Only six weeks to go!
So we can start the count down! Six more weeks and we will be half way to Tanzania! Probably somewhere in the air over Europe. I got my vaccinations last weekend and yikes. I don’t like shots. Imagine that, being a nurse and not liking shots. Don’t like giving them either…. Right now, we are just waiting to go. Not a lot more to do, just counting down the days. And wondering what to bring and what it will be like. We had a meeting last week and it looks like we have a lot of work to once we get there. It seems the nurses there need to understand how much of a difference they make and how important they are for patient outcome, so hopefully we can help them to see how great they are without being arrogant. Because, boy, nurses are good at that! We are the best at eating our young, even though the young may be an older experienced nurse… Believe me, experienced this when coming from a long career as a pediatric nurse to the ER I work now. Luckily there where nurses that were nice to me and I did have all these years as an RN behind me, but there where many days in the beginning that I went home in tears because how I was treated. Unfortunately this continues to happen, not only where I work but all over hospitals. I still have not figured out why. Maybe because there are too many women in the same place and all those hormones just clash? Someone PMS-ing at some point? Which is been an excuse for a lot of women, and a convenient one it seems. Or maybe I have been lucky so far and my ‘PMS’ has always been to clean and maybe be sad and lay on the couch and watch a chick flick and bawl my eyes out for 5 minutes. When I’m in a bad mood, I’m just in a bad mood. No excuse, just bitchy….
Anyway, Ginny and I have to see what needs to be done once we get there. It is going to be a long-term plan, so we’ll start slow.
I’m also waiting to hear back from the CEO and Medical Director of the hospital. Since I’m part of the furniture there, having been here for 16 years, I have plenty of vacation time. However, my cohort Ginny has not. So I wrote a letter last week to see if I can donate time to her so she does not have to take leave without pay. SInce my hospital has the rule that you can only donate when there is a ‘devastating event’, they will not let you donate for maternity leave (what for me in itself would be devastating if I would need that haha) or something like this, going on a medical mission. So, being who I am, something for me to try to change 
Because this is a great cause with possible positive PR for the hospital. And that is always a good thing.
For my friends in the Netherlands, let me explain the time off system here in the US. Instead of getting time at the beginning of the year you have to ‘earn’ it. You will get hours every month that accumulate. This is called ‘PTO’ or ‘paid time off’. When you are sick, time is taken from that. When you go on vacation, time comes out of this too. You also accumulate a couple of hours of ‘ESL’, or ‘extended sick leave’. This is when you are sick for more than 24 hours or for maternity leave. Your ESL will then kick in, and hopefully you will have some available. As I said, I’ve worked here long enough to have enough hours and do not have to worry about it. So somewhat (…) different than our system in the Netherlands, and I know it is hard to imagine this way, but when you live here this long, you do get used to it. It just takes some planning and getting used to.
Anyway, time to try to relax and let the brain get some beach time-) Time flies and it’s too early to stress out just yet.
