Update!

It has been so, so long since I last sat down to write any kind of update.  Sorry!

So, in the past two and a half weeks, I have gone through orientation at this new hospital, and I start working on my own on Friday.  It's been a hefty learning curve.  You have no idea how much you don't know until you start working in a new hospital.  All of the policies, procedures, charting, and even what I can or cannot do until I take this class or that class.  I think it's funny that I have worked with ports, psych patients, and conscious sedations extensively over the past year but must take extra classes in order to do any of that work here.  Another huge thing is that, in Indianapolis, people are sick. S-I-C-K.  I'm talking mass amounts of comorbidities, which, in layman's terms, means that these people have several different illnesses, chronic (long-term) and/or (acute).  Because of this, I have lots of experience working with people who have COPD, renal failure, diabetes, and a chronic MRSA issue, all together and working as a team of illnesses to further sicken the patient.  Here, people have very few, if any, comorbidities, and many of them who come to the ER have traumatic injuries, or weird stuff that I haven't dealt with before.  In short, my experience isn't super valuable here (Community people, I have seen zero asthmatic/croupy kiddos, zero MRSA/CDIFF, one COPDer, and one diabetic in the past six 12 hour shifts.).  I am asking a lot of questions, trying to learn about how to assess and stabilize these traumas and funky hemopneumoemboli shenanigans.  I keep reminding myself that my boss hired me with the knowledge that I have very little trauma experience, but it's scary sometimes. 

I am feeling kind of insecure because my preceptor last night expressed some concerns over my lack of trauma experience.  She kind of insulted me about it, too.  It didn't make me feel very good.  Again I remind myself that God has made it really crystal clear that I am to be here at the moment.  Sometimes that helps.  Sometimes it doesn't.

Last week was really hard.  I knew when I decided to leave Indy that I would miss home, miss my family, miss my friends, and miss my dogs.  I had no clue how much I would miss knowing the exact location of the nearest Walmart.  Or how to get across town in the most time-efficient way.  It is the most humbling thing to me to have to ask for directions because I'm on the other side of town from my appointment because I'm lost.  I spent a lot of last week crying and missing home.  I decided to go to Portland to visit my aunt and cousins over there, and while taking that break from Bend, God finally got through to me.  I finally shut up and listened and discovered that this whole adventure is not just about adventure: it's about changing the person I am into a better person.  I also had three hours in the car to think about what a piece of work that is going to be.  This weekend, I read Don Miller's book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years," which is about the concept of story and how it applies to our reality.  In short, character is only developed through conflict.  So, in essence, this time in Bend is not going to be easy.  I'm going to have fun and have adventures and explore, but I'm also going to cry and pray and understand what it is like to rely on God for everything that I took for granted in Indy--He is the only Person here who knows me for who I am, my history, my inside jokes, my heart of hearts.  I spent so much time in Indy socializing (you would too if your friends were as awesome as mine are) that it was easy to ignore the still, small Voice (not okay). 

I have a day off tomorrow and since I don't know anyone well enough here to hug them, I am getting a massage for the benefit of touch.  :)   I am also going camping this weekend with my aunt and cousins--should be a good time!

Bend

After two years of checking and re-checking the hospital website for open ER jobs, and prowling the internet for examples of crazy travel nurse information, I’m awaiting the start of my first job after Community.  As it is the night before any important occasion, sleep is not coming tonight, regardless of how amazingly comfortable this memory foam pad is on my new air mattress—my bed for the next few months. 

My aunt and I drove over the mountains today, starting in misty, pure Portland weather and ending in eighty-something, sunny high desert.  The mountains had some cloudy clothes on them, but you could still see them, and, most importantly, the sky was blue above where we were as soon as we went through the pass.  It is crazy to me that you can go from rainy-grey mist in the forest up by Mt. Hood down the mountain to a sunny, forested valley that leads to a hot, Utah-esque canyon down by the Deschutes river—and back up again to fields of grass and hay that lead to sagebrush and juniper.  Mountains, snowy and not so snowy, hang out in the background.  Coming from the Midwest, where everywhere is pretty much the same this time of year—hot, humid, with the occasional thunderstorm—this blows my mind.  The thermostat in my car went from 66 degrees to 91 today within the same three hour time span as we drove to Bend.  That was all during the day, too; no night lows involved!

