Job Shadowing - Chapter 2/Chapter 3
Soo, I haven't been on here for ages; so sorry if you were all waiting in dreadful suspense for the next installations of my job shadowing!!
On Thursday when I got to the hospital I went straight to ICU, and I helped serve breakfast, which was well...more waitress than nurse, but it's all part of the job right!? Lol, so anyways, after that I helped one of the other nurses give one of the patients a bath.
She was like 'do you want to help me, just so you can see how we do it when they're sedated?...But don't worry, I'll do...that part' So I helped out with that, then the Charge Nurse, Jaques, thought I hwas bored, so he offered to take me to...*drum roll*...The Operation room! I got to watch them take a superficial vien out of this guy's leg.The doctor doing was really nice and explained everything to me as he went along. I didn't get to see the very end though, because Jaques came looking for me because it was quarter to one, and I hadn't eaten lunch yet. Belgians are NOT big on missing meals, or eating late. Even at work they stop at 10.00 for coffee, just like we have recess at school (yes, still in 'High School')at 10.00.
So anyways, in the after noon I hung out in the ICU for most of the time, I did go to Pediatrics for about a half hour and hung out with Simone, but she had nothing to do, so I went back to the ICU. Jaques was trying all afer noon and all day friday to get me into Maternity to see a birth, but they already had 6 people job shadowing in Maternity, so there quite literally wasn't room for me.
On Friday morning I brought in Peanut Butter cookies that I made Thursday night for the ICU, and a Canada postcard I worte a thank you note on. Most people in Belgium like peanut butter, but its not something that anyone I knows eats, so peanut butter cookies were kind of, a specialty. But they loved them, naturally. And Jaques told me my note almost made him cry, he was joking obviously, but I go to school wit hhis daughter, and she told me that he absolutly loved having me there, and loved the note, and that I did an amazing job! :D
After we ate about half the cookies...Jaques took me to Emergency, and one of the people there was super nice and he took me around and showed and explained everything to me, he even took all the stuff out of one of the ambulances and showed me everything. I hung out there for about 45 minutes, but I literally stood around with nothing to do, because noone came in, noone left, they didn't get any calls for the ambulance, so I was just like 'well...thanks, but I'm going to head back to the ICU...' So, it was good that I got to see everything, but it was kinda boring.
At lunch I ate in the cafeteria with another girl who was doing a job shadowing thing in the ICU too, but she was in her last year of her nursing program at Uni. She was really nice, and all the time I was in the ICU on Friday I hung around with her because she took more time to explain things that she was doing to me.
Friday after noon I did get to see 2 pretty cool things though. The first was that one of the patients had an infection, but they couldn't figure out what, so they took blood from his sternum (the bone in the middle of your chest) to do tests on. It was slightly creepy at to see how much force the doctor was using to push this HUGE needle into his chest though. It was neat though, because none of the nurses in the ICU had ever even seen it been done before.
The second thing was that I got to watch them put a catheder into a patients arm who had just been admitted that day.
It was really sad to leave on Friday, because I LOVED it, but I'm really psyched because now I know for sure that that is what I want to do! I don't know what, like, unit or anything, but I know that I want to work with Doctors Without Borders (http://www.msf.ca). The U of C's nursing website isn't great (and the U of A's is even worse), but I know I have to upgrade my Science and my Math, and that will take at least 5 months after I get back, so I'll have loads of time to go and get panphlets or whatever from the U of C & the U of A, which are really they only 2 univesities I'd want to go to because then I won't have to pay for a dorm.
EEEK.
In other news, I cut all my hair off yesterday! Yepppp...its super short now, see :
I think I like it, I like my bangs...alot, the rest is a bit too short I think, but my hair grows pretty fast, so I don't really care!
Oh, and I went to Carnival on Sunday and Tuesday (Tuesday was...Mardi Gras!!!!), it was SO MUCH FUN. I loved it!! Thankfully Bailey and I left around 10 on Tuesday though, because at abour 11.30 someone was killed. Noone here seemed really shocked about it though, but they have huge outdoor all-weekend concerts here all throughout the summer, and there is usually someone who dies at them, and usually someone gets killed at Carnival every year. Thats one of the big differences between Europe and North America, like, could you imagine if someone was just randomly killed at Stampede? That would be such a huge deal, but everything here just went on like normal. Wierd.
I think thats all for now though! à bien tot!
Job Shadowing - Chapter 1
Bahahaha, I beat the system. My computer (being old and slow) wouldn't load the blogger sign-in page, but it will load EVERYOTHER PAGE ON THE FREAKING INTERNET, so I went onto my friend Ash's blog, commented (which requires you to sign in) then clicked on the link from her page to mine, and if you are logged in, and on your own page, there's a link to directly go to the page to write a new entry. I'm brilliant, what can I say?
Umm, sooo anyways, Yay, job shadowing!
Soo, I got to the hospital at 7.50, and the lady had told me 'I'll wait for you in the lobby at 8.00' so at 8.30 I went to infomation and got them to call her office, she didn't remember who I was until she came down and saw me. Good start hey? Luckily, the rest of my day was much better.
She went and got me a uniform (which I'm going to try to keep, cause obviously its insanley comfy, and an amazing souvenir) and then took me of to...what I am directly translating because I don't know if this is the name in english or not...Day Hospital. So, I hung out with the 2 nice nurses there and watched them do 50 billion blood samples, and watched them give the meds for all the people coming in for Chemo. They wanted to let me help, but they didn't know if I was allowed or not. But they did think I was bored, so they sent me off with another nurse to Internal Medicine, which was just down the hall, and I got to watch 2 colonoscopies, and 2 gastro...gastroscopies? (not sure how to spell that one in English) anyways, where they go down your throat with the camera, and then in one of them the did a biopsy as well.
