A preview of my Etsy items!

Link to my Etsy shop!

Etsy to calm my nerves.

My Etsy shop!

So I'm trying something new. I opened an Etsy shop called IAmSeeingRed. I needed something fun to do besides sit on the couch and watch TV on my days off... and who knows, maybe I will earn a little extra income! Check it out!

A very horrible Christmas in the ER.

Omg. What in the literal fuck.

As you may have deduced from the title of this post, I got stuck working Christmas Day. As pissed as I was about this, I figured it wouldn't be too bad... it probably wouldn't be too busy and I might get some much needed free time to play on my phone and read my kindle. HAHAHAHAHA. Boy, was I sorely mistaken.

I have never been so busy at work in my life. Oh my god. It was absolutely fucking horrible. Apparently the holidays in the ER draw in a special breed of stupid. I wanted to smack so many patients that day, I swear. Why in god's name do people decide to come in to the ER on a holiday? And yes, I choose to use the  word decide. Because the vast majority of people DID NOT need to be there. They decided to come in because they are stupid as hell!! Oh... my knee has been hurting for several months now... so, Christmas Day might be a good day to come get it checked out. Oh...I have a runny nose... it sounds like a good idea to go to the ER. 

Are you fucking kidding me?!

When did emergency rooms become a first resort for people instead of a last resort? What is wrong with society? Emergency rooms are for EMERGENCIES!!!

Frustrated and fed up.

Burnout.

6 months ago it was my dream and ultimate goal to score a job in the Emergency Room at my hospital. Key word being was…

The process of transferring to the ED (Emergency Department) was easy enough. A lot easier than I thought it would be, considering my monster of a manger (see earlier post). I expected Ursula to make leaving the floor the worst and ugliest battle of my life. Instead, she made it unbelievably easy. Too easy.

The entire process of moving down to the ED took less than a week…application online, calls from Human Resources, interview with ED management, the whole shebang. I didn't even have a chance to tell my coworkers on the floor that I would be leaving them for a new job. I was offered a position in the ED, accepted immediately, and was not even given one last day on the floor to bid my goodbyes. Everybody assumes that transferring to another department is a process. My transfer was not a process. It was an opportunity for Ursula to get rid of me without having to fire me. She wanted me gone.

So there I was…bittersweet about leaving the floor, but so ready for a change of pace. I mean, working in the ER is the dream, right?! That’s what I had been telling myself from the day I started hating working on the floor under Ursula’s menacing glare.

I couldn't have been more excited. After all, I wanted to see some real life Grey’s Anatomy stuff go down! I wanted to do CPR, I wanted to see gun shot wounds, I wanted to save lives! I wanted something fast paced and challenging. I was tired of wiping butts and helping people to the bathroom. I was ready for a crazy awesome job that produced crazy awesome stories to tell.

So here I am…about 2 ½ months into my ER career…and I hate it. Despise it. Want to spit on it. This place is nothing like I thought it would be. I believe I am guilty of watching too many medical dramas on TV and falling in love with that lifestyle they portray…so glamorous, so important, so life changing. FALSE. It’s blasphemous I tell you! Z, if you are reading this, you were right. Damn, that did not taste good coming out of my mouth.

Yes, I wanted something fast paced, different every day, challenging, but I just feel so overwhelmed and so underwhelmed all at once. I am missing the comfort of knowing what my day will look like, missing the structure of doing certain tasks at certain times of the day. I am missing getting to know my patients, developing relationships with them, building trust. In the ER, your patients may be here only a couple of hours, they’re in and out. Sometimes I don’t even know what patients are in my rooms. The pace of the department is so crazy, I don’t have time to stop and really know who my patients are. I hate this. The reason I wanted to get into nursing in the first place has been kicked to the ground and trampled on. Who are my patients? I have no idea.

I feel like compassion is missing in the ER. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is nice enough, for the most part. My coworkers seem to enjoy their jobs, they seem to enjoy taking care of their patients. It’s just different. There aren't as many smiles, there aren't as many laughs. Maybe it’s a different kind of compassion…more of the intense, I must save your life right this instant and then you can go home so I can help the next person in line kind of compassion. On the floor, your patients might stay a couple of days, maybe weeks, maybe months, it tends to be more of a let me comfort you when you’re at your weakest, you can cry on my shoulder, tell me your life story, let me read the newspaper to you, let me sit by your side while you eat kind of compassion. Out of the two types of compassion I just described, I have figured out that I am more in love with the latter.

When I worked on the floor, even if it was the most exhausting, disgusting, must shower as soon as I get home kind of day, I never had any trouble feeling good about what I had accomplished during my shift. It could have been something as small as making a particularly difficult patient smile for half a second, or having a patient say they feel like a new person after their bath, or having a patient introduce you to their family member as if you are their best friend, or having a really meaningful talk with a coworker while sipping coffee...I could go on and on. Because all of these little things add up to one big thing...I love what I do.

