Work, work, and more work....blech.

So, after 2 1/2 years working at the hospital, my manager FINALLY got me into the PCT class. Let me explain. I'll try to be brief.

At St. John's, nurse's aids aren't actually called nurse's aides. Of course, everyone has to have special names for it, right? Well, at St. John's there are two different levels of aides. The first is a PCA, or patient care associate, which is your basic tech who does all the bathing and feeding and cleaning up poo. Glamorous, right? :) Well, in the Burn Unit we do a lot more stuff, like dressing changes and wound debridement and lots of fun stuff like that. I love my job. So anyway, a PCT (patient care technician) can do more "advanced" things--tube feedings, wound care, sterile procedures (like some wound care requires), removal of foley catheters, some respiratory care like suctioning and other stuff, and phlebotomy.

So. When I was hired, I was told I'd be put through PCT training as soon as possible; however, clearly that's not how it happened. I was a little irked when two new PCAs got to go through the training right after their 90-day probationary period, when I'd already been waiting for 2 years. At any rate, I'm there now. I didn't realize until now how much "extra" stuff they have us do in the burn unit...I haven't actually learned anything NEW yet, but phlebotomy isn't until a week from Monday.

Still, it's kept me very busy. Class/clinicals are Mon-Fri, 7:30-4. We were running around all day today, which is actually sort of not true, because the instructor has to be there to watch us do whatever it is we're doing, and so if you're not the one or two people actually doing the work, you just....stand there. A PCA class and a bunch of nursing students are in house right now, so all the extra work we'd usually help with is just.... nonexistent. Kinda sucks.

Anyway, I got a prescription for the kind of Zofran that dissolves on your tongue...fabulous stuff. I'd been throwing up a lot over the past few days (three times Sunday, yippee), so I feel way better now.

Brett keeps asking me: 1) if it's his "turn" on the computer yet, and 2) if he can write one of my blog posts. Yikes. Scary thought....just kidding. He probably wouldn't do anything too terribly embarrassing. Although I did have a psycho pregnant chick moment on him just a little bit ago. I told him he could have the computer in a minute when I was done with my blog post. He teased me a little bit, and I totally freaked out on him. I told him he was ticking me off and...I don't really remember what else. It wasn't terribly mean, but...poor guy. I don't know how he puts up with me sometimes.