Mental Stress

Finally a day off! You don't know how excited I was for this day to come.

The last couple of weeks have been madness at work. It just seems that the longer you stay at one place, the more busier things get. It's not the same as before and it's not "easy" as before. At least that's how I feel.

They have trained me to be in charge of the unit, and let's just say it is tough. I knew it would be a lot of work for the in-charge, but this was just beyond ridiculous.

From the perspective of those who may think they know but they really don't, they assume the in-charge sits behind the desk all day, doing paperwork. So the paperwork should be easy to do in 8 hours, while the rest of the unit is busy running up and down the hallways, trying to attend to patients or give treatment etc. It makes it look like the in-charge is way easier to do versus being on the unit with 3 patients.

In reality? It's definitely not the case. Especially on day shifts!

It sounds easy trying to prepare the patient and staff assignment for the next day: go through the list, make sure everyone is on the list, assign staff to the patients, and done! Sounds easy right?

What people don't know is that in between those 8 hours, there is a phone call every minute or so, interrupting my chance to get my paperwork done. Maybe I'm still new to this, but it does get very annoying and distracting with phone calls ringing every 30 seconds. At least half the time, the phone calls are for me. So over half the time on my shift, I am on the phone with someone.

Then there are staff who come up to me to complain about assignment workload or what not, and then it takes time to figure out how to balance it out. Which takes time away from what I should be doing: tomorrow's assignment.

Transcribing doctor orders over the phone is also another common occurrence. The communication between doctors and I have to be accurate and carried out accordingly for the client.

Of course there are situations that can throw you off for the entire day: if someone doesn't show up for their treatment, if someone refuses to have their treatment etc. Their absence opens up a spot for other candidates. You don't have much time to think before you have to pull someone else to that empty spot to get the entire program flowing for the day. The goal is to not have any empty spots in the day time, in case something happens in the evening and they need a spot.

The worst is when you have a code happening on shift. As charge, you have to take charge and delegate to your staff on what to do. That's the scariest part. Having to do that, as well as trying to revive someone back to life. It's a lot of stress.

My pet peeve with this is having the evening charge come up and ask why so and so such thing wasn't done. I should've had time since I had extra staff on days. I just wish they were in my shoes to experience what I deal with on a daily basis.

I've learned a few things in my short time being at the desk:

1) People think I know everything so they come up and ask a billion questions. Of course if I don't know, I'd ask someone else. But that's the general attitude, especially from the newer staff.

2) There will always be that one person who looks at me as competition and will try to boss me around. In every place you go, there is always going to be that one bad apple.

3) Priority. A lot of things that happen on the unit is all based on prioritizing what's more important.

4) Flow. It's all about the flow of the unit. The goal is to keep it flowing and not stop.

5) Goals. There are a few but the big ones are that a) aiming to get as many treatments done in the day time versus evening, due to less staff being on evenings b) creating empty spots in evening or "float" staff in case an emergency occurs.

6) Reading and filtering over 500+ names is not easy. After a while, everyone's names start looking the same and it becomes impossible to find the names on paper.

7) In one day, our unit treated over 210 patients. No wonder it was hectic.

8) Last minute decisions. This goes with prioritizing, especially when there are no-shows. It does cause a lot of stress because I will always question my decision on whether it was the right call or not.

9) Communication. I find a lot of units lack this basic necessity. Every unit gets busy with their own thing, but to keep in touch with other units about transfers or discharges is probably the biggest problem. A lot of times I have to do my own assessment and investigation to find patients have been discharged home or vice versa (in hospital) without notification, and I would have to update our master list, as it will become critical to planning the entire schedule for the next day.

10) Respect. I respect my coworkers as much as they respect me. I know they have a busy day ahead of them and try to help/accommodate as much as I can.

11) Dislike. I know I won't be a fan to some people. Not everyone will like me based on how I operate a unit. I have to accept that.

12) Mental stress. This job takes a lot of mental stress from making critical decisions all day. It has drained me (I come home after a day of not taking any breaks or eating = I crash at home). It leaves no time to do anything except sleep and rest.

13) Learning. It is a huge learning experience to see how a program operates and work. No work day is the same thing. EVERYDAY is a learning experience.

14) A new found respect for the in-charge. I knew they were busy, but I didn't really know until I was behind the desk. Honestly, props to all those in-charges out there. It's tough work.

Closure

It had been an emotional week for one reason: M.

I took the weekend to start cleaning and throwing old things out or stuff that I didn't need anymore. As I was doing that, I noticed mom was also cleaning. Except she was cleaning M's items.

Ever since M passed away almost 10 months ago, we never touched his items. His food trays remained there, his clean litter box remained in the same spot, his carpet he used to sleep on in the kitchen. All the memories.

She was slowly cleaning it up.

I couldn't take it. I tried to not think about it, but the more I thought about it, the more hurt I felt that we were packing it away. It was difficult to deal with, but it was also hard for mom, as she really took care of M over the years too. So it was just as hard for her to deal with.

