Weather Crazy Slow Day

Today has been a really slow day for me mentally, and just in general. There really hasn't been that many patients today and the ones that we did have, my mental capacity wasn't up to par with the clinical questions that I was being asked for educational purposes. I'm sure there will be many of those days where I'm thinking, "Well, I knew that yesterday, but today, I can't put my finger on what the heck will answer that question". That's pretty much how I felt today about hemodynamic stuff. I'm sure I'll just come around. After all, I'll be having to take tests here on this stuff in about 4 months.

In other "news", weather here is far from consistent in the summer. It can be sunny and 104 in the morning/afternoon, and towards the evening, it can start raining, thundering, and lighning. I just don't get it. The rain feels like warm shower rain. Sometimes it'll be really scattered warm, other times, it'll just feel like a boulder is hitting you. But on the brighter side, atleast I'm not nearly as cold. I've always preferred the warmer weather:-). I guess I'll get used to it one of these times. The little things I miss from the west coast are soda fountains in grocery stores, and Carl's Jr. Here, it's all bottled drinks and Hardees. But I can overlook that because of the restaurant/food variety that is in this location. Just a couple of nit picky things I noticed that I chose to gripe about to all of you. Other than that, I'm just trying to look for things to do in my last 30 minutes of work. I think I'll leave on time today because it's been so slow today. Maybe take that time to relax some before I head to bed:-). Tomorrow is another early day!

Sleep Schedule Work!

So I have been in North Carolina for a total of 1 month so far. I have learned from being over here that there is more to life than pizza and retail, and that bus rides are an exceptional way of saving money in this big city. Three cities in one to be exact.

Other forms of adaptation include working in the morning and not in the evening, and going to bed around 9 p.m. so that I can wake up bright and early at 5 a.m. to catch the bus at 7 a.m. I am happy to say that I have succesfully mastered the time difference from west coast to east coast along with my eight hour sleep schedule every night. I can't say I'm much of a friday night partier because of it, but my schedule has served me well none the less. Weekends are now finally a time for me to relax and be care free. I have been so used to working on the weekends that I forgot how nice it is to have the weekends all to myself, to do as I wish with that time. I also am in a mostly liberal community which is a nice change. There is a lot to do here on the weekends such as go to dinner and jazz, dancing lessons, listening to "poetry in motion", go to 1 of the 3 different farmers markets around this area, and of course, listening to various orchestras around town. All require money, but it's money well spent. This weekend, Ki Sun and I went to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". I thought it was a really well done movie. I would love to hear other opinions.

But I digress, because of my new sleep schedule, I find it hard to sleep in on the weekends like I so often did when I first got here. Today, I got up at 6:30 a.m. wondering why I don' t take the opportunity to get more sleep. Then I think and realize that I went to bed around 9 p.m. and my body didn't need the extra time to rejuvinate. One thing I miss is my afternoon "hour" naps. At work I find myself getting really sleepy even though I had plenty of sleep. Habits break hard, I guess.

On another note, I am still very happy working at the hospital. It is challenging and mentally stimulating for all you who are wondering how that venture of my life goes. We get patients sometimes that are so confusing, three techs are in there trying to figure out the vasculature. This is why I think it would be very hard to get completely "bored" with the job, because everyone is different, and there are so many variations on human vasculature. I will be very happy when I learn all I need to know to perform with as much quality as those who have taught me. I'm very glad to be where I am now.

Learning The Ropes

Well I am happy to say that I am definitely earning a little independence in my current working environment. I now know how to put in orders for in patients to come down and go back to their rooms, I know how to use the computer system to write out preliminary reports, and I also know how to check up on patient transportation back to their room. I learned how to partially use the ultrasound machines to do the studies also. All in all, I am very excited and happy when I come home instead of tired and fatigued. Don't get me wrong, I'm still tired and fatigued, but I'm excited due to a majority of my brain cells getting used throughout the day instead of getting discarded due to previous jobs.

