Hospital training...

Wow.

I am freaking tired...

I just finished my hospital training today. All week I have been in the hospital, trying to keep my head above the water. This job is intense. More than a few times I have wondered what on earth I have gotten myself into.

My feet are throbbing from standing on them for 10 hours a day. Forget ever wearing contacts again. Having to look at a computer for those 10 hours just makes my eyes kill. Doctor's shouting out orders, meds, test results, in a language that sounds a whole lot like Latin to me (maybe because it is...) I dont' speak {much} Latin.

Monday will be my first day on my own, without a well seasoned scribe looking over my shoulder... pointing out the dozens of mistakes that I make and things that I forget. I'm nervous. Super nervous. But I try to remind myself that they were all new scribes once too, and somehow they made it through. Someday it will all click and I will be a charting whiz. I'm sure of it... or at least I keep telling myself that.

I honestly wont be able to talk a whole lot about my job on this little blog of mine. It's never a dull day in the ER. There are always lots of interesting stories, and patients, and things that happen. But they are not my stories, they are other people's nightmares. Nobody wants to be in the ER... okay, some of them do... but to me that is just as sad as someone who really does need to be there. I think that probably the only people who really want to go to the hospital are people who are having babies, but we don't get any of those. They all go to labor and delivery and we get all the girls who are having miscarriages. It's sad, sometimes extremely sad. But I just remind myself that we are there to help them through their medical nightmares. Just like others have been there for me and will be there for me and my family when we need it. That makes going through the sad situations more bearable.

I'm grateful to have a break tomorrow. To soak my throbbing feet. To think about something else besides resetting fractures, suicide attempts, addiction withdrawls, sewing up lacerations, metastasized cancer, stroke victims, intubations, importing EKG's and X-rays, or googling different doctors names to make sure I have the spelling right. To spend some time with some amazing boys that I haven't seen much of this week. To sit on my favorite spot on the couch that I have become quite used to this last year and a half. Life is certainly much different now. Completely different now. As hard as it seems right now, I'm grateful for the change. To feel like I'm contributing in my own way to my family and to society.

Please say a little prayer for me on Monday. I'm going to need it.