Job Change

Interview last week went well, and yesterday they offered me the job! It would be starting on the regular telemetry (heart-monitoring) unit and then once the unit moves into the newly built expansion, which sounds like it’ll be amazing, it will join with the post-coronary care unit. I have the weekend to decide on if I want the job, but after talking more with John and with family, and praying about it, I think I’m going to go for it.

Main reasons are: the hours will be consistently night shift (I know, not the best, but at least it’s not switching back and forth), and also it will be on one unit instead of going to a new unit every day. As much as it’s been great to go to different units at United, I don’t think right now it is the best option for me. Everything is already so new and a little scary, so to constantly be changing what type of patients and the unit I’m on (all so different!) is a little overwhelming for being a new nurse. Definitely has made me grow a lot in my profession, which is good, but I’m looking forward to having one unit to really excel in.

Another reason, it will pay a little more, which will help with John going back to school full time. We have enough debt and loans to pay off already, so with this job we’ll probably not have to take on any more loans while John’s in school.

So, I have to let my manager know on Monday, which I’m dreading doing because she’s such a great manager. And then I’ll start working at Regions come the beginning of January!

Trip South

We had a good but busy Thanksgiving weekend. I worked Thanksgiving day, which wasn’t all that bad, and afterwards I got to see John’s mom and brother and learn how to make homemade pies! We made pumpkin and apple pies from scratch. Boy is it a lot of work, but definitely worth it! John’s mom is quite the pro at pie crusts, I must say.

On Friday we left for a 4 hour drive down to the middle of Iowa to see my sister and new brother-in-law, along with my parents, brother, and his two kids. I loved seeing where Jen and Jerod (sis and BIL) live and stay for a day and a half. A really cute town and beautiful campus that they both work at! It snowed yesterday afternoon and looked very Christmas like… and did I mention that the food was really good too? Good job Jen on hosting your first big family gathering! You did a marvelous job, despite all the stress in the kitchen hours before!

Now we’re back to the cold buzzling city of St. Paul and back to work. Switching back to nights tomorrow night and it looks like it’s going to be a tough week. I don’t mind the working at night part but it’s the trying to plan my days/evenings in a way that doesn’t cause me to neglect sleep part that is so frustrating. Since I technically have all day and evening free, I sometimes have to schedule things throughout the day which can really mess with your sleep schedule, or lack thereof. After this week it should get a little better, I hope.

Speaking of my job, as I said in my last post, I’ve been looking elsewhere incase I lose my job at United. Within 30 minutes of writing the last blog post, I got a call for an interview at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. Crazy huh? It’ll be on one of their ICU units, which would definitely be a challenging position, in addition to getting used to a new hospital and all new coworkers. One of my coworkers at United actually told me that she was working with a nursing student who works at Regions on that unit and she said it was a great place to work and that the manager is super nice and will hire me right away… which I found funny since this girl doesn’t even know me!

The interview is on Tuesday at 11am… so please say a prayer for me if you can! I’m not sure if this is where God would want me to be, but I know that we do need a steady income and this is all that’s come my way so far. The tricky part would be if I get a job offer and still don’t know about the status of my current job… but we’ll “cross that bridge when we get there” (in the words of my mom).  God never said things would be predicatable and easy, but that he would guide my path in a way that grows me and challenges me to depend more on him and find my ultimate joy and satisfaction in HIM ALONE. And since he is the only stable thing in the universe, I suppose it’s good that he’s forcing me to depend on him! :)

Scared but Trusting

Yesterday, I got a voice message from my manager saying that I’ll be getting something in the mail regarding layoffs and voluntary hour cutbacks. Oh dear.

She basically said that I still do have my job, but as of next week there will be another round of rebidding for nursing jobs, meaning that the higher seniority nurses who are laid off will be able to take a whole or part of a lower seniority nurse’s job. Since I’m 0.8 (almost full time), my shift is day/night (not desirable), and I’m in the float pool (requires extra training and more flexibility), I’m hoping that those more experienced nurses will not want my job or will perhaps only take part of my FTE (full-time equivalent, which is 0.8).

I won’t find out until next Tuesday though. Please be praying for me. If I lose my job, it will be really difficult to find another nursing job right now because pretty much every hospital around here is on hiring freezes due to the bad economy and needing to save money.  I’ve been applying to any positions I can find, but most of them require 1yr experience or more specialized training/experience (like ICU or ER experience).

This could really affect John being able to go back to school in the Spring, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. John did get a temporary job that will start on November 30th, so at least we’ll have something!  This is only a month long job though.

