This past week has been a bit overwhelming. Well, not so much overwhelming, I guess. Just starting to feel a little run down. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer in my current position at work. It’s too painful physically. I spend all my time off trying to recover from work. That’s no life. Yesterday when I got home from clinical I was the only one home so I didn’t need to make dinner for anyone but myself. I was starving after running around all day, but all I could do was lay on the couch. I could barely move. A few days ago I went and told my manager that the job was getting too hard for me physically. I asked her if I could be in the monitor room 2 days a week and the floor one day a week or if my monitor room night could be in between my two floor nights. She said she’d do her best. If she can’t accommodate I’ll have to find another job :( And I have to pay back part of my sign on bonus. If I can make it to February then I can start the nurse extern program which would mean I’d be a CNA one day, Monitor tech one day, then nurse extern the other day. That might be enough for me, but I don’t know how physically involved the nurse extern will be. And I don’t even know if I’ll make it through next week! The pain is getting to be too much.
Anyway, in other news. Miriam is becoming quite an accomplished artist. She made this picture of Dean Winchester.
I think there is a more final version than this, but she hasn’t sent it to me yet. She turned it in last week for her art class. She is very talented!! I posted it on Facebook and everyone loved it! Garren’s side of the family said she had Schadd genes (Garren’s grandparents were both artists). That may be true, but I don’t want to be left out! ;) I didn’t say this on FB because I wanted Miriam to have her moment, but I’m not half bad either! Here is a water color I did of the mesa temple.
Also, I have these books I’ve been making for the kids with drawings and sayings, etc. This is latest drawing I’ve been working on in Joshua’s book. His favorite movie is Ratatouille.
I need to do this more often. I find drawing very therapeutic. It calms my mind when I am overthinking.
So as far as work goes, I found a CNA job at the Stem Cell Transplant unit at the Cancer Center. I wrote about wanting to work in that area last week. Only problem is that it is a day shift position. I could make that work, it would be fine. But they are only open Mon-Fri. So I would have to work on all the days I don’t have lab or lecture. Then weekends would be for studying. Which would be fine, but they’d have to let me do 3 12s and they’d have to always be those specific days. So I am not sure that would work out. But I guess I could try. Also, I’m not a day shift person. I’m not making friends with anyone before 10am. Only enemies. Day shift people and night shift people are two different species.
Last week I had a “run in” with day shift CNA. The last two weeks at work I have been doing “bed side shift report.” It is best practice and safest practice. It is good for the CNA leaving to show accountability for what they’ve done, good for the on coming CNA to have a clear idea of what they’re getting into, and it is good for the patient to feel involved with their care and feel peace of mind that we understand what their problems are. After two rooms this CNA said, “I will be taking report outside the rooms now.” She made a big deal out of it in front of everyone at the nurse’s station. It was rude and embarrassing. I asked here to talk to me away from the nurse’s station so we could keep it between us. She said that only nurses do bed side shift report and all we’re doing is waking them up, etc. We’re supposed to wake them up and have them in their chairs for their meals! Our manager asked us to do this and told us to turn on all the lights and look at all the things! Anyway, I was really upset about this. Two of my favorite nurses on the unit, Stephen (Wilson) and Loni (Johnson), followed me into the break room because they could see I was upset. Stephen assured me I was doing the right thing. He reminded me that doing the right thing can be very lonely and unpopular. We got away from bed side report during covid and getting back into it is not going to be easy. People have gotten comfortable in their ways and don’t like change. So I am going to be lonely in my endeavors. Loni told me I was a great CNA and she supported me in bed side report. Before I even started giving report Stephen had come up to me and said he felt compelled to tell me that I was a great CNA and that I was always there right when he needed me and I went above and beyond. Later in the break room he said that he wasn’t a religious person, but a spiritual one, and he thinks he was inspired to tell me that right before this incident took place so I could be in a good head space to receive her criticism of bed side report. I think he was right. This is a great unit I work on and I am grateful to be a part of it. I don’t want to have to leave, but I might have to soon :(. So I say, ‘As for me and my house, we will do bed side shift report.’
Clinical yesterday was a good experience. I got to go to the OR. My patient had been in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago. They needed the wound cleaned and a wound vac put on. When they unwrapped the dressing I could see clear through their ankle!!!! It didn’t make me want to pass out or anything, but I did have some PTSD. The smell of the dressings when they took it off smelled like decomposing flesh. Unfortunately, I have smelled that smell once before. . . . I was in a funk the rest of the time and determined that the OR is probably not for me. I think I determined that already with my physical limitations, but yesterday confirmed it. It was still a cool experience to see the whole process from beginning to end. I followed this patient from the med/surg floor to pre-op to OR to pacu then back to floor. I got to see the entire experience from beginning to end! It was amazing!! My nurse, Faith, was also great. She let me do a lot of things, but also took over in a lot of areas I wasn’t comfortable with. I told her I wanted to watch her do the sub q injections because I was really clumsy and fumbling around with it. She said, okay. Then she prepared everything and was about to do it and she said, “You know, the only way you’re going to get over being clumsy is by doing this over and over and finding your own way. So get in here!” Then she handed me the syringe! It was great encouragement and I liked that she did it right before I had to do the injection. If there is time in between the time I have to do it and actually doing it I get all flustered.
Now on to this week. My birthday is on Thursday but I work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So I am going out to lunch with my parents and Neal (and I think Garren is coming too) today. Then On Saturday we’ll go bowling and out for dinner afterwards to celebrate.
TTFN.
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