In the ER, I find myself dreading work and having an extremely poor attitude towards my new job. I don't feel good about what I do anymore. During my shifts, I find myself thinking, "what am I doing here? I hate this." Yes, there are the occasional rewarding moments when I feel like I truly helped a very sick person. But more often than not, the people that come into the ER really have no business there. And instead of having compassion for them, I find myself getting angry with them. Not outwardly angry, I just bottle it up. And it doesn't feel good.

I know there are a million different fields of nursing I could go into, I just don't know what is right for me yet. I do know that this place will not be the ER.

Yours truly,

Frustrated and discouraged FutureRN

A monster of a manager.

Most of us workers have one thing in common...we all have a boss. Unless you are lucky enough to work for yourself, work at home (ultimate dream for me), or have a boss who really isn't like a boss at all...they are nice, fun-loving, and more like a friend than your higher up. That sounds nice.

In the nursing field, we most always will have someone above us who has the ability to crush us, fire us, undermine us, light us on fire, take away our license, etc. For PCAs and RNs, most of the time that unholy person is our "clinical manager." Also known as "bitch to watch out for." 

My particular experience with my very first clinical manager was less than satisfactory, to say the least. 

During my human resources orientation to the hospital, I remember thinking how strange it was that so many new hires were going to be on my floor. Roughly 75% of my orientation group were going to be working on the same floor as me...that should have been my first clue to get the fuck out of there. But, being the naive little girl that I am, I paid no attention to this at the time. I enthusiastically completed my orientation and finally made my way to the floor...or maybe I should call it the place where all dreams die. 

Let me introduce you to Ursula. Obviously this is not her real name, but seeing as Ursula also doubles as an evil octopus sea monster, I think the name is fitting. Obviously the first time I met Ursula was during my interview for the PCA position. I really didn't have any strong thoughts about her at the time, considering I was in interview mode and was determined to make her like me. I did notice that she walked with a limp. Probably a peg leg from a previous encounter with a disgruntled employee. It wouldn't surprise me. 

As I started to get more accustomed to my position on the floor, I began to notice little things. Like how controlling Ursula was. Control was very, very important to her. Scary important. On each floor of the hospital, we have a time clock where employees can clock in and out each day or evening. Ursula made it a rule that her employees could only clock in/out on her floor (and only her floor) no earlier than 6 minutes before our shifts started and no later than 6 minutes past the time our shifts were supposed to end. If we clocked in or out outside of these time frames, it would be an automatic verbal warning which was documented in our employee file. Along with the warning, we would receive half a point added to our time and attendance record. Points are a bad thing. 

It might be important for you to know that Ursula's rule did not apply to the whole hospital, just her floor. Other floors who had different managers were much more relaxed. Employees talk. It's pretty telling of who you're working for when float pool comes to cover one of your coworkers' shifts and they tell you that the grass really is greener on the other side. 

Ursula was also extremely weird, rude, and bitchy about her employees finding another job, transferring to another floor, etc. My coworkers would tell me stories about how a friend they used to work with handed in her two weeks notice and then Ursula fired her on the spot. Just flat out fired her! The poor girl had a pristine employee record, was a hard worker, had done nothing wrong. My coworkers had lots of stories similar to this. Ursula needs to be in control. What a psychotic bitch. 

My first tiff with Ursula happened about 6 months after I had been working for her. One of my patients that day was recovering from a knee replacement surgery, which was not typical for our floor. This patient and I were getting along great all day, we were joking, we were laughing, I could tell she trusted me. Until her daughters came in to visit around dinnertime. OMG these daughters were the bane of my existence. Suddenly, Mom needed a million things, I was doing everything wrong. They were furious about the way I got Mom up from her chair. They were furious about the way I walked with her across the room to the bathroom. And the worst part is, this sweet little lady also joined in on the bitch act! It's like her daughters peer pressured her into finding a million problems with me.

Before I knew it, one of the daughters turned into miss tattletale and I was being called into Ursula's office. Ursula instructed me to shut the door (never a good sign) and have a seat across from her. I was in the Principal's office.

Ursula began to tell me what one of the daughters had relayed to her, all exaggerated of course, and then started scolding me for not having a second staff member in the room when trying to ambulate this patient to the bathroom. I tried to explain to Ursula that this patient and I had been buddies all day long and had no trouble walking, going to the bathroom, etc. until the daughters arrived. I told Ursula I had been ambulating this woman all day by myself and we didn't encounter any problems whatsoever. She waived off my input all together. I feel like she didn't even register what I had said. It was very clear Ursula was not at all interested in my side of the story. She was only interested in scolding me. Again, Ursula has to be in control.

