I seem to be having a lot of free time lately. That's partly due to my being a social recluse-- I rarely go out nowadays. The weather is just too humid and hot for me to go out. I'm tired of parties and getting drunk, and meeting and dating random jerks. god, they seem to be growing in numbers. Horrible, isn't it?
So to occupy my free time, I do the easiest and the best thing you have access to when you are alone: think. I think about my life in general, as it is right now, and all the little nuances you usually think about when there is nothing else you wanna do. These are my thoughts:
Here I am, in 2013, withhalf of the year gone, still single as fuck. I'm supposed to be with someone right now doing something else, instead of doing this thinking alone.
My folks are getting impatient-- they are PNG-ing my ass out of the country, want me to work it off, fulfill the mother's profession of choice. What else can I do, aside from keeping my present job, to avoid having to work abroad?
I'm tired of taking calls. I can't imagine my self still taking calls in the next few weeks. God. Nobody told me this call center thing sucks. Like BIGTIME.
What am I living this life for, this mundane existence? What are my accomplishments? I have done things in the past that can be tagged as above average, but nothing exceptional, or phenomenal.
I admit, I miss working in the hospital. Nothing is more fulfilling than taking good care of the precious life that has been entrusted to you. A life in your hands. Very humanitarian, but this is the truth: I miss being a nurse.
Bills. When I decided to part ways from my folks, and live all by myself, nobody told me that there would be a lot of bills to pay for. Damn. I am so tired of bills!
I miss my ex. Not the most recent, but the one before that. Yeah.
When will I muster the courage to talk to my crush?? He's soooo cute. And he looks a lot like my ex. Yes, I never learn.
The only way to really live is to do what's pointless.. yet fulfilling.
I've been pointlessly singing along with my music, been gettin' less than four hours of sleep. This is pointless because in the first place i'm not being productive. Also, i've been daydreaming for like 25 hours a day. how is that even possible? Pointless. I'm still nowhere close to see what the whole point is.
I think sleeping is such a waste of time. It feels good to fall asleep but man does it feel better to be up and about. I don't drink coffee, that icky stuff, I don't do drugs. I'm going to take my Prometric exam the week after the next and what the heck am I doing, awake, and not even answering my Q&A's.
Damn. Actually, I'm beginning to love my new job, no it doesn'n involve catheters and penises, nor lungs or Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Yeah. What the fishh. I got sick of getting assigned to patients who vomit blood like their mouth is some kind of a large blood vessel. Really. But I miss my old job. I had to quit though because it won't do me any good, financially speaking. It wasn't even a real job-- I've been workin' my ass, spending the remains of my savings whoring volunteering my services to that pimp of a hospital just to get an effin certificate of experience. I didn't study and pass the boards just to wipe them asses, thank you very much. You can give that job to the nursing aides, that's their job and they're being paid for that. So quit, I did.
I love my new job. I speak to different Americans who never ran out of questions about their bill. Bills. Bills. Bills! We're on the same boat, Americano, I don't understand your bill as well. I mean, how did those charges get in your bill if you didn't download anything from your smartphone. God, them bills give me terabytic headaches. And my body is getting used to being awake 25 hours a day. Yes, I still think that sleeping is such a big, fat waste of time. But my body needs it and anyway it does real feel good to sleep. But I already said that. Now I need to sleep. Really I don't want to but my body wants otherwise and---
I can not say that I am not horrified with the dire possibility that I'm gonna earn my two years of nursing experience as a lowly volunteer nurse in a government hospital. Yes, you read it correctly. V-o-l-u-n-t-e-e-r. No stipend, no meal allowance whatsoever. Among several nurses, this is the sad scenario that remains unchanged albeit the numerous promising programs of the DOH that supposedly address the continuing proliferation of voluntary service among nurses. The truth is, they're all promises, with little gain, and no long term satisfactory end-result.
