Just keep blogging... Just keep blogging

Use your "Finding Nemo" voice ;)

Yes, it's been a while. It's been a busy week. I've been busy getting slammed at work (at least the 12 hours flies by) and fending off a cold (once again, thanks Tom!).

This weekend we went to the Heritage Festival. This was Tom's first time and I think everyone had a good time. Chris bought a sword with his initials burned onto it (yes, I know, Chris is the LAST of my children who should be armed...). Chloe absolutely loved visiting the horses, and Andrew was fairly tolerant throughout, but he got to get some honey sticks, so he was happy.

Work is going fairly well, but I am scheduled for 3 shifts in a row, which I haven't done in ages. It doesn't seem to work too well for me with school and afternoon committments. I'm scheduled with a preceptor for 4 weeks, then we'll see how it goes. Tuesday night I wound up taking the whole assignment, but got a bit overwhelmed about halfway through, so I needed to take a break. I had an assignment that was very busy but not very critical. I had wanted this group because I had horrible sleep, but I didn't realize exactly how busy things would be and I started to get really behind. I felt awful because I'm not used to being behind. Heck, the last night I worked NICU I had my assignment and was helping the other 2 people in my pod quite a bit. To the extent that they were apologizing to me for asking for so much. It wasn't anything, and I told them it was great Karma, since I'd be in their shoes soon LOL.

It's so hard to make a change this severe this far into my career. Overall I love the structure of our unit and the people seem so nice and helpful and patient-oriented, which is exactly what I wanted. So why am I complaining? I've gone from being one of the most senior people, whom the charge nurses would ask for assistance, to one of the stupider people on the shift. No one has talked down to me or been rude, but I hate the fact that I have to question SO many things about my job. Am I doing this right? How do we modify this protocol? Can you double check this? My preceptor has been great, the other nurses have been great, but I'm in a mode that I haven't seen since I changed to PICU. And at least there I was able to be the reference person for the occasional infant. Here, I'm way out of my league. Yes, I've only been here for 2 weeks, and I seem to have the charting done (although it's all on paper and I'm used to computer charting), but I miss having the answers. Plus it's rough being one of the older nurses who is adjusting to all this. There are so many new grads on this unit who are very competent. Which is great, but I hate the fact that I am 10-12 years older than them, with 10 years of experience, and I'm still fumbling with the tubing LOL.

I'll probably look back on this in a few months and roll my eyes. But for right now, it's frustrating to be the newbie. At least I have a good group surrounding me.