Ahh...sweetness!

The tang of the wheat beer and those darned barbecue potato chips...ahh!

I'm so glad it's Friday, I'm so glad it's Friday, I kept saying to myself today. I felt like I was constantly behind, even when I wasn't. Nevertheless, I made it through the day.

Lately, I've seen and felt a lot of emotions, as I've been running around the unit. Anger...that patient who just won't cooperate with his/her rehab goals. I finally capitulated to the coordinator, since the patient is stalling and just taking out frustrations on yours truly. The psych people took another tack...put the ball in his/her court and bring up discharge. Yes, this changed things some, but I still elected to work with another patient. It was hard to give up, but I felt in the interest of everyone, it made sense. So did the coordinator, which worked for me.

Anticipation...I'm getting ready for upcoming conferences and vacations. It's such a pleasant thought to think that in mere weeks, I'll be having fun outside the Hotel Rehab. I also got out of the GRE when I found out my grad program no longer requires it. I got my application in to the program just in the nick of time, so we'll see if I get accepted.

Excitement...Yesterday, I went to a training session on using our medication administration system. No one else showed up when I went, so basically, I had the person in charge all to myself for about an hour. It was great. I hope to someday end up in that department, and I got a whole lot of face time and plenty of information to boot...and a reference.

Outside of the emotions, there's always the physical aspect of the job. A whole lot of heaving and ho-ing. I had two patients that got up all three days. Neither of these two patients are lightweights (180+ lbs.). I did get both of them to help me. Almost all of our lifts have buttons on cords, so I could give them the cords to put themselves down in the chair as I pulled them into place with the handles on the sling. This was wonderful...and kept them busy. They got a charge out of having some control on how they transferred from their bed to the wheelchair.

I could kvetch and moan about the craziness some of the night folks left me with...full hampers, full urine bags and totally fsked up IVs, but I won't. I am celebrating the weekend. It won't be here forever, so I'm going to enjoy it, snow or no snow. I hope you do, too, wherever you are.

More to come...