Breakfasts seem to be my most difficult challenge. I went to work without having breakfast for 2 days and by the time 2 o'clock hit, I was completely utterly starving and ready to pass out and go to sleep. So yesterday morning, I decided to eat a bowl of cereal at 6 a.m. in the morning which lasted about as well as not eating anything at all did in the morning. By the time 2 p.m. hit, I was, yet again, completely starving. Finally, I think I found the correct combination. I end up having a small breakfast burrito in the morning with 2 cups of coffee to sustain me until 2 p.m.. Then once that is accomplished, I have a small bowl of ramen, or a salad and a baked potato at Wendys, OR a frozen Lean Cuisine for lunch to hold me over until dinner. When 6pm hits, I'm not hungry because of my handy water bottle that I sip on throughout the day. That helps a lot. So I just eat to sustain myself until I head to sleep. Then the cycle starts over again. I never thought that eating regularly would kick in now all of a sudden. In previous jobs, I would forget to eat and go until 2 p.m. and not even notice that food has not entered my stomach since the previous night. It may be all the thinking that I have to do all day PLUS the running around trying to get transportation down for patients that's making me hungrier. Any thoughts on the subject would be helpful! I never thought that this would be the hardest thing for me to learn, but that has proven to be the case.

I am looking forward to scanning patients for the first time by the end of the week. I will keep y'all posted when that happens. Chow!

10 hour day today!

For all of you who are wondering, I had my first actual day working and not sitting down! It was exciting because the first patient I observed was so interesting that there were three techs in the room trying to figure it out. I couldn't tell which vessel was what because this patient's anatomy was so confusing! But none the less, the three techs figured it out, and I got to observe it! I was shown around the entire hospital. This hospital is like a mall it's so huge! I learned about the computer system, started scanning on the machines, and almost got to witness an actual surgery!!! That was the most exciting thing! I know it's silly to be excited about ALMOST seeing a surgery and not actually seeing it, but it excites me that I was so close to seeing one on my first day there. I'm sure that's more than some externs got to do on their first day. I stayed 2 hours later than I was supposed to waiting, but it was worth it because I had more time to learn about the computer systems there. Hope tomorrow goes just as well:-)

First Day Jitters

Orientation day! Exciting! If anyone has ever been through this (Mom, I'm talking to you), then you couldn't possibly understand how untrue that statement is. It's as if someone came in that room and put a spell on it so that almost everything that went wrong did. First of all, I didn't get the packet in the mail that I was supposed to along with about 30 other people. So we spent about an hour and a half filling out useless forms to hand in. When we finally got into the room, they displayed the map on the overhead, making it clear how to exit if a fire drill happened, putting emphasis that this rarely EVER happens, and probably won't. By the time 9:00 a.m. hit and a guest speaker was supposed to show up, there was a no show. Then the NEXT guest speaker was about 20 minutes late pushing the orientation time back further, and the Infection Control speaker's power point wasn't working. So we had to wait another 10 minutes for her to start that. Now to add icing on the cake to this very unfulfilling organizational skills evil twin day, lightning must have struck to make this thing that "rarely ever happens" happen. The fire drill goes off. So to top it off, we were standing out in the 95 degree humid heat for the last 30 minutes of orientation. I'm suprised I didn't get a sunburn from standing out there as long as I did. I got quickly exposed to a red ant hill that I was standing pretty close to as well. Red ants. Gotta love em :Þ. I quickly went inside, handed in my "evaluation" of the orientation, and split the building.

So folks, this wraps up my first official day of work. Hope tomorrow sings a different tune for me. Perhaps one where the notes correlate more with how to organize an orientation and how to present the information in a timely fashion.

What? July 4th? Celebration?

Yes yes, the time has arrived to celebrate the creation of this great country. I don't know if I'm much in the celebrating mood, however I will make the best of it and atleast observe the fireworks show that will be held at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill. The singing and entertainment starts at 7. The fireworks show starts at 9:30 p.m. I'll be starting work tomorrow so wish me luck!