the last few weeks

So here is an update of the past couple weeks that I have not written anything. First, I started EMT school. It ROCKS!! I LOVE class. In most classes you look at the clock wishing it would go faster so you could just get home. In my EMT class I look at the clok and pray that it will slow down so that class won't end so soon. The class is 4 hours long. :) So yeah, the class is awesome!

Next, I quit my job at St. Mary's. Yes, I really did. I very much disliked my manager the entire time I worked there but he started getting worse toward the end. I also worked with a horrible old woman who was mean and angry and nasty all the time and needed very much to retire. Between the two of them, I was miserable at work. But the other main reason why I quit is because after I passed my boards I only had 4 days of orientation and they had just changed the budget and staffing grid so there were more patients per nurse. So after my 4 days of orientation I had to take 4 patient who were all in critical condition and over two weeks by myself I felt uncomfortable and scared to go to work because I didn't feel safe. When I worked with that horrible old woman, which was A LOT, she refuses to answer questions so she was not someone who I could go to for help and with the staffing grid change there were only 3 nurses on at night and one would be me, one is the horrible woman, and that left only one person who I could go to for help and if that person was very busy that left me alone. So basically I worked too hard for my license to make a mistake and lose it, let alone make a serious mistake that could cause serious complications to a patient. It just wasn't a safe environment to work in so I left.

Now I work at a Jail. HAHA. No seriously! I'm not kidding! I work at Kent County Correctional Facility in Grand Rapids. It is pretty cool. I applied for some other hospital jobs but did not get any of them. So at the jail I do basic physicals of inmates, I am part of the booking process (everyone needs to be seen by medical in order to finish the booking process- everyone gets booked whether they stay in jail or leave right away), I triage "kites" (when an inmate fills out a request to see the medical staff it is called a kite), I perform STD testing, pelvic exams, TB tests, blood draws, give meds, etc. I have already learned a ton about countraband, and being careful about needles and watching how much medical info I give to make sure they don't use that info to fake things, I have experienced pepper spray because they had to do that to one guy and the pepper spray spread throughout the whole room, I have talked to prostitutes, rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers, meth manufacturers, etc. The whole thing right now just feels sort of crazy. But I like it so far. Don't worry, I'm safe. Anytime I am with an inmate there is a guard and there are guards swarming the place so it's all cool.

So that is the story of my past few weeks. :)