Weekend of Work

I realize that the last few posts have been focused mainly around working for me. To be quite honest, its all I've really been up to since George has been away, so bear with me. Additionally, I've also been more "career-active" lately because I've finally had the opportunity to attempt a few certifications. Last weekend, I became ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) certified. I've only been trying all year to accomplish this and have had some obstacles with scheduling and other conflicts, so I was thankful it finally worked out. This is especially useful because our unit rotates "Code Call" (code blue: when a person is in cardiac or respiratory arrest) with the cardiac intensive care unit, and technically, you're not supposed to go unless you're certified. So now I'm official.

The other opportunity I took advantage of was attending a CCRN review course. CCRN is a certification for critical care nurses that is sponsored by the American Association of Critical-care Nurses (AACN). It was something I'd been considering, but sitting in the classroom for two 8 hour days of lecture isn't very appealing when you work the night shift and would struggle to stay awake. Now all I have to do is take the test. There's a little question as to whether I'm eligible or not (I have the appropriate number of contact hours, but its unclear as to whether they would consider eligibility for a nurse that has only a year + of experience). Apparently, they want a minimum of two years experience. Oh well, it was certainly a good review, regardless.

Don't worry, I did inform the woman organizing the class session that it would probably be wise to put that information in the brochure, as paying a fee for the class, sitting through two days of lecture, and getting a "pass-guarantee within 90 days" from the company that hosts the seminar is a little irritating if one is not eligible to sit for the exam.

One last remark for this post, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. I worked a "double" on Saturday to alleviate some short staffing on the night shift (meaning, I worked from 7am to 11pm - staying over my shift for 4 hours for a grand total of 16 hrs) with the caveat that I would turn around and come back Sunday at 11am to stay until 7 pm. Unfortunately, no matter how smooth my day was on Saturday, my legs and body disagreed with this schedule the next day. Oh the aches and pains! So I won't be doing that again, as I simply don't have access to good pain relief in my pregnancy state (I don't care what the commercials say, extra strength tylenol leaves much to be desired!).