At the end of Ursula's rant she had the nerve to say, "Are you OK? I don't want you to be upset about this. You look like you're getting upset."

I assured her I was fine and then went to the bathroom and cried for 10 minutes. No big deal.

This may seem like a somewhat mild story to some of you, but it was the first time I had ever had an issue with a boss and it really made an impression on me. I felt so betrayed after being called into Ursula's office, I felt like my employer was not on my side and therefore did not value me as an employee or even as a person. From this moment on, my hate fire for Ursula began to grow. Consider this the very first of the Ursula bitch chronicles. 

Dreaming of that white picket fence...

October 1st. An especially exciting day for all Netflix lovers. For those of you who haven't heard, 7 seasons, 153 episodes of Gilmore Girls are now available on Netflix!! Awww yisss! After finishing seasons 1-4 of Downton Abbey (anxiously awaiting season 5 in January), I have been in a slight TV rut. I hate that feeling of finishing a series and not knowing what to do with your life/how to get out of your sweatpants. So this news of Gilmore Girls has cheered me up significantly! I used to watch it every day after school and I gladly welcome the show back into my life as the fall season creeps in on this foggy day.

Watching the first couple episodes of GG (Gilmore Girls, not Gossip Girl), I can't help but fall in love with the charm of Stars Hollow, the constant cups of coffee, and Lorelei's gorgeous house with the always roaring fireplace. I have a thing for fireplaces.

Z and I have been dating for four years now. Dating seems like too small of a word for our relationship. We are more than dating, but not engaged yet. Is there a word for that phase? Z is the love of my life. He is the best friend I have ever had, my secret keeper, my partner in crime, my love. I cannot adequately describe how much and how immensely I love him, I can just tell you that he saved me in more ways than one and that he is the part of me I cannot function without.

How does Gilmore Girls relate to my love story with Z? Well, Z and I have recently been talking about moving in together. We are over the apartment/living at home phase. After all, we adopted a dog together almost two years ago who loves being outside and needs a nice, safe, fenced in backyard where he can romp around all he wants. So yes, ideally, we would like to move into a house. This is a huge deal for both of us since we still live at home with our parents. I know, I know. Lame. At one point in time when I was still trying to figure out my life plan, I lived in an apartment on my own. This is when we adopted our puppy and Z would come to visit us each and every weekend (we lived very far apart at the time). So we've been through the apartment phase, we've been through the long distance relationship phase, we are freaking ready to move in and start our lives together.

I want more than anything to live in a small, charming town like Stars Hollow, to live in a house like Lorelei's, to wake up to Z every morning snuggled next to me. It's this crisp, colorful start of October that makes me long for evenings in front of a warm fireplace, sipping hot tea with honey, cuddling with Z and our loving puppy, falling asleep in his arms.

Ah, October.

My first day as a PCA.

First things first. Nursing is the type of field in which you must start at the bottom and work your way up. You've gotta make connections, network, find out where you fit best, and climb the ladder. Experience, experience, experience. That's what nursing is all about.

When I finally figured out I wanted to be a nurse, I applied for numerous STNA (State Tested Nursing Assistant) jobs in nursing homes, independent care giving positions, and finally PCA (Patient Care Assistant) jobs in nearby hospitals. I trotted all around the city for interviews, but was eventually lucky enough to be offered a position as a PCA in one of the area's top rated hospitals. I gladly accepted, attended all the necessary new hire training sessions and completed my orientation to the hospital. My employer paid for me to become STNA and CPR certified. I was all set. Ready to begin.

7am-7pm. My very first 12 hour shift. Dressed in my new hospital embroidered scrubs, I headed off to the first day of my future in health care. Excited and nervous and anxious and happy all at once, I pulled into the parking garage, got lost three times trying to find the main elevators, and finally ended up where I was supposed to be. My floor.

The educator on the floor paired me up with a preceptor. Let's call her B (As you might have guessed, I will not be using any real names in this blog). I would be paired with several different preceptors throughout the course of my orientation, but this being my first day, B made quite an impression on me. For those of you who don't know, a preceptor is a sort of mentor that helps new hires throughout their orientation to a new job, new unit, etc. In other words, a preceptor's job, being one of your peers, is to show you the ropes and help you to succeed in your position.

B and I started off the day with 14 patients. For those of you that are familiar with a PCA's typical workload, you know that most hospitals staffing requirements allow you to work with no more than 8-10 patients on a typical day. For lack of better words, having the responsibility to take care of 14 patients is fucking absurd. Pardon my French.

