Michael's New Job

It was a great first day at Alvardo. My position is a "Patient Care Assistant" or PCA for short. It's technically a CNA, but since I don't have my CNA license, I'm a PCA. Confused? Well you're lucky. There are 28 pages of approved acronyms in the Alvardo handbook (all but about 100 of which I won't have to know until I'm a RN next year).

So it was my first 12-hour shift. It wasn't too bad either. But I never saw the light of day. It was dark when I left for work and dark when I left. Crazy. I guess I really am a night owl. But I'm super tired now, so I'll be heading to bed soon so I can return tomorrow. It was really fun getting to take care of patients. I realized, finally, how horrible it is to be a patient. You'd think that being in the hospital, you'd just love all the attention, but when people are there, they're at their worst: in pain, confused, and scared. All that combined makes life miserable. Most of the patients I cared for might have known where they were, but not many really had a concept of how they were doing. Pain was their focus as opposed to their emotions or mental well-being. I really don't want to be in the hospital as patient, but mainly because I know I wouldn't be able to enjoy all that attention which I'd be paying my kid's college tuition to receive. ~Michael

PS - I almost threw up today, but kept it down at the last moment. Poop really stinks when it's been inside someone for 3 days. ;p