The Day Hospital is closed in the afernoon though, and noone knew where I was supposed to go, and they tried calling the lady that is in chrge of all the nurses, but she had left, so they were like 'you can just go home' so I was all upset, but luckily, while I was changing one of the nurses from Oncology came and found me and said the boss lady called and said I could go to the ICU for the rest of the day even though I wasn't supposed to go till tomorrow!!
So, one of the nurses from Oncology took me to the ICU and I just kind of hung around with nothing to do for a bit, and I was like, this kind of sucks, so I just picked one of the nurses and followed her around, but she turned out to be really nice, so that worked out well. And at about 1.30 we all ate lunch together and once they got to talk to me a bit more they were all much more willing to show me stuff they were doing.
The nurse that is in charge of the ICU kind of took me around everywhere with him, I think he liked me because I'm at school with his daughter, and he's quite upset that she's off doing her job shadowing in a school, not a hospital, I might be wrong, but he was really happy that I was there, and kept telling me that I chose the most beautiful profession that exists.
One of the guys in the ICU was there because he had had something wrong with his lungs, and they had to put him to sleep for 30 days to fix it, and now, because he hadn't moved (more or less) for 30 days all his muscles 'melted' (thats how they explained it to me, my Mom just told me the real name for it, it starts with an A but I don't remember) and so he cant really move, and soooo he has this masive bed sore on his tail bone and while I was there today they had some doctors in there to look at it and I was kind of standing in the doorway because the other nurses that were there kept telling me not to look because it wasn't pretty and asking me if I was Ok, but once evreyone else left the nurse guy that's in ccharge (Jaques) was like 'if you really are going to be a nurse, then you're going to see this, and worse, in school next year, so you can come look if you want' And the only thing that I was really worried about about my idea of being a nurse was that I'd never seen anything like that in real life, and so I didn't really know if I could handle it or not, so I was like 'well why not, better to find out now than after I've paid thousands for uni, this is what I'm here for' so I went over and it was like, this crater in his back, and it was all green and icky...BUT...I was totaly fine! LIke, it didn't bother me at all, I was so proud of myself!!!
So, I'm going back to the ICU tomorrow, and Jaques will be there, and he told me that he would make sure that tomorrow was more fun for me, so I'm pretty excited. Noone told me today what time I had to leave at, so I was like, well, I'll just leave at 4, thats 8 hours, and it's like a school day, but at 4 I was like...I don't want to leave!!!!! So I stayed till 5! Can't wait for tomorrow!
I'm going to bed now, Im so tired, I haven't acually been to a day at work since August, that's sad. I miss having a job though, so this is pretty great!
Good niiiiiight!!
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
Me
Job Shadowing - Preface
Tomorrow I start my super cool Job Shadowing à le Clinique de Lobbes (Lobbes being my....village). For those of you who don't know, I've LOOOOOOONG abandoned the idea of being a Lawyer, it's lame. And ever since I got here EVERYONE has been asking me what I want to do with my life, and I had NO IDEA. But I think it may be cool to be a nurse, and just oh so convienently my school was like 'you can all take the 14,15,16 the of February off and go Job Shadow!' so I sent a letter and my wonderful resume with all my Canadian jobs and I got it! So, tomorrow I start (wish me luck) and I'll be in Oncology, Thursday I'll be in the ICU, and friday I can either pick whichever of the 2 I liked the best or I can pick a different unit all together. Pretty cool hey??
I'll try my best to get on the computer every day and give y'all a summary of my day!
Happy Birthday Cathy!!!!!!
Soo, Thursday I pent the night with my H-Sis at Uni. Let me say, I'm happy that I'll be living at home when I go to Uni after I saw the state of her cot. But I guess I shouldn't blame her, she does live with 3 BOYS.
Anyways, we had a good time, and I met some more of her friends, who I get along better with than the kids at school cause they're closer to my age. I'm going there again March 1st.
Today was my H-Mom's birthday!!! We went out for lunch at this fancy french resto. For dessert I had Créme Brulée with raspberries in it. Yummmmmm. I gave her a Canada mug, a Canada T-shirt, and an Alberta keychain, I think she really liked them.
Tomorrow I'm going to teach English again with the Speak Academy, should be fun. I really liked it last time, and the organiser guy said that the kids at this school are even more outgoing and willing to talk in English than the kids at the last school. We're going to watch American History X, which I've acually never seen, so that will be good too. Last time we watched Swing Kids, which I love, but I'd seen it before. I guess it was good though, because lat time I got lost in Flanders (ie. EVERYTHING IN DUTCH) getting there and was 1/2 hr late. This time it's alot closer to where I live, so I'm not worried.
OMG, I don't know if I told you guys or not, but IT SNOWED. January 26th...its nowed for the 1st time alllllllll winter. Ok, so it melted when it hit the ground, but it still snowed and I still ran outside at the end of school and yelled...ITS SNOWING!!!' (in french....soooo....'IL NEIGE!!!!!!!!!!') then...Simone, the brazillian made fun of me,and so did my little h-bro. Cause I was like 'I'm home!' Hahahahaha, *sich* if only it had been here for Christmas.
Kay, Im staaaaarving, I'm going to eat! Until next time. Ciao!
