I'm Late, I'm Late!

But it's better late than never, right?

So I was a little exhausted Wednesday, and pretty much comatose yesterday. =/ Sorry! But the good news is I didn't harm or kill a mother or baby! Yay! Wednesday was slow but still crazy. Being a new nurse is hard, but being a new specialty nurse is ridiculous. There's so much to learn, and I'm not talking about the stuff you learn in school. The computer system at my hospital is ridiculous. You chart some things on one system, and other things on a different system. Neither one is easily navigated either.

Then there's the whole doctor situation. Who wants you to call for what situations, and who never wants you to call unless it's necessary. Who is nice, who is super strict, and who's a bitch... This carries over to the anesthesiologists, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, etc. I attempted to learn all the names for the surgical instruments, and although I got it after about an hour, it's still not second nature like it should be. You have your hemostats and Kelley's, whose only difference is about an inch in size, and you have your Allis and Kockers (pronounced Coke-ers, and of course I called them COCK-ers all day), and then you have Penningtons and Bronks. This is just some of the clamps, let alone all the scissors and tweezers you have. Sheesh.

Thursday I actually got to be the circulating nurse during c-sections. That's just gonna take practice, to anticipate what the doctor needs or where you need to be. I did get to play with the placenta though, and the doctor was amazing when it came to taking the time to teach me things. Crazy enough, my first ever c-section patient happened to be an old school friend of mine who had moved away in middle school. It was really cool to share that experience with her and it definitely cemented that OB is where I wanna be. A few more births thrown in, LOTS of IVs and Foley's, and even my first few vaginal exams thrown in pretty much sums up the last two days. Let my clarify that I was the one doing the vaginal exams, not having them done to me. ;) Basically, I've spent hours staring at vaginas as if they're the most fascinating things in the world. Really though, with the things that they do, they pretty much are. And the blood associated with births... I love it!

AND FINALLY, I got my very first paycheck yesterday! It was only at my base rate (no shift differential), only for about 26 hours (because of my orientation classes), and almost 100 dollars in taxes and 401(k) taken out, but still! It's pretty nice to have my first big girl paycheck. I literally have a list on my phone for things I want to buy!

Later guys!