Love this time of year!

This is my favorite time of year. The leaves are either completely yellow or fallen off the trees, the mountains have snow but the sky is blue. I love Canmore!

Almost there....

I'm getting closer and closer to feeling comfortable calling myself an ER nurse. I'm LOVING it. I passed the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course this weekend. That was a HUGE stress and weight off my shoulders. It was a hard course and even at the end I wasn't all that confident that I'd pass but I did! I scored 88% and 85% on the written tests and a 'pass' on the 'mega code' That's all I needed. Now I'm certified to care for all cardiac patients and run a code (cardiac arrest) when a doctor isn't there, I'm in charge...ordering drugs, defibrillating...just like on ER. The only thing that I'm not certified to do is intubate adults which is silly cause I'm certified to intubate babies which is WAY harder than adults but that's ok cause I'm not all that eager to do it anyways. I worked the last 2 days in emerg, still orientating but pretty much doing everything on my own and just having someone else there to ask questions when I need to. I have two more evening shifts orientating and then I'm on my own in the ER next Tuesday night!
So far our condo hasn't sold yet. They've showed it to a few people but in my opinion it's overpriced. We talked to our landlord about it though and he assured us that if and when it does sell they'll do their best to find us a new place and likely even in the same building so we're ok with that.
I have the next two days off and I'm so excited. I have no idea what I'm going to do but hopefully I'm going to sleep in tomorrow!

Much improved

After a rocky start to my week, I'm happy to say that it has only improved. I'm heading into my last weekend of night shifts at the Foothills and I couldn't be more excited. Any shifts I book there now will be on my own accord. Even though I absolutely love, love, love my job at the Foothills I'm really looking forward to the new learning opportunities that the Canmore hospital is offering. I'm currently preparing for the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course at the end of the month. It's proving to be more challenging than I had expected. I don't know if it's the course material that's so challenging or the fact that my study skills aren't what they used to be. I still have 2 more weeks to prepare so that's what I'm going to be doing in most of my spare time. It's a $450 course, that the hospital will reimburse me but only if I pass so I can't afford to fail this one! I start my orientation in the ER on Tuesday. I'm so excited about it. I've always wanted to give the ER a try and no better place than a rural hospital where you're resources are limited so you have to be that much more on the ball with your assessments. It's going to be great, I can't wait!

What a day.....

What a day I'm having...and it's only 9am. I'm starting to think that I should have stayed in bed this morning. I got up at 7am prepared to go to the classroom orientation session at the Canmore hospital. The educator, that I've been trying to reach for a week, finally calls me at 7:50am, as I'm on my way out the door to tell me that I don't need to attend today. That's when I should have gone back to bed but since I was up I figured I should get some studying done for the ACLS course I'm taking in a few weeks. So I head off to Starbucks to get in some quality study time. When I was in university the only place I could actually study without being distracted was Starbucks. So I get there and I order my usual triple shot vanilla latte and settle into a table in the corner. Oh I forgot, before I went to Starbucks I went to the bank and decided to actually go into the bank rather than go through the drive-thru. I go to all the work of parking and walking into the bank only to find that that one machine they have is out of order. I walk all the way back to my car, get in and go through the drive thru where someone has ripped all the envelopes out of the envelope thingy so I have to actually get out of the car and find a suitable envelope off the ground to be able to deposit my cheque. Then I find out that the bank took out my car payment for my Civic by mistake so now I still have to deal with that today. Ok, now back to Starbucks. Since I was staying I asked for my latte in a mug, well what did I get, a to-go cup. Not a big deal but one more thing to add to my list of "things gone wrong" today. Then my latte tasted funny. Not sure what was wrong with it, either too much vanilla or they had previously used the milk container for soy or whole milk and then added skim, it tasted weird, and trust me, I've had enough of them to know what they should taste like, I can tell when there's something off about it! Don't mess with me and my latte!! So I've been in Starbucks for an hour tediously going over the ACLS textbook trying to stay awake and interested when I'm accosted by a group of about 10 mothers celebrating their kids return to school. The all piled into the table next to mine, even though there were other available tables and not only did they pile around the table, they completely blocked me into mine. There was no escape! I can usually concentrate really well at Starbucks but when you're surrounded by 10 mothers shouting at eachother about which class little Johnny was in and which teacher little Jane got stuck with this year and who was with their friends and who wasn't and who got stuck in a split class and who had male teachers who never take the effort to plan social activities so now the mothers would have to volunteer and if they want their children to have social activities then they'll just have to plan everything themselves....it went on and on and on.....and I'm blocked into my table with a little boy on the other side of me swinging his feet off his chair and inevitably kicking mine....I had to leave....but I was stuck! I packed up my stuff and no one even noticed that I was trying to get out until I loudly pushed my chair back, stood up and excused myself from their group. How rude! They were probably thinking the same thing of me but whatever. I was there first and they totally took over my space, not to mention that they blocked me into my space, when I was obvioulsy trying to study. I understand that Starbucks is a public place but come on people, have some respect for other people's space. I didn't want to go home because the house is a mess and that would only aggravate me further so here I am at the internet cafe which is blissfully quiet except for the girl across from me who keeps staring at me, what's that all about, is my hair sticking up? i don't think so...what's her problem? ARAGH. So even though I have internet at home now, here I am spending money on internet and getting stared at by a creepy girl just to stay away from my messy house, where's the logic in that? I think I'll go to Beamers, my other favorite coffee spot, get a matcha latte, some breakfast and try to do some more studying. I can't believe it's only 9am. What will the rest of the day have in store for me if this is the way it's started? I shudder at the thought. Wish me luck I think I'll need it.