First Day Nerves

I never sleep well the night before placement. Sometimes before agency shifts as well. So I really only got 2 hours of sleep that night.
I was totally out of my depth for the first 2 hours. Then I got going! It was brilliant. Hanging fluids, doing admissions, taking hand overs on returning surgical patients! Weeeeeee. At least I haven't forgotten everything from my only surgical placement over a year and a half ago.
Whither I recognise any of the staff from Monday tomorrow is another matter. I dislike 12 hour shifts for that reason. I can do the work for that length of time but it takes a couple of weeks to get to know the staff and until then it's like the first day everyday.
More news after tomorrow's shift.

I Like Challenges!

I challenged Cellar Door that for every word of her essay I would swim a metre. Not sure now this would be a challenge for her, since she has no choice on the essay but I like to think she wants to see if I can do it. Or maybe she wants to see me suffer? I had already set a target of 10 kilometres in 3 months before I fly out. This was perfectly plausible; on the basis of 300m, twice a week for 3 months.

I could have just absorbed the 3,500 words (metres) into that 10,000.....

Oh no I much more determined than that!

Total distance = 13,500 metres in 3 months.



Above the posts there are 2 countdowns. Total distance and time left..... Let's see how this goes huh?

P.S. Post on my first shift of my last placement coming tomorrow. Promise.

Unforeseen Idiocy Ahead

Right this going back to camp thing....
I love camp. I would live there if I could. A green card and a job and I'm yours for life.
Problem is when I was there the last time I managed to pass lifeguarding. Waaaaaay back in 2005 when I was younger, stupider and thinner. Well sort of, that would imply that I am now older, wiser and fatter...... 2 out of 3 isn't bad.
I can swim and I'm damn good at it. Just can't do that much. And I might have put some weight on since the start of the course. I've put on 3/4 tunic sizes since then. Course, our tunics were modelled on aliens from the planet Zog or somewhere because they really don't fit any human I've met.
So during the interview up crops the 'you were a lifeguard that last time' and 'you know snorkelling'. To which in my 'talking management / interview BS' mode I replied with "I would LOVE to do that again!". Complete with exclamation point and emphisis.

Idiot.

The fitness test before training?

• Swim 300 yards (essentially 300 meters! Although it's a little shorter than that.) continuously.
• Starting in the water, swim 20 yards using front crawl or breaststroke, surface dive 7–10 feet, retrieve a 10-pound object, return to the surface, swim 20 yards back to the starting point with the object and exit the water without using a ladder or steps, within 1 minute, 40 seconds.

Oh it gets worse.... That was just the basic pool qualification.

• Swim 550 yards (about 500 meters) continuously.
• Starting in the water, swim 20 yards using front crawl or breaststroke, surface dive 7–10 feet, retrieve a 10-pound object, return to the surface, swim 20 yards back to the starting point with the object and exit the water without using a ladder or steps, within 1 minute, 40 seconds.
• Swim 5 yards, submerge and retrieve three dive rings placed 5 yards apart in 4–7 feet of water, resurface and swim 5 yards to the side of the pool.

Welcome to the waterfront / pool test!
Time to get my lardy ass to the swimming pool. I could do the 300 meters (12 lengths of a 25m pool). It's the incredible 'Titanic can move faster' pace I swim at. I will not be last to finish this time around. Oh and I can't drag my body out of water to help myself.... well not yet.

I have 3 months and a new swim suit..... just where did I put the towel?

PLACEMENT'S IN!!!!

The news everyone has been waiting for! I finally got word on my make-up placement...
Urology / Surgical at Bigger-Than-Average General Hospital. (Which is miles away and why all my other placements have been at Pinky and Perky, the other smaller general hospitals.)

Oh and I start on Monday! Lots of advanced warning there folks. I have spoken to the Sister and she certainly acted like she knew the whole sorry back story.

Oh and it's 5 weeks not 6 so I can get back to earning money to go back to camp. Woo!

Blood Spatter!

Test you blood spatter analysis skills with the New Scientist.
Clearly I've watched far too many CSI eps and documentaries. I only got one wrong and it wasn't even totally wrong. Saying that sometimes you have to figure out where blood on sheets / floors has come from. The missing venflon isn't always obvious!

With thanks to William the Coroner!

You Thought You Did Odd Things

I've spent this evening trying to learn these snazzy moves.

