher crime area in a pharmacy with bullet holes in the windows.  Mostly in California we are blessed with abundance and live violence free lives.  I love it here.
But I know it has not always been the norm in human history and it didn't get this way without strong ethical people.  And it wasn't  John Wayne and the Lone Ranger and an amazing justice system.  It was a lot of good people.  And many of them were armed.

P.S. Cool link: https://kimsmithdesigns.wordpress.com/tag/monarch-butterfly-migration/

"Healthcare" or the War on Health.

I met a passive aggressive tech who put Rx labels on crooked but only on bottles containing Paxil for customers treated for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I searched all the Paxil patients on the shelf, reapplied the labels and wondered....who has OCD?



 ...wasting.



The acquisition cost of medication is rising faster than the reimbursement schedules...for months independent pharmacies lose money to fill regular customers scripts.  This seems to happen cyclicly routinely.
Is it even a profession if a person/business cannot set their own rates and prices?


...our.


New computer generated prescriptions... I am happy they are legible.... but still without quantities or strength noted or with conflicting directions.   No one goes to the bank with a check that is not signed or dated or has no amount written.  How can these clarification phone calls be necessary?


...lives.


Certified Techs with AA degrees introduce themselves looking for jobs.

"Run away!" I want to say.

"Be healthy and be free."

Ahhh.  My eyes are hungry for beauty again.

Looking out the kitchen window
the morning sun streaming through trees
a quiet house. A quiet  house!

A pulse of creativity
a surge of gratitude.
Life. is. good.



The senses had been so congested
after a thousand phone calls and complaints
and some days of only shallow hurried breaths.

Ahhhh. To breath deep.
To feel the space around me.
I'll just type one observation, play a tune,
do a little art?

Then I'll get back to the phone calls.
And the complaints.

For now I'll take in this visual feast of beauty.
And enjoy some deep full breaths.

Gratitude.