As the cleaning came to an end, there was a small cabinet that we wanted to throw out, but we had to clean the contents of it first.

We took it out, and it was cat collars, leashes, toys, and a small file of his medical records. As we went through each of the items, we both started crying.

The tears just came. There was no control.

It still hurts to think about it as I type this entry.

I ended up bringing all the items to a shrine we have made for him on the cat condo and stored his items there. I couldn't bear throwing those out. It belonged to him.

That same night, I ended up in tears. The next morning was the hardest. Waking up super early reminded me of the past when I woke up early for work and fed him food. Now as I walk downstairs, I don't see his litter box anymore. I walk into the kitchen, and I don't see his bowls or carpet anymore. What remains there is a small table with a phone on it.

I cried.

It was too much visual stimulation all at once for me to handle. I haven't seen an empty spot in the kitchen for the past 18 years. It was tough to accept, but I knew it was also the final closure.

And that's what was missing all this time: the final closure.

I don't know if I believe in closure, or these final closures. To have closure is to move onto the next chapter or a completely new path. But emotionally, I still struggle with letting go of the past. I feel that it's a betrayal to move on without M. It sounds dumb, but it's just how I feel.

It's been slowly getting better. I just have to not think too much about it. But when I do, that's when the tears come. Just taking it day by day again.

A for Effort

What's up everyone! It's been a while since my last post. Apologies as life has gotten pretty busy, mostly related to career development.

When I look back to the beginning of summer, it was nuts. If I had done all this 6 years ago, it would've been slightly easier but then again, I can't really say. I just can't believe summer is over. Just as I was about to start hitting the beaches in a bikini, sipping on alcoholic mix beverages, the cold weather has already hit the city and less humid days. What in the world! Now I have to think about putting on snow tires soon. How sad.

Rewind back to the start of summer 2016: I applied to a second job, I challenged my final course and got the go ahead to write a massive essay, and applied for the leadership program offered at work. I really had no idea what to expect. I didn't feel too confident in anything because maybe I'm just too old for all this. Or maybe the thought of M is always at the back of my head. He was here when I got my previous jobs, he was here when I passed my previous courses, he was here when I started my leadership roles. But now he's not here anymore. 

Recently, the newest addition to our family, a beautiful purple-pink fighter fish named Nemo, passed away yesterday. Less than a year of receiving him as a gift. The fish was bought from other family members to help cope with the loss of M. And now Nemo is gone too. 

My mind was so focused on family, that these career things didn't really phase my mind. If I got it then great, but if I didn't that's fine too. 

Eventually, I did hear back from all 3 by the end of the summer and I successfully got accepted to the second job, I passed my essay/will be receiving my post graduate certificate and recently got accepted to the leadership program for the year. It was a crazy summer, but in the end, I'm glad it's over.

Do I feel proud of the accomplishments? Somewhat. I don't know what to feel because it took a lot of sacrifice to family, from friends, from all my loved ones. There was time spent apart from everyone because my mind was pretty much just a workhorse machine. It was only focused on work and achievements. In the end, the mind is so exhausted, it just doesn't feel anything anymore.

I've missed out on hanging out with friends, something I used to do all the time and almost every weekend. I've missed out on going shopping with family, on weekend getaways, on small mini trips. It was almost 20 years ago when we had a class assignment and had to write to one travel vacation spot. I ended up choosing Muskoka, and I remember getting pamphlets from them to come visit. Mom has always wanted to go since then. It's been almost 20 years and she still mentions that we still have to visit. Of course I kept telling her yes, we should go this year! But every year, there was always something.

Take for example last year. We were suppose to go, but then after getting accepted to present at the national level, I spent many hours trying to prepare research and presentation that summer passed, and we didn't go. This year, I had booked off vacation time to bring them there, along with to other cities. But due to orientation weeks at the second job, I had to sacrifice my vacation time to attend orientation. Now that winter is coming, it will be hard to explore the city in cold weather. There is still time, but now it will really depend on the weather.

You see, when you're too career focused, you lose out on many of life events. I was taught to work hard and do my best, and whatever happens will be in God's hands. I do put in effort, but I think the past year has been really difficult dealing with M's passing that I tried to only focus on my career development. It was my coping mechanism, because it is still tough to talk about M to others. M's memory will always be with me, but when I think about the last hours, it still breaks me down. Every time I have a fight with loved ones, my mind flashes to M and his last few hours and it breaks me down even more.

I needed something to distract me, and I chose my career. Unfortunately I believe it was imbalanced because I was too focused on career development that I overlooked everything else in my life. My social life suffered, and so did my health. But I didn't give up.

Every year is always different. A year ago, I was still prepping for my presentation, I was training staff, I debated on taking more courses, and M was still here. This year, all those have been completed except M isn't here. My mood was excitement and happiness last year. This year, it's been solemn, grief, sadness. 

I wish I could turn back time and change certain things, but I can't. I can only try to move forward and see what life brings. This new journey has begun, and it is exciting and frightening at the same time. My only hope and goal now is to not let it become so unbalanced that I forget what life is really all about: love.