This time the I’m nervous feeling didn’t start until we were in Newport about 12 hours out of time to start my first shift. Even at that it wasn’t too bad until the last 45 minutes. It is in these first days that I have to frequently remind myself that it is good to be outside of my comfort zone. And that in the long run the positive consequences of hard work way out weigh the ease of laziness. (This is an internal battle that I am always fighting and don’t always win.) Ariving 40 minutes early I waited in the car 10 minutes then headed in to try to find my way to L&D. A small hospital can still be quite disorienting, but I made it upstairs and to my new unit. The nurse that I will be covering for maternity leave was on, it was fun to meet her and get some idea of what my schedule will look like. We chatted for a little while as day shift arived. Everyone was friendly. We got most of the first day stuff done, name badge, door access, computer access, med system access, unit tour, scavenger hunt, first admission and delivery giving me some familiarity with the paperwork, process and a few of the providers. That is what everyone hopes their first day is like. You don’t want to go too long with out an admission or a delivery because you don’t get very many orientation days as a traveler and you have to know how to do those things (charting systems and some processes are all a little different at every hospital). I love it when people tell me it’s ok to ask questions…fair warning now I ask a LOT of questions. There is no way to learn everything in two days of orientation. 1915 came quick enough, I was definitely ready for the shift to be over. A headache was starting to creep up on me and I was eager to catch up with Chad as he had been working all day on our housing situation.
Chad picked me up out front bearing gifts from The Gluten Free Place, a delicious pineapple upside down cake.
Admitting that we may just be spending too much money there this assignment because they had tasted a few things that were all delicious and it wasn’t too far from the hospital. I have been given a huge gift in Chad as my husband, he is beyond supportive always thinking of ways to make me feel loved by doing something special for me. So, good news with an awesome GF place in town, but bad news as far as housing goes. There are a lot of private campgrounds with long term residents, but they (all the ones he drove by, talked to, called) were full. We could see empty spots on a few that we drove by Sunday but when he called they said they have no monthly spaces available. There was one (the most expensive one at $700 a month) on a paved lot with no grass say that they probably could do it, but we would have to shuffle around and move sites every week because they also were booked. We don’t want to pay that much to be in a paved lot and move around every week so, we will continue to look. We will be checking on a few more places today, as well as our next options.
With computer training in Albany on the schedule next we headed home to Salem.
Owens Endeavors 