The Busy Life

Life's been...busy. I finally switched over to working day shift (yay) and that's been going really well. There's just something funky about working nights. Your body just feels off. While being a nurse on night shift was often times much "easier" because there weren't as many people around writing orders or taking the patient away for some sort of test or coming in doing PT and whatnot, it was often times hard because it was just you and your other nurse(s) there "fending for yourselves." We didn't have techs around to help move patients or answer a call light, there weren't usually docs around to answer questions or change an order. We often fixed our own problems without having to call anyone for help. However, now that I'm on day shift and the pace is way faster and things happen all around you, often without your knowledge, I'm enjoying it a lot more. One of the things I am enjoying the most about working in a smaller hospital (this is the smallest I've ever been in) is that 1)a lot of the docs and nurses are on a first name basis (yay for not "groveling" at someone's feet and feeling like they are unapproachable) 2)the docs at this hospital are the nicest ones I have ever worked with. They are SO open to teaching, answering questions, collaborating with the nurse in order to give the BEST care they can for their patient. It is such a different work environment than any I have ever been in before and I am very thankful for it. Still working on getting the hang of working in the ICU, getting to see a TON of new stuff that I've never worked with before, learning a lot and enjoying my preceptor. I'm thankful she's easy going, open to questions and a good teacher. I was able to go to a lecture/in-service today on ventilators and I feel like I've learned a lot about them. Still need more practice working hands on with them since I've only worked with a handful in my entire career but I'm glad I went and the MD teaching the class was very good at explaining all the different things that went along with it. I guess it was a good thing that he was a respiratory therapist before he went to med school!

Other than work things have been going well here in NM. Jack is still enjoying his work and is doing really well with it. He's gearing up for a trip to Hungary in about a month (hoping this trip goes better than his Switzerland trip). We're bummed my work schedule couldn't afford for me to go with him on this trip like we had originally planned but I just got my passport renewed and we're looking forward to planning a trip to Argentina!! Either later this year or next year sometime, but it's on the books and in our minds and we are pumped. We are still loving our church and small group and are thankful for the friends we are making through that. It's neat how being around people from the church feels like "home" and we are thankful for that.

Tomorrow we are headed to southern NM to visit the Trinity Site which is only open to public tours twice a year! I'm excited to go, but I'm sure Jack (and the other nukeys that will be with us) will understand things much better than me and hopefully they can dumb it down for me! While down there we may stop by for a brief visit to White Sands, NM which would be fun.

Otherwise...life's been life. Not much else is going on with us. But life is good and we are enjoying the warmer temperatures (we daily have our back doors open so we can hear the fountain and wind chimes on our back patio) and looking forward to some good hiking/camping come later spring and into summer!