Let's go over what exactly a PCA in my hospital is responsible for. Just kidding, let's go over what a PCA on my floor is responsible for. You will soon learn that what is expected of PCAs in my hospital and what is expected of PCAs on my floor are basically two different job descriptions.

Back on point. We toilet patients. We literally wipe patients asses. We assist patients with bathing and daily care. We change bed linens. We measure intake and output. Yes, we measure poop. Do not even get me started on colostomies. Gag. We take vital signs every 4 fours (Heaven forbid if they do not fall within the 4 hour range. Screw you, Joint Commission....more on that later!). We draw blood. We run EKGs. We collect urine and poo specimens. We send the urine and poo specimens to the lab. We answer call lights. We ambulate patients from their beds to their chairs and back again. We feed patients. And then, we document, document, document. To sum up, a PCA is a nurse's bitch.

So let's get back to my fucking absurd workload on my very first day. I really should say that it was B's workload. Being my first day, I was technically supposed to be following and observing, not actually doing. Be seen and not heard sort of deal. Of course, me being me, I could not just stand by and watch my new coworker drown in this horribly awful not very good day. I helped. I learned. I struggled. I remember being absolutely amazed by how busy our day was. We literally did not sit down. Our work phone did not stop ringing. Call lights were the bane of our existence. And even B was saying how crazy it was! She kept telling me that this really is a good job and not to take today as an example of what it will be like.

I honestly wasn't sure if I should believe her or not. I was completely overwhelmed. My feet were aching. My ankles were swollen. I was sweaty. I was tired. I was thirsty. I was hungry. My legs were chafing from being sweaty and walking so much. I had never seen so many naked, saggy, grey people in my life. I smelled like poop. And not my own poop, either. Saggy, old people poop. What in the hell kind of shit show had I gotten myself into?! I sobbed the whole 40 minute drive back to my house. Like, ugly crying. Was I really cut out for this? Was I sure that nursing is the field I wanted to go into? Did I want to spend the rest of my life wiping ass?

The most important thing to take away from this post is that I went back the second day. And the third. And I have continued going back for more than a year now. IT GETS BETTER. I promise. Turns our there is more to nursing than wiping butts that aren't your own.

I really do love my job. I may be sarcastic and crude and have a weird sense of humor, that is just me. In my line of work, I feel it's necessary not to take everything so seriously. After all, laughter is the best medicine. 

The beginning.

Where to start, where to start?!

Perhaps the most personal question you can ask a nurse/patient care assistant/health care worker is why they do what they do. Why do we choose to work 12+ hour shifts, holidays, weekends, evenings, nights? Why do we choose to work with doctors who are often rude and degrading to us? Why do we choose to work with patients who think of us as servants while we are doing all that we can to help them? Why do we choose this profession each and every day?

I will begin with my story.

Many years ago I was a young, naive 18 year old with all the hopes and dreams of becoming an FBI agent and working in a missing persons unit. It's alright, I am expecting some laughter here. You might say I was a tiny bit obsessed with the TV show, Without A Trace! And so off I went to a way too expensive private university majoring in International Studies and minoring in Arabic. Yes, Arabic.

As you might imagine, that plan failed miserably. Suddenly, I was changing majors and changing life plans. I was now set on studying physical therapy. My thought process was as follows: I would be helping people while making buckets of money. Maybe I was on the right track but not for the right reasons...

Turns out I tried and tried and tried again to get into an undergraduate program of Exercise Science or anything along those lines. I was unsuccessful each time, even when I transferred to several different schools. I was miserable. I felt like a tremendous failure to myself and to my family who helped pay for those wasted years of college. At this point in time, I knew physical therapy wasn't going to be in my future.

Perhaps one of the most difficult periods in my life was trying to figure out what I was meant to do/where I was meant to be. I knew I wanted to do something medical, wanted to help people. Cliche? Maybe.

Several people in my life asked me if I had thought about nursing. I immediately dismissed the thought each time. I don't know why. Maybe I thought the pay would be too low. Maybe I thought I would be scared of blood. Maybe I thought I couldn't do it. I'm sure many other trivial thoughts crossed my mind...

And then one day this thought just popped into my head..."hey, what about nursing...?"

I turned to the internet, of course. I researched and researched until my eyes burned from looking at my computer screen too long. At the end of that very long day in front of my laptop, I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach. An excited feeling. A feeling that was saying, "hey, maybe you were meant to do this..."

I shared my new life goal with my family and friends, many of which responded with, "I was wondering when you would realize you are meant to do nursing!" Thanks guys, that would've been helpful about five years ago. But hey, I had to figure things out for myself right?

Okay, so now we know that nursing is the path I must embark on. It took me several years to figure it out, but hey, life is about the journey. And this is only the beginning.