Two years of martyrdom. Of being subject to the wrath of deranged, menopausal and characteristically senile co-workers and clients who are just so good at anger displacement. Of controlling my temper every time these know-it-all doctors and nurses insinuate that I don't know anything, and that I should do exactly as they say. Of course, I have lost my temper quite a few times. Bitchy when provoked, I have absolutely zero tolerance and patience for egotism and deliberate cruelty. Though, of course, experience taught me to better shut up. Let ‘em do the yakking. Talk is cheap anyway. Fifteen minutes of deep breathing while mentally kicking them in the face works mighty fine to restore my BP to its normal hypotensive state. It's fortunate that nobody can meddle with the inside of my mind. Really.
Two years. Boy do I feel like a student again, begging for allowance from the Folks.
I am no Florence Nightingale. Hardly. I still haven't got it down, dunno when or if I ever will! But my qualifications are not inadequate as to be considered substandard. As a nurse, the problem I am constantly waging against is complacency.
Complacency. It's when we've become too comfortable with what we're doing, too satisfied, too obsolete, closing the door to improvement.. Worst of the worst, unaware of all these. It, I think, is the reason why some nurses I know are content to stay forever at a specific area, never having tried working at all the other areas. It is also the reason why some nurses keep on doing what they are so used to, insisting on an ancient evidence-based-practice-gone-obsolete without ever giving a try to a modern, accepted, and more efficient one. The problem these nurses face is stagnancy, and worse, mediocrity. What's wrong with trying? Trying is stepping outside, venturing outside what is known, and sometimes trying just might lead us to where we really wanna be. Trying stops complacency in its tracks.
So try, I did. So far I had myself assigned at the outpatient department, and all the different wards. Of course, I'm hoping to get exposed to the special areas-- the intensive care unit, operating room, emergency room, dialysis unit, etc. Soon, I hope. I learned lots of stuff that I wouldn't possibly have inside the classroom, and trust me, it's been no easy A. Whereas inside the classroom, your 'patient' your seatmate or a dummy (thank God not a cadaver), in the clinical setting, it is a real person fighting a very personal battle in life.
Approaching the seventh month of my training, I have contemplated that I still have a lot to learn. No matter. The way it looks, it's somewhere between getting the training and getting paid to do it. I still have to put in more time and work to obliterate every trace of mediocrity, paving my way into the very heft of my profession.
Then, the so-called dues-paying would be over. Or so I hope.
For most of the day, me and my good friend, Twain, were visiting nurses @ the Missionaries of Charity Home of Peace. I had my on the job training there, about fifteen months ago, when I was still a nursing student. Its, like, a nursing home. There was a pediatrics ward and an adult ward.
Some of the patients were ill-- polio-stricken limbs, hydrocephalus, autism, ADHD, cleft lip/palate, oh i can't mention everything here. Some weren't sick at all, just abandoned by their families. Sad.. ):
All day, me and Twain cared for these patients, dressed them, fed them, had them take their meds, checked their IV solutions, wiped their faces of dirt, muck, or saliva. The physical part, its not that hard to accomplish.. But the emotional part, well.. it was tough to display a strong and cheerful facade when you can feel the air drained out of hope, happiness and contentment. The abandoned mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, the only gift they want is to see their loved-ones again, hug them for real, kiss them for real.
I'm not a trying to be a saint or something, I just think, its a good idea to past your time caring for the sick, the abandoned, rather than passing your time at home, idly. I really had a nice time chatting with them, hugging them, just make them feel they're cared for and loved.
Picture taking is not allowed thats why I can't post the pics here with the patients but me and Twain did take pictures of us while inside the home. I will post the photos here soon, not now, the photos are at Twain's cam.
And then I did a little research on the web and stumbling upon Caaro's site, I found these:
Wheelchairs donated by Caaro
Her name is Jona, 9 y/o, she had polio-stricken limbs..
Little Marvin (because there was a big Marvin..) who had a cleft palate repair..
