First week of Pediatrics...

 I am through my first week of being on a Pediatrics unit!  Phewww!  It is always nerve racking to first few days, so much so that I have a hard time sleeping the night before worried I'm going to miss my alarm to get up on time. My days are LONG.  I get up at 4 am and don't get home until 9 pm.  Those 1 1/2 hours drives down to Tacoma are a killer and leaves me no time to see the kids, exercise, or even breath.  :)  Luckily I have 20 12 hours shifts to worry about this quarter and I am done (18 now).

Week #1 was orientation week for me and my preceptor.  She is a great preceptor and nurse to work side by side with and also graduated 5 years ago from the same school I did. She is also a charge nurse and Pediatric oncology nurse  and chemotherapy licensed so my days will be spend with her on the hemat floors for the most part.  Hemat floors are the cancer or clean floors.  These are floors that can take patients that need chemo, cancer patients, or patient without a infection disease such as bowel resections etc etc. 

I spend my first day going absolutely nuts with her because we had 4 discharges to get ready, running from room to room with kiddos in severe pain from surgeries and cancer patients.  My preceptor and I where the only nurses on from 3-7 pm so we took on our patients plus others.  Very interesting first day.


Day 2 was a little more organized.  My preceptor decided that my first day of chaos was not a good thing for a student preceptoring so we took a step back and oriented again.  :)  She took me through charts and how to do thing things such as discharges, medication administration for kids, and infostructure items.  By the end of day I was giving meds with her by my side and doing assessments throughout the day.   And the end of my day, my preceptor said I was ready to take on 1 patient  completely on my own (with her help of course) and that we would work our way up to a full load with her standing by making sure I did things right.  :) 

Pediatrics feels so rewarding!! To see the babies and toddlers smile while playing peek a boo and seeing children happy because you paid attention to them makes my day.  It is just me.  I so see the pain and all the struggles that family go through while in the hospital because I have been there myself with EJ and AJ.   It is making me a more empathetic nurse.  Once who can play both parts, a healer, a advocate and someone who is paying it forward. 

Now it is time for me to start applying for jobs! I am finishing up my application to the school district (Im already on there sublist, just need to apply) and also will be putting in an application at Seattle Children's hospital as a Pediatric Nurse.  I am also going to look into other options as well. 

Anyways enough babbling.  I will proofread later, I am just dumping now all my thoughts and will organize when I get more time.   I will post again after the end of week 2 on my progress.