I am a little scared of what would happen if I lose my job, but I have to remember that last year we were living off of John’s job working as a lifegaurd and swimming instructor. We were just fine and God provided for us. And if we have to put off John’s schooling, it won’t hurt anyone, it will just thwart OUR plans a little more.

God has His plans and we should trust in His sovereignty and that whatever comes our way was by His loving hands. And it’s for our good, whether we realize it or not. Isn’t that amazing?

Changes, Possibly

The past week or so has been quite the week. The hospital I work at has had a really low patient census, which means they need less nurses, which means I don’t get to work much since I’m new and have virtually no seniority. Bummer. Especially since this week (with all the time off I had!), my husband and I discovered how much we LOVE the town of Hudson, WI and would really hope and love to move there eventually. We recently found out that John got accepted into UW-Stout to finish his BA in Special Ed, and since that’s a good hour drive east of here, we hope to move a little closer while still being close enough to where I work in St. Paul. Phew! That was quite the run-on. :)  

So, it’s been a bunch of mixed feelings and thoughts as we get excited about John going back to school in the spring and about us maybe moving to Hudson (and to a townhouse hopefully!) while hearing news of possible lay-offs at my work and also waiting to find out which job John will get. Sorry, I left that bit out. John’s been the job hunting king lately. I think up to 10 applications have been submitted thus far. He’s after them!  Kinda feels like we’re in limbo right now. All these possible changes coming at us, but we are trusting our Lord that he has it planned out before we even have a clue what’s happening or going to happen. Cool huh? 

I heard today though, since I finally got to work (it had been almost a week!! three of those were normal days off, but two were either Requested Absences or a Mandatory Cancel… love the name huh?) that they will, in fact, be laying off some nurses from my hospital. I guess the units affected though do not include me, that I know of. What’s interesting though is that I’m currently in my 9month-year long orientation to all the units that I’ll eventually float to, but since they closed the unit I’m on right now due to low census, I’m actually back to the unit I’ve already been on for 2 months. Fun to be back, but kinda pointless. But what do you do when the unit I’m meant to be getting used to is closed? And they can’t float me elsewhere until I’ve been oriented to those units… Hmmm, we’ll see where they stick me next week! 

Can I just say how excited I am that after next week all the political craziness will be DONE? For now at least. SO excited. 

Oh and I’m also really excited that we FINALLY GOT OUR WEDDING ALBUM!! It’s beautiful!

Holy meds, flatus, and bowel sounds!

Time is flying by this week since I last posted. Monday John and I went to my parents’ place for a little Labor Day fun at their neighborhood lake-front. We went kayaking (although we actually peddled our legs instead of used paddles, so not sure what it’s really called), swimming, croqueting, and John went tubing behind my parents’ new/old motor boat. It was a great day, and I even got to watch a couple episodes of Jon and Kate Plus 8. I love that show, mostly because it makes me really excited to have kids someday. You’d think that watching a family with 8 kids would be reason NOT to want kids so badly, and I realize it’s a LOT of work, but it’s something that I’m really looking forward to.

Anywho, the reason for the title of this post is because the past two days at work (I obviously had Monday off, thank God for that!), I’ve had four patients to care for during my shift. This is a huge deal to me, partly since I’ve never done it, but also because that’s what all the experienced nurses do. It’s definitely a jump from three patients, it feels like every time you add another person to care for, the amount of work is exponential. Especially on day shift because most people have a lot of 0800 meds to be given to them. Those little old ladies that come in from the nursing homes, wow do they have the load of medications. The one nice thing about post-surgical is that a lot of patients are NPO (nothing by mouth in Latin) after surgery (like bowel surgeries) which means they can’t have any medications by mouth either. So basically all they get for the first day or so is pain meds and sometimes they’re just PCAs (patient controlled analgesia) so then I don’t even have to give meds to them, other than possibly some IV antibiotics. Oh and the flatus and bowel sounds reference is because after surgery, a lot of what happens with a patient depends on their return of bowel sounds and well, their flatus function (aka, gas…). Never would I have guessed that I’d be asking “Are you passing any gas yet?” so many times in a given week. 

I’m just rambling now. So as you can tell, my mind has just been spinning today and yesterday with having four patients. So many different things to do and balance and manage. I wish I could just take care of one patient a day because there would probably be enough to keep you busy with just one. I’m slowly learning how to use my little “brain sheet” where I jot notes to myself as I go and cross of meds/procedures as I do them. It didn’t help that my favorite pen exploded today… but that’s besides the point. 

