I went through a lot of changes since I first started my blog. From Frum College Girl to Frum College Woman (because you automatically become an adult when you get married), and then to frum college mother. When I last blogged I was frum graduate girl, looking to the future and wondering what it would hold.  It's been over a year, but the next chapter in my career has begun. I am now an employed nurse. 

It's funny how life has a way of turning out in ways you weren't expecting in really hoped to get a job in a hospital and eventually work in the emergency department. But getting into a hospital was harder than I imagined it would be. Even moving (and taking my mother's only grandson away from her) didn't help much. So I readjusted my expectations and just when I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever find a job, I found a long term home healthcare agency looking to hire nurses. They were hesitant about hiring me as I have no experience, but it must have been my overwhelming charm that won them over. Or the fact that they're looking to hire. Either way, I started orientation here a week ago, and after waiting for human resources to determine that I'm medically fit and don't have an incriminating criminal record, I'm ready to go and visit patients, with a preceptor. It will be slow going at first, until I get then hang of all the paperwork, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I think the end has come for my blog.


Besides for the obvious reason-I don't blog anymore-if I did continue blogging I'd probably have to change my name from FCG to FGG.

I'm finally graduating :)

It's been a long road and I've come a long way from my first day when I didn't even know the difference between sodium chloride and normal saline. Along the way I've learned about more diseases than I knew my brain could hold, given dozens of injections, administered medications, inserted foleys, cleaned gangrenous diabetic foot wounds, watched a c-section, a PICC line insertion, a cardiac catheterization, and laparoscopic cystectomy, did a shift in the NICU, the ER, OR, cardiac unit, pediatrics floor. I've spent countless hours reading, studying, written papers and essays on everything from nursing management to cultural awareness. I've ingested a lifetime's supply of caffeine, made a dozen friendships along the way, and now it's finally drawing to a close.

Of course I'll be going on to take the NCLEX exam and then go for my BSN and then hopefully a masters, but for now I've come to the end of an era. For those of you who have stuck by my side with your endless support,I thank you, and know that I would not have made it without your encouraging words. I look forward to the next stage in my career.


FCG

While every summer there are kids who come very often, there's always that one kid who manages to come up with the stupidest excuses. This summer that kid is a boy going into sixth grade. He once got a bee sting on his lip which blew up so now he thinks he may be allergic to bee stings. So every time he thinks he may have gotten stung he comes rushing into the office so we can tell him that he's fine. The latest was when he was convinced he'd gotten stung on the back of his neck when it was just his tag rubbing against his neck. But the latest incident takes the cake. There was a bubble machine in camp one day last week. It was a big inflated pool that had a machine blowing large quantities if bubbles out for the kids to jump in. In the middle of this activity the boy came in

"My friend pushed me down and forced me to swallow two bubbles and I saw on the side if the pool it says that you shouldn't eat the stuff and if you do you should seek medical attention immediately so I'm here"

We gave him a cup of water and sent him back.

Little kids have a habit of volunteering way too much information. Not in a gross-I-didn't-need-to-know-that-kind of way, but in a way that makes you want to interrupt their story to tell them to get to the point already.

A seven year old was brought to the infirmary with a sting. In order to make sure the kid wasn't reacting to the sting, I asked him to tell me how he got the sting. "so I s standing in the pool area next to Pool One. No actually it was Pool Two. I was really closer to Pool One but I was walking to Pool Two to go swimming. Not the really shallow pool. That's Pool Three. And i was facing the green tent. I was looking at the purple sign hanging up....."

So cute.

Sometimes it's less than cute.

