FAQs

When talking to people over the past couple of weeks, I've found myself answering the same questions- which isn't a bad thing by any means, but I think that I could kill many birds with one stone and answers the FAQs.

How's are things going? 
This question always makes me laugh a little. It's going really well? Do you want to have a twenty minute conversation about "things" or do you just want to check up on me and make sure I'm not crying myself to sleep every night? I don't mind answering either way, it's just the general vagueness that makes me laugh. Things are going well. Yup.

Do you like your job?
Yes. Very much. I come home from a 12 hour shift exhausted and energized at the same time. It's still hard for me to believe sometimes that I'm actually getting paid for this. It's really hard work and emotionally draining, but so fulfilling.

What's your unit like?
Like I mentioned in a previous post, there are a lot of very sick patients on my floor. I can learn a lot from the different things going on. The nurses on my floor seem very friendly and like I can get along with them very well. A lot of the night nurses are new grads like me which could be really fun. I kind of hope that we'll all stick with it and gain some comradery as we figure out nursing together.

When do you switch to night shift?
I just found out the answer this week. I'll move to night shift the first week of November. It is all within the timeline they gave me, but it sure seems like that isn't very far away. Yikes! Prepare to meet zombie Caroline.

What do nurses actually do?
Ha. This is a terribly difficult question to answer in a satisfactory manner. The literal answer is that I assess patients, give them medications, chart, talk to doctors, and perform some skills. When I say it like that, it sounds so lame. There's so much more that I do that can't be counted or quantified. I promise.

How's your apartment?
It started out cute and is getting cuter! It's not quite as barren. I have internet. Today I hung up some stuff which made a difference. I got a microwave this week, and my roommate has moved in some of her furniture, so it's filling up. No issues so far.

Have you met your roommate? Has she moved in yet? 
I have met her! She seems very sweet and I think it will work out quite nicely. She's moving in on Saturday. This has given me a few weeks to kind of settle in and figure things out.

Do you like living on your own? 
Loaded question. As most of you know, I'm close to my family and would love to someday form a little family community where all of our backyards meet and I can pet/babysit my sibling's little creatures. In that respect, I miss my family a lot. However, I am thrilled to be working and being productive. It's an exciting new chapter of my life that I am enjoying a lot. There are so many new things to figure out and explore on my own. So in that respect, I'm loving this. I can go to concerts, cook new recipes (and no one will ever know that I messed it up), I can have people over whenever I want (once I get some chairs for my kitchen table), I can be a hermit or social depending on my mood. Yes, I like living on my own.

Do you think you'll stay at your hospital? 
*At this point in the conversation I inwardly think, "How in the world am I supposed to know that?" but I still try to be a polite human being.*
Maybe! I think it's a great hospital where I can learn a lot as a nurse and have the opportunity to grow in my career if I want to. I like the location, I like the learning environment, and I like the different ways I could pursue different things when the time comes. However, I have only been there for less than a month. I have no idea what the future holds for me or where it will take me. We'll see.

Hope that clears some things up! See ya soon!

-C-