TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

We are currently readjusting to our first week in Eugene, Oregon. The first week and the last week of an assignment are always the hardest. We now feel a little more adjusted and are really enjoying it.

Are you a morning person, or a night owl? How do you start your day? Do you wake up a half hour before your shift? I used to wake up 20 minutes before I needed to leave for work at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, and get a coffee on the road. I didn’t have a good routine, and my morning felt very rushed. I decided I needed to get out of this habit. We started working out before work. This promoted a good healthy lifestyle. Along with doing this, I started a morning reset recently. Do you have a morning reset? I started a morning podcast that helps with a morning reset. The podcast is called The Morning Nudge, and starts with a breathing exercise to help clear your mind, and start your day with a clear head. The breathing techniques are used to help combat anxiety, anger management, and help start the day with a general good happy feeling. After the breathing technique she gives a little tip to reminder for the rest of the day.  Along with working out every morning, I feel like this has helped me with my morning reset! Do you have a morning reset? 

Nick’s interesting fact is kind of fun. He decided he wanted to continue to share even though we are not driving anymore. He’s still a big part of our travel and my travel nursing. In a recent podcast we were listening to on our drive to Oregon, they were discussing number songs of your birthday. Coincidentally, we both have a Whitney Houston song. Nicks is I Wanna Dance With Somebody,  and mine is  I Will Always Love You. What’s your number one song on your birthday?

I never knew if I should start with travel nursing, exploring, or our current living situation. I’ll start with travel nursing. The first day is always the hardest. I typically get one day of orientation. This day is where I learn how to page the doctors, where things are, and how their hospital is run. I have been a nurse for over 7 years, so I don’t need any basic nursing tips… just really tips on the particular hospital at this point. The unfortunate stereotype of travel nurses is that we are stupid, and we are brand new nurses. The only day of orientation I had was awful at this assignment. The nurse was a new grad, and she acted like I was a complete idiot,  and I  had only been a nurse for a minute. She asked if I’ve seen a discharge summary, if I’ve discharged a patient, told me what a typical day as a nurse entails, and how to give an sbar report (She also proceeded to interrupt me the entire time I gave report to the oncoming shift).  More details to come on this adventure, but it’s very insulting. The hospital I’m working at seems like a great place to work. Honestly, it seems like the best hospital I’ve worked at so far. It terms of staffing, supplies, safe ratios, the way they treat nurses, and safety. The downfall is definitely the scheduling. They wanted someone that was willing to work 4, 12 hour shifts. When I applied for the contract, I asked if 36 hours was available and they told me that they preferred 48 hours. Nick and I decided that I would work 48 hours and we would make the best of my days off. Fortunately, Nick travels with me and is willing to do a lot of the house work and some of the grocery shopping. This helps a lot, which takes a little bit of the load off me. I typically ask in my contract to work every other weekend, but with working 48 hours a week, I knew this wouldn’t be possible. They unfortunately scheduled me a decent amount of weekends in February, but in March and April it seems reasonable. When I approached the manager, she explained that it’s because the hospital is a union hospital, and they have the travelers fill in the gaps. I told her I understood, and explained that Nick worked Monday through Friday and I would like to try to get at least one full weekend. She made this work for me, which honestly I was really excited about and was impressed. A lot of the time as a traveler, the managers don’t need to adjust our schedules. It’s really their discretion. This was super nice of her. Let’s talk about some pros of this new travel gig so far.

• Actually getting a covered break: This doesn’t typically happen at a lot of assignments. I just worked four in a row, and feel more rested than I did working one shift at my past other contracts. The break nurse helps with covering breaks, and makes sure the nurse on break doesn’t fall behind by helping pass meds, and taking care of tasks at hand. 
• Adequate supplies: I haven’t run into any issues with finding supplies. I’ve called for supplies and they have come immediately. 
• Safe patio ratios: 1:4 1:5 on max on med surg/ med tele on day shift. The charge nurse looks up the patient to make sure the patient is appropriate. I have had all appropriate patients so far this week. I hope the streak continues! 
• Supplied N95 masks: other facilities don’t supply nurses that want to wear a n95 100% of the time. This hospital allows nurses to wear whatever mask that makes them feel comfortable. K95, surgical masks, and N95 masks are available. I was fit tested the first day. 

I’m curious if I will continue to have such a good experience at this hospital for the next 12 weeks. My fingers are crossed!  ( I typically don’t disclose the hospital name until I finish the assignment)

Alright, so let’s discuss our cohousing experience. This is a lot of stimuli that we didn’t really expect. Like I previously said, Nick and I usually go to an assignment and go unnoticed. We are definitely noticed and we feel almost awkward at times. The people in the community are really nice, friendly, and have been really welcoming. A lot of people in the community are retired, work part time, or volunteer. There’s only a few individuals, like ourselves, that have a full time job.  They have optional community dinners three times a week that everyone is welcome to. Nick and I attended another one this past week.  This week they had everyone contribute five dollars for dinner. We arrived when dinner was made. The community dining room consists of 8, 10 feet long tables that people can enjoy dinner at. The dinner conversations vary, from people’s interests to people’s work. People are very interested in why we chose to travel nurse, and how we do this. Unfortunately, everyone seems very nice, but we don’t feel like we have much in common with the majority of the people who live in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same interests and hobbies as a lot of these individuals. Nick and I feel that we don’t have many conversation starters besides travels and work because of varying interests and hobbies. We think it’s a good experience to learn different things in the world, but it can be hard when there’s no common ground to start on. I do have to say… sometimes things feel out of obligation. On Wednesday afternoon, the third person asked, “Are you coming to dinner tonight?”.  We know it’s out of kindness and unaware of prior conversations with others, but it does get old when it happens three times a week. We have mentioned to our landlord that I do work 4, 12’s a week, and we do enjoy a good date night. The kicker is, the landlord started inviting us to the weekly condominium meetings. I understand they are trying to make us feel involved and welcomed, but I really wanna say to them, “I’m here for 12 weeks. I’m renting. My days off should be for exploring.” Instead, I have to make a pleasant excuse of why I can’t go. Sometimes people just need a little reminder. Unlike the rest of the crowd, we don’t make this a priority, if it fits in with our weekly plan… that’s great!  We’ll let you know how cohousing goes and if we feel a little less awkward.

In terms of exploring, I was able to explore Cottage Grove, Oregon. Nick works Monday through Friday, so I often have to find things to do during the week. Cottage Grove is known to be the capital of covered bridges of the west. I was able to explore the six covered bridges in the area. Check out some photos from my adventure and the map I followed. 

Next week, we are going to a lakers game and I have the weekend off, so we are going to do a lot of exploring! Catch my blog next week on some of our exploring. I’ll also be discussing my biggest Icks of nursing and the stereotypes of travel nurses.