Tufted Titmice

It truly isn't that I mind working hard. I don't. I kind of like it, mostly. But the thing about doing too much of it is that it sucks up all your precious time into its ravenous maw. And you don't get to finish reading The Kite Runner* and you don't get to write in your blog. You don't even remember to do all of your IV drip rate calculation homework. (Plus, might I add, your diet is just appalling.)

I've started my new temp assignment. And I have to say, except for that annoying work's-ravenous-maw part, it's really quite excellent. I think a lot of it is probably that it is a health care-related office, and therefore somewhere that I myself might actually truly work. There are a bunch of nurses around (in my particular area, mostly the kind with MBAs or MPAs and wearing pleasantly frumpy suits and sensible, low-heeled pumps), and everybody's all comfortably serious and altruistic and nice and down-to-earth. I really love it. I feel so at home. Temping at the software company was great because the people were welcoming and fun, and I got to spend many of my work hours doing on-line jigsaw puzzles (dreadfully addictive) and reading my e-mail and writing whatever I felt like. But at the new place, I actually belong.

My supervisor, Kerry, feels like a nurse to me, though I don't think she has any clinical background or credential at all. She's an administrative assistant. But she's worked in health care for most of her career (she's probably a couple years younger than I am), and feels absolutely like a peer. I'm afraid I felt so comfortable with her from the moment I met her that on my very first day, I spilled my whole story to her, including the bit about the circumstances under which I left my last job. She seemed to take the story entirely in the spirit it was intended (and, having worked at Famous Hospital, to my mild dismay, was able to identify Patty, the cardiologist with interpersonal difficulties, by my description, although I had been careful not to mention her name).

Basically, I think it was fine, and Kerry has continued to be extremely warm and collegial, but it just makes me think that here I go again, trusting people. It was trusting Allison (on the basis of a lot more contact than I've had with Kerry) that got me into hot water in the first place. Oh, I don't know. I don't want to get all guarded and cynical, either. It wouldn't be worth it. I'd actually rather get burned here and there than close myself off from people I like and intutitively trust. But still. Maybe I could have held off more than an hour with the Patty Surratt story. I mean, you would think.

The other nice thing about this temp placement is that I've been sitting at a desk with a big window overlooking a little marsh ringed by trees--blond dried reeds framed by the branches of some kind of fancy maple with little red leaves and tiny hanging seed helicopters. It's quite beautiful in any weather, almost as striking with heavy dark gray skies behind it as it is with brilliant blue. And there are birds. Lots and lots of birds. Nothing too exotic (I wouldn't be able to identify those, anyway), but a nice, steady stream of cardinals and blue jays and red-winged blackbirds and black-capped chickadees and mourning doves and something black with an irridescent head. Oh, plus big old hawks, circling above the swamp or perched in the big, bare tree on the far side. It is testament to a childhood spent as my father's daughter that when I saw a little gray bird, about the size of a nuthatch, with a crest and a cream-colored belly and a rusty patch under each wing, the words "tufted titmouse" popped into my head seemingly from nowhere. When I looked up a picture online later, sure enough. Those might be my favorites, actually, pretty but not flashy, and all plump and soft-looking. I have to admit I'm not wild about the name, but what are you going to do.

Meanwhile, my exertions as a nurse-refresher student continue. This week was all skills lab. Oh, plus some videos: body mechanics, giving injections, administering oral meds, the use of a thingy called a "Slipp" for moving patients in bed. The first day was super-basic, mostly just taking vitals, but I was so keyed up that it was actually a little bit challenging. I've taken a thousand blood pressures, but suddenly I was all thumbs--put the cuff on inside-out, had the stethoscope head turned the wrong way. And when my partner at one station took my blood pressure, the diastolic was a good 14 points above my usual. Jeez. I did kind of simmer down the second day, though I still forgot to aspirate before administering an IM injection. I'm tremendously grateful to be getting all this anxious craziness out of my system now, with the plastic patients, so that I can be a little more together when I'm finally back to the flesh-and-blood(-and-consciousness) kind.

I'm also glad for all the school-ish parts sprinkled in, so I have regular opportunities to get my confidence back. Calculations, infection control guidelines, the heartrate below which you don't give the digoxin. Phew. No problem. And my favorite classmate, Janet, and I are continuing to bond. She told me a bit more about her 8-year marriage to a controlling creep (he even wanted her to give up her nursing license), and we talked about how impressed we are with people who are really good med-surg nurses, how amazing it would be to be like them.

One of my responsibilities at my new temp job has been typing in comments from patient satisfaction surveys. It's kind of heartening and inspiring to read what some of these people are writing. "Nurse X was just wonderful. She got me through a very difficult time, physically and emotionally." "I can't praise Nurse Y enough. She is everything a nurse should be--knowlegeable, helpful, friendly, funny, skilled..." One couple said they liked their nurse so much they wished they could adopt him. Some are from patients who are nurses themselves saying how impressed they were. The most poignant ones for me are the ones that say "thank you." Like they're so grateful that people are doing their jobs. Anyway, besides making me feel good about the place I'm temping for, it gets me kind of revved up to go out there and GIVE GOOD CARE. If I can just get the head of my stethoscope turned the right way.


* Starts out interesting enough, if slightly good-for-you (in an expose-yourself-to-other-cultures kind of way) and also kind of writers workshoppish (in a hear-pulleys-and-gears-as-key-elements-of-plot-and-characterization-are-set-into-place kind of way), but gets really compelling soon after the Big Bad thing that has been foreshadowed ad nauseam finally happens.