I cannot believe that I am finally here; that I am finally doing this.  I met my roommate today and she is the epitome of who you would want as your roommate.  The house is beautiful.  The area is gorgeous.  The view out of my window is a butte with mountains in the background—to the West, no less, so I see the sunset.  God totally laid this whole adventure out for me.  I am still trying to figure out what it is that made Him give me, a sinner that does a very good job of ruining the good gifts He gives me, this incredible gift.  “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is my favorite hymn, and it sure rings true throughout not just this season, but my entire life.   “All I have needed,” His hands have provided.   It’s not up to me to figure it out; I know this.  How lucky and blessed and GRATEFUL I am to have been granted this request to live my dream, this particular desire of my heart!!

Sunday

After 33 hours, 2200 miles, and very little sleep, Alex and I rolled in to Bend, Oregon at around 1:15 a.m. Saturday morning.  We stayed the night in the Super 8 there before checking out my new house, the hospital where I'll be working, and Pilot Butte restaurant before heading out of town west towards Portland.  It was really great to see the neighborhood.  I had been slightly worried about where I'd be living, but the area is really nice and I don't think I have anything to worry about at all.  I even met one of my neighbors, who also happens to be a nurse!  She's been practicing for a few more decades than me, but she was very friendly.  The hospital was even more beautiful than I remembered.  Something about it that I thought was cool is that there is a plaque by the main entrance letting everyone know that somewhere along the way, this hospital donated a bunch of money to some nuns in Indiana.  Now I'm not the only person or thing reppin' Indiana!

We rolled in to PDX around 5:30 and were so happy to have a place to stay for the night.  Aunt Sherri has been kind enough to give us a bed/couch and I think that I speak for both of us when I say that it was amazing to just sleep and not have to drive anywhere.  Personally, my body is just hurting a lot.  I was rotating Tylenol and Ibuprofen all the way out here from Indy for girl stuff; I'm pretty sure that my back was in a lot of pain that I did not know about until the first time that I didn't need to take anything for cramping.  It's also been a very busy, very hectic week and I've been doing okay holding myself together; now that it's over, I think my body is just falling apart.  I'll be happy to do some running tomorrow after we rest today.

This evening, we are headed downtown to go see a movie at one of the McMenamins theaters before we put Alex on a plane for Indy.  Extra Kudos to a girl who would drive with me all the way out here.  I owe her big time!

From the Road

Alex and I pulled out of her driveway at 7:08 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 30. Mapquest had us following I-74 west over to I-80, rolling on I-80 for about 1000 miles, and then hopping off on I-84 in Utah.  The worst part of the trip was the first part: Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.  We finally got out of Nebraska at 8:30 a.m. Wyoming time.  Speaking as the co-pilot that drove through Nebraska in the middle of the night, Omaha seems like it’s actually a big[ish] city. 

Currently, we are in the middle of the lower part of Idaho.  The countryside is beautiful here; the sky is huge and the ground is very, very green.  I don’t know what the people here are growing (potatoes? I have to ask), but there are lots of sprinklers in the fields.  It’s reminiscent of south Oregon here.

We had anticipated arriving in Portland Saturday afternoon, but we have made killer time and it was more likely that we would arrive at five in the morning, so we are booking it to Bend tonight, spending the night in a hotel there, and heading to Portland tomorrow afternoon as previously planned.  The friend that she is, Alex wants to know where I’ll be living, working, and playing during the next few months. I love that she cares.  It’s really cool to be able to share this town with someone from back home.  Even more so, I can’t wait to share my West Coast family with her.  Hugs from any and all of my little cousins are in my top 10 list of things to hurry up and get to this week.

I cannot believe that I’m actually on this trip.  It hasn’t hit me that this is the drive I’ve been dreaming about for the last six years minimum.  I used to fantasize about getting on 70 West and just going until I hit the Pacific Ocean.  I may not have used I-70 and I’m not going straight to the ocean, but I am “headed off to the West Coast” as the Kenny song says.   “Grab the wheel  and turn it West” from the Miranda Lambert song.  All of my favorites have played once, if not twice, on this drive.