I keep writing then deleting various posts, because my
thoughts are all over the place at the moment, it is a little crazy, and at the
moment I feel like my brain is about to explode from all the change and
craziness that is going on.
Brief catch-up, I graduated and successfully passed the
horrible national exam! Can’t even begin to describe the relief I felt when I
finally learned I passed and wasn’t a ‘resident’ anymore but a full-fledged PT!
The funny thing is that I learned at work through a text that my dad sent…which
apparently he learned after finding my exam number in a big binder!
I also started working back in October and have officially
been working for 6 months now. Of course, it’s far from perfect and I commute
for 1.5 hours each way to get there, and only see 5-10patients per day and work
get paid for 15hours/week, but hey I had to start somewhere, and after 15 interviews
and only 3 offers (1 in a crazy chiro place, and another in a city 4 hours
away) I was happy to get something and to get someone to sign my form and be a ‘supervisor’.
Now I did actually learn quite a bit through the last few months, and even got
some official unpaid mentoring, and the chance to work some really great
patients, so I’m happy I took the job and I’m actually sort of like my job,
minus the paperwork of course. The job also gave me the confidence to start
talking to patients normally, to forget about the insane placements I’ve had,
and now I also have the experience of writing all the forms that are required
by the insurance company.
Now though I’ve been registered for 2 months and started to
look at other opportunities in my area, so that I wouldn’t have to commute
quite, as well as learn some new therapy techniques. Of course, it is also to
get away from all the crazy politics at one clinic and to see the craziness at
another. So that means I’ve been back on the crazy interview trail and believe
it or not, have already received 1 offer, which is not the best, but hey it’s
still an offer and waiting for a second offer from a great clinic downtown. The
problem now for me is to stall the first offer, to see if I could get the
second one. If I accept too soon, then I won’t know if I’m turning down a great
opportunity, but if I stall for too long, then they might take another person,
so I do have to be careful.
The problem, that I’ve realized through all of this, is that
I am horrible in making decisions…at one point, I actually made a list of
pros/cons for each of the 2 clinics, even though I really just had 1 offer. Of
course the downtown place won and most categories, so that’s what prompted me
to wait a couple more days before really committing to something and then regretting
passing up another opportunity.
The other option that I’ve been floating in my head, is I
could very theoretically buy an existing clinic for small change and turn it
into something quite profitable… the only problem is that the clinic is a tad
far (1.5hours) and I’m not sure I have the clinical experience or the
confidence to actually run a clinic…so that’s why I’m sort of hesitant to
start. Plus of course, I realized when I looked at how not-profitable the clinic
where I’m at is, and learned the key word losses, I learned that not all
businesses are profitable and they do have to do a lot of marketing, to keep
the clients happy, as well as keep generating new business, which is far from
easy.
In addition, to all of these work issues, I of course have
to have additional medical issues that never get completely resolved. I
apparently had a really bad tooth infection in which the nerve root actually
died! So in the last few days, I had to have my first root canal, which I
somehow survived and then actually had the energy to go to work, and attempt to
work for 6 hours afterward. Now that was quite interesting, as I was completely
falling asleep by the end of the day. Having the period during all this, made
everything crazier and that’s I think one of the reasons why my brain was
spinning with so many options, and can’t actually decide on one.
Of course, it’s not only my own medical issues that are the
problem at the moment, let’s see: my grandfather was in the hospital for a week
after fainting 5 times in one day. Turned out that all the previous doctors
completely missed and ignored a potentially fatal arrythmia (both bradycardia
and tachy) which was causing the fainting spells, that actually meant that his
heart was stopping and then restarting again. The only reason, this was
actually diagnosed, was because the same type of episode, actually happened
while he was in the ER being evaluated by the doctor. So then he had a
pacemaker installed.
The only problem, was that he became disoriented and started
becoming aggressive, was given haldol and was restrained. Well…you can imagine,
being restrained with a heart problem and aggression is not exactly a great
recipe of success….and of course he continued being aggressive…and the only
solution the med staff could think was to give him more of the haldol…which would
make him even more aggressive. After listening very intently to the resident, I
politely declined the haldol and said we will try behavioural measures first
and see, if we could calm him down enough and remove the restraints.
Thankfully, after re-orienting him, re-assuring him, taking off all the
equipment that was monitoring his rhythm and heart rate but was really causing
him even more agitation, after 2 hours he finally calmed down. Trust me, this
was no easy feat, and I think, even the nurses were surprised we succeeded. The
result of course, meant that he was still delirious and wanted to climb out of
his bed and go to washroom, or the ‘second floor’ at every opportunity, so
somebody had to be there 24hours/day monitoring him, even though he was in the
ICU and was monitored closely by a 1:1 nursing ratio.
It was definitely an interesting and illuminating week, and reinforced
the idea, that I really don’t ever want to work in the hospital and deal with
all their beurecracy.. I mean they were about to d/c him with a b.p of 170/100,
and kept trying to convince me that it was actually normal and that he would be
fine. Well guess what, after 2 mintues, his H.R shot up to 170 and it took them
a whole day to finally get it under control. Of course they also missed the
fact that the IV site was clogged, and the medication wasn’t actually going
in..but hey that’s a minor issue.
Now of course, my mom needs cataract surgery on both eyes,
as 1 eye is almost completely blind. My dad need to have 3 tooth implants done
at 3K each…as well as of course having a gum infection. But the important thing
is to actually have teeth to be able to chew, that’s definitely more important than
money.
In other news, I watched my little 6 month old nephew crawl
today! It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen! He is truly really cute and
actually made me want to have a baby, of course for that I would have to at
least have a boyfriend…of well…not everything in one day.
Well anyway, that’s a quick summary of the crazy events that
have been happening in the last couple of weeks. Still not sure, what is the
correct path in life and as I realized every decision has pros and cons, and I
will probably never be completely satisfied and will always wonder what would
have happened, had I made a different decision. But hey, that’s life, and
nowadays, I’m really trying to make a decision and stick with it, whether it’s
good or bad, instead of always ruminating and questioning my judgement, because
I believe that’s what makes my brain really lose it.
The best thing I’ve learned is to talk about it with a
couple of people, and to see what their suggestions are. It was great talking
to a good friend from my PT school, because she made me more grounded, and I
was able to look at things from a different angle and see that yes, I probably
am making the right decision by waiting for the other place, and of course all
jobs have their issues, and I really should accept that.
