It is now the last weekend in September and I honestly do not know where time went. At the same time, I spent my days in "hurry up and wait" mode. For example ........
I spent all of Labor Day Weekend on duty. I had the open days due to no class and husband gone for work, so why not carry a pager and get paid to do housework? My daughter and I did a deep scrubbing and reorganization of the kitchen. The service I work for only got one call from Thursday evening through Monday. In EMS, I'm known as a "White Cloud" since (as evidenced by Labor Day Weekend) I repel calls, "Black Clouds" would "rain calls." That means everyone stays safe while I'm on duty, which is NOT a bad thing. My house receives a lot more attention that way ...
Wednesday after Labor Day, the "fun" began ... 6 FULL HOURS OF LECTURES. YEAH! :: insert sarcastic sigh here :: Every Wednesday through December 12th, that's where I will be ... except for the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving.
Every Thursday, I spend 7.5 hours as a School Nurse shadow. My preceptor is great and it's at my daughter's school - BONUS. I specifically asked for this assignment since we've lived at our home for 6 years now and I hardly know anyone in my daughter's "community." We don't live in the town her school is in, it's 14 miles away, so we hardly get to after school community functions. My preceptor is an alumnus of my nursing school, unbeknownst to me ahead of time, so that's been funny also. We have a few scheduled meds to give, deal with the steady stream of aches and pains, plus do teacher education (i.e. epi-pens) and required student screenings for hearing and vision. There's a lot more, but those are the highlights. So, Thursday my daughter gets to sleep in, we get up and have fresh fruit smoothies with breakfast, ride to school (passing the bus in the process), jam out to oldies radio (BTO's Takin' Care of Business, most recently), and then she gets a ride home, too. I didn't tell her about this school rotation until it was confirmed to actually happen. Now, we're both enjoying it while it lasts.
The randomness of my clinical partnership is the hectic part of my schedule. For now, I've been spending my Monday nights working in an ER with a Nurse Preceptor. This is not the ER I work at, another one somewhat close to home. I've had 3 shifts so far and I have to say that it's all coming together. My first night was chaos (which I'm used to from working in an ER), my second night was less chaos but still not quite comfortable in my new "nursey-like" shoes, and the third was amazing. It was like it all clicked. I'm never going to know everything, AT ALL, but I felt my confidence growing. I knew the questions before my patients asked them, and I already had looked up the answers (if needed). My charting is still a work in progress. My preceptor checks all my charts and has me add things. "I saw you assess [that], but it's not charted." Knowing WHERE to chart within this new-to-me program is the issue. It will come with time, at least I'm doing what I need to be doing skill-wise. I still have 15 more shifts to get even more comfortable.
First Exam in Med Surg is a couple weeks into October. It will be a big one, but it will be one closer to the end!!
11 MORE WEEKS!!
Applying for and getting a job will be the next hurdle. I can start applying now, but I want to have a few grades back first ... and some exams graded prior to applying. Plus, budget years are up for approval, so the Directors I have talked to told me to call them in October to find out if they would have positions open.
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