Friday, January 4, 2019

meeep

I'll go ahead and apologize for this post in advance. I mostly wrote this over the course of a month and kept self-editing the crap I wrote while sleep deprived. I'm still running on very minimal sleep and a recent change to night-shift for the new job (just keep reading) . I've been gone for a while, and it was mostly due to a self-imposed writer's block (sorry but not sorry). I tried to write several posts over the last two years but ended up instead diving deep into the comments that mainly came from Russians and have nothing to do with healthcare at all (SEO I guess?). I spent many days wondering if I should just delete the comments and move on, but now I'm fascinated (and by fascinated I mean obsessed and wasted far too much mental thought for an average adult on it). If you're reading this in Russia, and got redirected from a search engine, hello from America and thanks for Nov 2016 (sarcasm ). Also, I didn't really love the idea of coworkers/the hospital knowing I write a blog about my job. I've only had one person ever figure it out, and it kind of freaked me out a little. I've gone through varying stages of deleting the blog all together now, but for now I'll keep it full code.

Now that I've gotten my usual disclaimer out about not writing in forever etc etc- I'll try to sum up things in this paragraph. I probably should have lead with this, oh well. I got engaged, married, started working nicu against my better judgement, became severely over-worked (+ seven years cvicu) and underpaid for the experience/workload I was given on daily basis. This resulted in making me a bitter and jaded RT after all the years of trying to avoid that. Luckily, I finally realized I was worth WAY more around January 2018 and made a resolution to follow my goals that I had long forgotten about, applied for a transfer, and one monthish later I was working on a different campus and got a chance to join the ecmo specialist team (it's so crazy sexy cool). Plus I'm  FINALLY going back to school in the fall to finish the bsrt. I'm still contemplating PA school, but as I've already spent many blog posts on the subject- I'll just say it's more of a pipe dream that would drown me in student debt. If anyone has a spare 90K they'd like to donate to me I would be applying to programs tomorrow...

It's almost been a year since I've left the last hospital I had worked for (7 years), and at first I was SO glad to get away from the daily draining workloads and my director that was allergic to accountability and progress. The real irony is that I accepted this new job right as that director decided to retire. Even if I had known that there would be a shake up with management I really doubt that would have changed my mind about applying for another job. I hit a breaking point HARD one week in the fall of '17. Maybe I'll try to summarize the story later if the PTSD ever subsides.

I thought about how to explain why I stayed for so long at the last hospital (masochism is still the top theory). But the biggest factor was that I had based too much of my self-esteem and worth from my job and I got comfortable with my corner. Seven years is a lot of time to build trust with all the attendings, nurses, mid-levels, fellow RTs, techs, etc. and that's pure bullion in my book. Other reasons were: our dept was very well respected and autonomous in all of the units (it's rare, I know), my coworkers in my department became a second family to me, I had complete knowledge of all of the best shortcut stairwells to go stealth mode, and the commute was only ten minutes in Atlanta (the rarest perk of that job I took for granted).

Despite all the good...

My husband really was the voice of reason for helping me to leave the last hospital. He reminded me that most people don't leave work wanting to lock themselves in the bathroom with some wine/music for 45 minutes due to the insane physical and mental olympics I'd have to deal with daily just to calm down so I could interact with my husband and dogs after work. I would also waste too much time crying over bullshit politics that I wanted nothing to do with but somehow would be stuck despite staying far away from enemy lines. I WANTED TO BE SWITZERLAND. So many problems I've seen working in a hospital could be improved if egos could be set aside and we all worked on mutual respect and communication. Oh, and I want a pony, too.

I have MAD respect for night-shifters now. No, I haven't figured out how to sleep during the day. Yes, I've been doing it almost a year without having a complete psychotic break. The only thing that I can say for certain is I cannot do the three night stretch. Two on, one off so I can catch up on sleep, and then I'll work the third so no one gets hurt.

I am happier with the new job when it comes down to assignments. I have really enjoyed getting to pee multiple times in a shift and occasionally I can read a book.  Too be fair, it's really a different work flow when I have a 1:1 ecmo, so it kind of balances out the hectic days where I'm just in the RT staffing for icu. It's 2019 and my softcore resolution is to be grateful of the things I love about my job so I'll just stop right there. Also, please don't be a dick to anyone.

I'm about to pass out from working the last 4 nights, but I promise I'll put out another post soon enough with some funny stories (and maybe the story about my breaking point from fall '17) when my brain isn't about to turn off.

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