I love that I’m finally starting to feel like a real nurse and am much more independent. There’s still the occasional “Hey, can you give that one pain med while I take out this one tube?” that I have to say to my preceptor, but I know that with time I’ll be much more efficient and confident. It’s a lot of fun too! 

(Embarrassing moment of the day: Since I was so busy, I was really having problems listening to my bladder telling me to STOP and proceed directly to the restroom. It got so bad and I got so stupid that I was giving my patient his insulin and blurted out “I have to go to the bathroom so badly!” before I even realized what I was saying. Never hurt to have a (very) humbling experience every now and then, right?)

Next post will be about something other than work… promise!

Just a Glimpse

new grad orientation, originally uploaded by carriehansen.

I’m trying to figure out how to blog multiple photos at once from my flickr photo account, but am still working on it. For now, here’s a picture of me (on the left) with two of the girls with whom I oriented (Emily and Jo in the middle) for our first two weeks as nurses, and our preceptor, Joyce, on the right. I hardly see any of them anymore now, sadly.

State fair pictures to come soon hopefully!

New Grad Orientation

Today marked the beginning of week five out of eight weeks of my new graduate orientation as a RN at the hospital. It’s been a whirlwind of experiences, emotions, mistakes, triumphs, etc. I was actually started on a surgical care center instead of a medicine unit. They tend to start new grads on medicine, but since I’ll be a float nurse eventually, I guess they figured they could start me on surgical too since I would be going there sooner or later. This didn’t upset me one bit since during my last semester of school I was on an orthopedic unit twice a week and most of those patients were post-surgical. Holy total knees and total hips! But not anymore actually.

Now I take care of all those people who have hysterectomies, bowel resections, hernia repairs, prostate resections, cystectomy’s (bladder removal), cholecystectomy’s (gall bladder removal), appendectomy’s, and then the occasional medicine patient (kidney infection, UTIs, DVTs (deep vein thrombosis))… etc. Anyway, I enjoy using all those bigs words because I’m finally getting accustomed to them and it’s fun! But I have learned SO much over the past month that my mind feels like it’s always two weeks behind where my body is.  Strange feeling that apparently doesn’t really ever go away as a nurse. We’ll see about that. I also got to observe/help-out in the OR and the ER for a day each last week. The OR was boring… lots of standing around (and counting gauze sponges and utensils as they get thrown on the floor), and the ER was not as exciting as I thought it would be (lots of people coming in pretending to be in pain so they could get their narcotics… sorry, not here!). 

The frustrating part about orientation has been how I’ve had four different preceptors so far. And tomorrow I get another! The preceptor is kinda like my guardian nurse who is there to help and answer questions. Sounds great, and it is very very necessary and helpful (I ask a question about every 6 minutes probably), but it’s difficult when each nurse has a very different style and way of nursing. This can be awesome when you can pick up little tips on various things, but it is so draining to try and figure out how to work with four different experienced nurses. Like today I was with a nurse I’d never been with before. She seriously watched me do about 75% of all I did. Even if it was just hanging a new IV bag of fluid. Something I feel very comfortable doing suddenly became very difficult because I knew I was being watched over my shoulder. I tried telling her that it was more difficult to do simple things with her watching me, but she looked at me with that “So if I’m not watching you, can you actually do this safely?” kinda look. Ugh. Oh well, it’s a stage of my career that I just have to get through. In 2-3 wks I believe they’ll be setting me free to work on my own on this unit, and then I think after 8 wks of that I’ll head off to a medicine unit. Then after a couple months there, another unit (maybe oncology or ortho or neuro). 

And I am SO excited to get to start my 0.8 FTE schedule! They have me working 40hrs/wk, Monday through Friday on day shift right now and it’s been a little overwhelming, especially just starting out. I think in 2 wks I will only work 32 hrs/wk, every other weekend. I also start working night shifts 40% of the time. The other 60% will be days. Should be interesting… but I am excited! 

Random… My conclusions from today: 1)  50% of a nurse’s job is simply keeping all the tubes, lines, catheters, and drains all situated and connected. 2) I love that I get to wear comfy scrubs and tennis shoes every day!

Not a Shadow Anymore

As of Wednesday, I’ll be starting my preceptorship on a medicine unit at the hospital I’m now working at. It will be probably the scariest feeling (exaggerating, yes) when I must go into a patient’s room and tell them, “Good morning, I’m Carrie, and I’ll be your nurse for the day!” Rather than: “Hi, I’m a student nurse with your nurse Anne, but I’ll be doing most of the care for you today.” Eeek, even though I’ll still have resources available, I’m both excited yet REALLY nervous for that first patient who has just ME as their nurse!  Hopefully they aren’t as equally scared of my Tweety-Bird matching scrubs! Ha, that’s not going to happen. Sorry but I can’t help but vent about the frustration of finding simple AND cute nursing scrubs that don’t have Sponge Bob’s, ruffles, or weirdly placed arm pockets on them… seriously! So far I’ve only invested in plain colored scrubs, but I’d really like to find some cute yet not over powerful prints to add to the collection. Any suggestions? (Jodi, you better help me on this one!)