The chronic unfit (myself) should probably not attempt this kind of thing. Well not in public!

EDIT: This video is only part 1 of 3. And I've still not mastered my left from my right!

Being Green / Being Mean (the toilet talk)

This is an odd balance...
I can be really stingy. Have to be; my money's running out and with this supposed placement over my head I'm not taking as many agency shifts as I could because I really don't know what I'm doing next week. (Honest he's not given me a placement yet and agency needs at least some advance warning.)
This brought me to an interesting thought do you have to compromise on being green so you can be mean instead? There's a toilet paper advert running that states for every tree they use, they will plant three new ones. We don't use this brand in the flat. We use the cheep as chips, supermarket value brand. This costs about £1 for 12 rolls. The brand planting all the trees costs £2 for 4 rolls. Does a cheep roll wipe less asses than the expensive one? I'm not going to test that sorry. But lets make the scientific assumption that the expensive one is slightly longer and more absorbent. You seem at least to get far more for your money with the cheaper rolls.
(I promise you I'm not obsessed with toilet rolls. Bin bags and washing up liquid are far more obsessional.)
I think I'm starting to see where their money for saplings might be coming from.
So back to the question do we have to choose being green over being mean? I'm sure you are aware that greener / fairtrade / healthy products cost more. They do fairtrade coffee has always cost far more than even Gold Blend (and that's not cheap either). People wonder why the west of Scotland has a crappy health record (our 3 biggest killers are heart disease, stroke and cancer). All unhealthy food is cheaper in the supermarkets than the healthy stuff!

Another point I'll make before leaving. How much waste does your hospital produce in a day? The average (read small-ish) operation produced at least 3 large bags of clinical waste. That's 1 small operation. There could be 10 of those per day per theatre. The wards aren't short of stuffed bin bags either. The least green industry in the UK has to be healthcare. A lecturer once said that 'I'm here to do my job. Not save the NHS money.' She meant that if we had to use expensive dressings, or open 15 packets of something to make sure it was right then we did it. But look at the waste we generate. Sterile packages for surgery are double wrapped and 90% of patient contact materials are all disposable. I'm not for a minute suggesting that we abandon disposable gloves, aprons, sterile packaging and our beloved paper-pulp products. Abandoning these would send infection control into meltdown! There is little or no way to cut down the waste created by the healthcare industry. We have to toe the best policy guidelines and it is never in the patient's best interests to cut corners. So other suggestions? Recycling? Er lets not go there shall we?

So is it a valid choice? Yes lets all save the planet but not when I'm on a budget. People should do what they can. We need to recycle more. We need to cut down on packaging (although maybe not in healthcare). Maybe that's where I could be better since I cannot afford the 'green' bog roll to do it for me.

Quote From A Shift Somewhere

I'm too tired to remember where or when I heard this but......

Nurse: I wonder about those nurses who say they've never cried about a patient...
Nurse 2: Everyone's become attached at one point or another.

They have a point. People get attached. I've gotten attached.


...but what about those nurses who never get attached?

WardBunny of the Dump (like Stig of the dump only less clean)

I am living in a tip. The flat is a tip.

And none of it is mine. I've been away for ages and in the meantime people have been moving out and moving in (we should have replaced the front door with a revolving door). Unfortunately when people have moved out they forgot to take say the contents of the freezer or the stuff in the shower. We now have more bottles sitting around the shower than on the shelves in Morrison's. However the cooker is covered in someone else's dirty pots. I can't actually cook anything. The oven's manky, the hob is otherwise occupied, the microwave is a health hazard and there is a pile of plates trying to make their way to the door from the sink.

My room is a mess but at least I created all of that. None of the kitchen / shower mess is mine. I can't make anyone clean it but I spend my days helping and cleaning up after other people so I'm not doing it at home.

So I've come up with a few helpful notes to put up around the place.

• If it's yours, keep it in your room.
• Lights don't turn themselves off.
• Neither your mother nor the cleaning fairy lives here so clean up yourself.
• If you don't move your crap it's going in the bin.
• Everyone uses this room, not just you.
• Socks don't live on the dining table.
• I'm not the postman; redirect it yourself.

Any better suggestions? I'm not moving out but I can't live on junk food forever!

SNOW (Canadian not British)

Had to post this from the Canadian photos collection. I have huge feet! I'm a size (women/men, it's all the same at that size so long as they fit) 10/11 over here which makes me a US mens 11/12.