There's a junior counselor who talks like that too. When he brought a camper in who'd hurt his shoulder it took a full two minutes for him to get to the part about the shoulder. "he had the ball and he was trying to dunk so he jumped up with his arms outstretched like this, (at this point the jc demonstrated for me) and when he came down his foot was like this, (another demonstration) and then he landed on his shoulder"

A simple "he fell on his shoulder" would have sufficed

Then there was the camper who simply did not stop talking. To be honest, I'm not sure why he was even brought in in the first place. He was complaining that it had been very hot in his apartment that morning. But the boys' bunkhouses are air-conditioned. In any event,he sat here for a bit to cool off and then waited for his counselor to come pick him up. Since it was the beginning of the day it took awhile for the division head to send someone to come collect him. So he sat for fifteen minutes talking non-stop. About absolutely everything and nothing at all. About his breakfast that morning and the air conditioner in his apartment and his recent wii score and I'm not sure what else because I sort of tuned him out at that point. Thankfully he left before he drove us all mad.


Sent from my iPad

Working in a nurse's office means hoping for a boring summer. We're the only part of the camp that hopes that we sit around all day with nothing to do.

Today was definitely not that kind of day.

One of the camp buses had a little fender-bender on its way to camp this morning. Thankfully everyone was OK, but as per the camp's policy we had to check all the kids to make sure there weren't any problems. So the entire group piled into the little nurse's office. It had been a mini bus and a few kids were not coming to camp so there were only about thirteen kids and three staff members. We gave them each a mini checkup and handed out bags of chips and powerade to the kids to keep them quiet while the nurse called their parents. It's kind of difficult to keep thirteen kids (mostly boys) quiet when they're hyped up about "getting into an accident" of course The Nit Lady was here too, huddled over the phone and glaring at the kids. Add that to a camper who split his finger open on a metal gate, and a pair of siblings with matching nosebleeds, and it was total chaos. With the help of two counselors and a division head who can whistle REALLY loudly we managed to call all the parents, staunch the flowing of blood, and bandage up the bleeding finger so he could get into his moms car to go to the doctor without staining her seats.

And that was only in the first hour of camp. The office door has been revolving non-stop all day. But thankfully nothing too serious.

Nothing some powerade, a handful of pretzels and some TLC can't fix

I have to issue a warning that this post is not for those readers who are squeamish or faint-hearted (*cough* FBB)

There's a woman who works in the camp. Well I'm sure she has a name but in camp she's referred to as The Nit Lady. She checks the heads of all campers entering camp. Almost every week she finds a "case" as she likes to call them. When that happens she brings the child to the nurse's office and plunks them down in the back of the office. I wish she would give them something to cover their heads. The children are often young and don't understand that if they actually have lice, they can jump from one head to another. Call me irrational but I'm terrified of getting lice or nits. She then proceeds to tie up the phone line for twenty minutes while she chats with the parent and explains the while life and birth cycle of her little friends. She even pulls them out and tapes them to a piece of paper to send them home with the camper. I'm not kidding. It's almost like she actually likes these pests. When we see her trudging up the hill with a camper in tow we send a message to the main office that we need to take any incoming calls at the main office because she's going to be on the phone for awhile.

Shudder.

Blogging regularly was on my list of things to do this summer. Unfortunately our laptop screen is currently out of commission because mr. Fcg stepped on it. Which is a story in of itself. I was searching for an app that would allow me to blog from my iPad. Thanks to blobby I found one.

So I'm back in the same day camp I worked at last summer. A lot of the staff are back as well. It was funny to see the counselors and jc's, some have gotten taller, some lost weight, some put on weight. When the campers need over the counter medication we need to get a prescription from the physician. When a staff needs medication, like Tylenol or Advil we need to obtain parental consent if they are under sixteen. The girls' staff members usually whip out their cellphones and call they're moms who are more than happy to give them permission to take the medication. Anything to prevent their daughters from coming home grumpy. But when the boys' staff comes in for advil and I tell them I need to talk to their moms, all of a sudden they don't have such a bad headache. I feel like telling them not to be so macho and just call their moms. But I guess to a fifteen-year-old boy the worst thing is admitting you still need Mommy. One of the many differences between guys and girls.