Wannabe Medic

1930: My phone buzzes. It's an e-mail from track. 1931: I try to make sure I am reading it correctly. Having just got home that morning from a night shift, I get as delirious as some of the patients. 1932: I now know something has definitely changed on track. 1938: I give myself a serious talking to, about how if it's a rejection everything will be OK. 1945: Trying to calm myself down achieved nothing. I am having heart palpitations as I whip out the Macbook. 1946: I am suddenly dying for a wee. I try to put it off, but I am seriously on the verge of wetting myself, and how horrid would it be if I was a medical school reject and suddenly incontinent of my urine?! 1948: Back at the laptop post-wee. Shaking and typing. ... ... I scream. Properly scream. A scream that only mom would recognise as a scream of joy. I basically don't bother running down the stairs, but more...aim to fly...as I take the steps 6 at a time. I GOT AN OFFER MOM, I'M IN!!! I MADE IT!!!!! ...

I finally  passed my driving test yesterday. I've had about 100 (yes, I know) lessons, and 3 tests all together, finally I scraped a pass!! Then today I bought my car. I am feeling so  spoilt. And that's all I wanted to say. I am so lucky to have everything I've ever wanted. I am spoilt.

When I think 2014 - unlike any other year ever in my life, the first thing I think is potential.  This year could turn out to be anything, I can go anywhere in the world, I can do anything I like, I am 18 years young and I am so, damn, free . Before, I've had school or college to think about so there wasn't really a great deal of possibility that lay before me. Now I don't have to plan around anything or anyone but me - talk about liberating!! There is a bit of anxiety too, where will I be attending university, what will I be studying, where in the world should I choose to visit, when should I pack the job in, should I even pack the job in, would I like to try working in a different sector? But it's all exciting, because aside the whole university thing, for once - I have total control over my life, and I am totally in love with it. So to other gap-year re-applicants, fall in love with life. Get excited over knowing you have every choice before you right now and you...

Quite frankly I'd rather be at work but HAY. But here's to wishing everyone else a great day filled with lots of goodies, laughs and those moments you'll look back on when you're old and wrinkly.

Sorry guys, prepare yourself for an extremely long post but I promise it ends with a bang (almost literally).  My first nights on this ward were… exhausting, eventful and eye-opening. Don't get me wrong, they don't have to be that bad and actually the work load is much much lighter than the days but throw in a few difficult patients and suddenly the will to live is sapped out of you. Night 1 : I have Charlie (one of my favourite staff nurses) and a student nurse working with me. This first night really showcases how good a shift can be if you have staff of real excellence to work with. I make the tea's, I hand them out, I clear up, I do the toilet checks and care rounds, and then I make a brew and do nothing from 11pm-5am. May be change the bins, obs on any new admissions, keeping the care rounds up to date and a tiny bit of filing here and there - and that's the work bit of it done, aside answering buzzers.  So the next 6 hours consist of the 3 of ...

Shattered isn't the half of it. I've been assured having 3 long days (shift from 0700-1930) all in one go isn't usual - but this was also my 4 day week so I was literally a walking zombie by the time I opened my front door and collapsed on the sofa last night. It's a really strange feeling doing 3 long days together, working with the same 11 patients (they put me at the "heavy end" at the bottom of the ward for all 3 shifts, and there next to no discharges / admissions so it was pretty much the same people). It's like you live parallel to your patients. As they're waking up, you're waking up to go into work to see them. You then spend all day together. As they go to bed, we're heading out of work to go home to bed ourselves. It's really surreal, I can't explain it very well but it's like my life was totally centered around these patients when you do 3 days together. These shifts should have been the one's that made me want t...

I never really had the opportunity to post about resigning from being a HCA in one hospital, to taking up another position as a HCA in another hospital. Sure, I wrote about it happening, what I hoped it would be like and the induction but it was all rather crazy where the UCAS deadline was over, universities would be receiving our UKCAT scores, drips of interview invitations were being sent - and so you sort of missed the bulk of it. A quick catch up: I'd been working at a hospital a good 2.5 hours away (via public transport - only half an hour drive) since July. It was a cardiology ward, I was only 1 of may be 2 individuals that were an under-40's HCA. It was a very small close knit team. 22 beds. I'd handed in my resignation at the beginning of October, and officially started at my local (absolutely humongous) hospital on the 11th of November. My first shifts were a week later and here we are, about a month on. So the first question will be, do you prefer the new plac...