Oh, and if any of you are wondering, the first week of work

It’s a Miracle!

I passed my NCLEX-RN!!!! :D  This is the nursing boards exam that allows me to actually practice as a registered nurse! I took it yesterday morning and was 100% sure that I had failed. Yesterday was rough because I had to wait until this morning to find out if I passed or not. I’m sooooo excited!!! It’s a miracle from the LORD that I passed, because I felt like I guessed on half the questions. It was very difficult!! But apparently they think I’m competent enough to be a nurse now, and I’m happy with that! :)  God sure did answer a lot of prayers by having me pass!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a month. I’ve been studying and doing random other things since then, like going to the MN Zoo with my mom and my brother’s kids, going to my sister’s bridal shower, going to my cousin’s wedding reception… well, not that much really, but the past two weeks have pretty much been strictly studying. Now that I’m “free” from the burden of studying, I can do things like write in my blog again! Yippee! Oh and laundry, I get to do that again! ;) My husband will like that. He goes through clothes faster than I can clean them. Since we moved here, what, three months ago? I haven’t been able to catch up with laundry.

So, next week is my older sister’s (my only sister) wedding!!! It’s out in Massachusetts where her and her fiance met and live. They’ll be moving to Iowa after they get married because her husband will start working at Grinnell College, cool huh? Which means, they’ll be MUCH closer to us and the rest of the family! I’m psyched about that! :)  I’m glad that I passed my boards too so that next week I don’t feel down about it, but can just let go and enjoy the week. We’ll be staying in Boston for a day just to tour around, since we have never been there, and then on Wednesday we’ll head over to mid-MA where the festivities will take place and have a couple days before the wedding on Friday. One minor detail… I haven’t been fitting into my bridesmaid dress all that well lately, so I’ve put myself on a bit of a temporary restriction from all things sweet/carb-y…. cakes, cookies, crackers, pretzels, etc. And, I’m going to work out like nutso these next few days before we leave. Hopefully it will be enough to squeeze me into the dress!! It’s very pretty!

Off to eat the turkey chili that I just cooked up…. at 8:30am. :) We had no milk and I hardly ate anything yesterday, so I figured a nice healthy hearty meal/breakfast was in order. I like cooking a lot too, so it’s  kinda a way to celebrate.  :)

My nursing job starts on the 21st! Can’t wait!!

Officially official

Well, here’s my last update on the nursing job hunt (a quick one at that). And sorry for my lack of actual deep posts lately, or interesting ones. Being a month from graduating college is understandably taking away all my time/energy for now, and that will probably be the case until graduation comes. But come to think of it, most of my huge assignments/tasks were this week, so perhaps I’ll have more time to post now. Who knows, every time I think that things will lighten up, they don’t…

So the update! I officially got the job today at the hospital I wanted to work at! They had many choices of units and shifts that I could pick, but most of them weren’t exactly what I wanted. Ideally I wanted an orthopedic floor with day/evening shifts, but that was taken by someone already working at the hospital (yay unions…). So, I actually ended up going for the float pool! I’ll have an awesome nurse manager, since she was the one who interviewed me, so at least I know I have a good supervisor already. Also, I’ll go through a 9 month orientation to the many different units in the hospital. Otherwise I’d probably freak out being a new graduate AND a float nurse. If you don’t know what a float nurse is, it pretty much means that I’ll work wherever they are short nurses. Could be just about anywhere, except possibly the ICU and ER, I think. I should have asked that… oh well, I’ll find out! :) The shift will be days/nights… so I’ll work a few days and a few nights, but never back to back. That would be torture! The one added benefit to this position is you get paid a little more to be a float pool nurse and you also get a little more for working nights. That’ll help with the student loans/debt…

So I’m really excited about it! I think it will be a tough job but also very challenging and rewarding. It’ll help me discover what area I want to go into, if I choose not to stay a float nurse. Also, it’ll be fun to be able to meet lots of other nurses in the hospital and sorta feel out the whole place. And if John and I decide to go to China in the near future, it will be good to have a broad background of experiences and also for when we come back it will be easier to get started again! Can’t wait for it all to start on July 21, 2008! Time to start another countdown…