Miss me?

Well the last five months have been quite eventful. I really didn't know what I was getting into - but I am enjoying it.

In case I was vague before, Mrs. Balabusta, having entirely too much time on her hands, changed from Cushy College Health job to Hospital Based Ambulatory Nursing job right around the beginning of this year. To make things more interesting, this is a "float" or as we like to call it "CRU" (clinical resource unit), position, so I can be on several different units in the course of a week, nay a month.

This has been quite demanding on my teeny moth-eaten brain. I have a spiral bound index card thing that I keep in my left skirt pocket right next to my stash of stickers. One card for each unit, these cards have the essentials of each location such as: location; cost center, ext. #, fax #, pager #, voice mail #, clinic manager, door codes, flags and usage, doctors, nurses, clinic assts, etc, etc. I don't get very far without my cards.

I try to park in the same row every day to cut down on time I spend looking for my car. Doesn't always happen though.

I have many funny stories about being the only orthodox nurse in the entire hospital - mostly people just call me "the one in the skirt", but what else is new really?

I enjoy the people I work with, and mostly I enjoy the patients, although there have been a few winners. The doctors though take the cake (You All Know Who You Are): In fact, just for fun, lets see if you can name the specialty I am going to give you a head start and list the clinics I have been in:

• Allergy/Asthma
• Pulmonary
• Renal
• Dialysis
• Orthopedics
• Endocrine
• Neonatal
• Dermatology

And now match the following terms to the above specialties:

• Babysitters
• Rock stars
• Cover People
• the Specialists' Specialist
• Re-Decorators
• Meet and sleep
• Pre-Transplant People
• Report Card docs

The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Mrs Balabusta is back!