Finally something to show for it

After two years of classes and clinicals I finally get to see a little payoff for all my hard work. Nursing students can be hired by hospitals as nurse technicians. Which is just a fancy way to say paid intern. Our job descriptions are the same as the CNA or care assistant jobs, but once we've mastered that, we can do any skill we've demonstrated proficiency in except administer medications.

After weeks of anxious waiting, I start as a Care Assistant/Nurse Tech in the critical care unit at St. Joe's next Tuesday. I'm doing day shift until Christmas break, then nights starting in December. I'll probably try to stick with nights for Winter quarter. Spring quarter is my preceptorship, where I work full time with another nurse. So I'll probably just do one shift every couple of weeks to keep my status active at that point. Once I graduate and pass the N-CLEX, I can apply for a residency program and move on from there.

I'm anxious about the scheduling and the burden it will place on my family, but excited for the learning experience and the paycheck. Living on just Mike's income has been a challenge to say the least. And after paying to care for patients for the past year, it will be nice to finally have someone return the favor. Wish me luck.

Church Planting, Elections, Health Care & Conjoined Twins

I can’t seem to think coherently enough to put together a normal stream of thought, but here is a random list of things going on around me lately...

The Hilltop Expression of Soma Communities officially kicked off last Sunday. Mike and I (mostly Mike) are excited to be leading out in what God is doing around us. It’s been a long journey from the summer night in 2005 when we realized God had given us a passion for church planting in Tacoma. We had a lot of learning to do along the way. The road hasn’t been an easy one. Just trying to live in the Hilltop has been challenging in a million different ways. By God’s grace we’re still here and planning to stay until He tells us something different.

It’s election season, and thank God it’s almost over. I get so tired of all the rhetoric. I have a hard time thinking of any concrete way that having one party in charge rather than another has ever changed the ordinary routine of my life. Unlike my children, who miss out on 18 days of actual learning in school due to the WASL. Now if someone could get the streets in T-Town fixed, that would be something. Maybe I could make it more than 3 days without blowing a tire.

Mike’s car has now been stolen and returned to us unscathed three times in eight years. This morning the doors were opened and the glove box had been rifled through. As if we would be dumb enough to keep anything of value in that car. Seriously.

I’m over halfway through nursing school. Less than 20 weeks of class time until my preceptorship. I’m at Madigan Army Medical Center this quarter, where they have so many staff & students floating around it’s hard to get them to let you practice anything. I’m finding myself anxious to get in there and make sure I have the knowledge and skills to get the job done. I don’t want to graduate and have no clue what I’m supposed to do.

On that note, I’m also anxious to start work in my job as a nurse tech in the critical care unit at St. Joe’s. But my license application has been at the State for over 6 weeks now and is still “pending” according to the HPQA website. Do I blame that on the democrats, republicans, or just the Health Professional Quality Assurance people at the Department of Health?

And lastly, again on the health care note, I got an email two days ago from my good friend and mentor Sackie Kwalalon in Liberia. His niece Yamah gave birth to conjoined twins on October 8. Right now they are looking at me to find them a way to come to the U.S. and be evaluated. I’m a nursing student, not a miracle worker. Please pray with me that I can find someone who knows what to do. And pray for Yamah and her babies. It’s a miracle they made it this far.

The bus rant

Please do not feel obligated to read this post. I feel like all I've done is complain this month! But I had to get it off my chest and this is where I chose to do it, since I've already yelled at Durham bus services twice.

Last year Tacoma Public Schools used First Student bus services for their transportation needs. We had an awesome driver named Tom. He was great! The kids on the bus loved him. He dropped Abby off a half block closer than her actual stop just because it was on the way and seemed right to him. He was always within 10 minutes of being on time, usually right on the button. He was rarely absent and the consistency was great.

This year Tacoma decided to contract with Durham transportation instead. The first few days were not so bad - there were the usual glitches as they reworked the route based on who actually showed up. The driver was new but not unfriendly, just very matter of fact and usually on time. Then she started to go missing. Every few days we'd get a new driver, holding the steering wheel in one hand, the route sheet and radio in his/her other, barely watching the road, usually 15 minutes late or more.

This week we've had a new sub every day. Tuesday the bus was 25 minutes late picking them up and 20 minutes late dropping them off. Wednesday I took them to school after we waited 20 minutes. I also learned that they already have 12 tardies for the year from the bus being late. The bus finally showed up at school yesterday morning 40 minutes after classes started. Thank God I took them instead. That was when I started calling the company. Yesterday afternoon they got home 55 minutes late after waiting outside the school for 20 minutes before the bus even showed up. This morning we waited 20 minutes before I drove them and called again. The supervisor called the driver, who said he was running 15 minutes behind. I told him the driver was lying.

These are the snippets I get from the kids:

"When we have a sub and she gets lost, she calls her friend on the radio for directions. Yesterday she had a bad friend and they told her the wrong way."

"The driver got lost and we drove around down by Jumah's school. We could see them practicing football. Finally Eve (another 3rd grader) helped him get back on the right road." (WAY off the route)

"We tried to tell her which way to go but she wouldn't listen to us and so she went the wrong way on the one way street and had to turn around. But then she freaked out because the turn-around wasn't big enough for the bus." ?!?!?!

"Today we made it before the bell rang because the new bus driver asked for our help, so we all shouted out which way to turn."

I don't think I'm a bad parent for not dropping off and picking up my kids every day when there is a bus stop just around the corner. Somehow I missed the day they passed out the superpower of being in multiple places at once. But I do think it's concerning when a giant vehicle filled with young children and only one adult wanders around Tacoma lost for an hour. I'm not so sure I want to trust these people with my children anymore.

I hate being late

Today was truly terrible. Actually it started yesterday when it took me three hours to get to Ft. Lewis, get through the gate, get my hospital ID badge, get my computer password to access the charting system, and eat lunch. Then it took two more hours to figure out which patient might be staying at least 24 hours and compile huge amounts of data to figure out later.

I was late getting home and it was my last chance to go dress shopping for homecoming with Jumah. Then I was late starting on homework, late getting the house ready for missional community, late getting the cornbread in the oven, late getting the kids to bed, late starting more homework, late getting to sleep, and late waking up this morning.

I DID get the children to school on time.

After that, things seemed to improve. Until I realized (too late) that I had an additional piece of paperwork due today at clinical. I scrambled to finish it, but couldn't. And I shouldn't have tried, because that scramble made me late to print my paperwork, late to leave the house, late to get to the gate, and eventually, late to clinical. Which is grounds for being sent home and failing the whole assignment, but my instructor was feeling generous.

I learned right away that my patient had moved to another floor and I needed to pick a new one. And compile new piles of data to figure out. I started on that and within an hour the doctors decided to send my new patient home. So I picked another patient (my 3rd for the night). My instructor promptly showed up to check on me right as she was violently vomiting up her dinner. After cleaning that up, I got to answer a million questions about all three of my patients and anything else I might have ever learned in nursing school. Then I got to spend four more hours following the Madigan nurses around like a shadow, not getting to actually DO anything. Pure torture.

Yes, I know that in six short months I will be caring for more than one patient at a time. But I won't be having to do 8 hours of paperwork beforehand to prove that I'm smart enough to do so.

So now that I feel completely incompetent, I'm going to try to sleep and wake up to spend the weekend studying for a test on Monday. Maybe at least I won't be late.