3 month orientation, check

May 13th was my first official shift off of orientation. All on my own. No nurse double checking my work or there to be my unlimited resource person. I put my big girl panties on, took a deep breath, and said a little prayer. The shift was uneventful, thank you Jesus.

My orientation lasted 3 months and I was ready to be done with it around week 6. It was nice having something of a security blanket, but sometimes it was more stressful because it was kind of disorganized with lots of miscommunications happening and lots of stupid hoops to jump through. I was assigned a Preceptor, a nurse with many years of experience. Her name was Analee. She was perfect. Very laid back, trusted me to do many things completely independently, and was so knowledgeable about oncology. The problem was when she was scheduled as charge nurse or called off or changed her schedule without letting me know I would be put with any nurse who would have me. Precepting someone is honestly a huge pain. The main RN is still liable for the patients I am taking care of and it takes more time to explain things and do things slower. I must have been with more than 7 different nurses in the span of 4 weeks. One had just gotten off of orientation one month ago herself, she got very overwhelmed at one point and cried. One was a travel nurse who had only been on the unit for 3 months himself. One was so type A she would only let me take one patient when I had been taking four. One was very "old school" and even after I showed him the hospitals policy that I followed on drawing blood, insisted I had done it the wrong way (because it wasn't his way) and made me redraw them. But all that is over with and I get to do things my way now. They have been kind to me so far and given me very stable patients, but I am very comfortable and ready for some challenges on my own.  Just last night I was able to start an IV on a very dehydrated black man. That is a very hard thing to do and I did it completely on my own.

Here are a few orientation superlatives:

• Funniest thing a patient said: Me: "Are you passing gas?" 84 yr old woman: "Oh honey, like fireworks!"
• Most insulting thing a patient's family member said: "You don't care" This comment was outnumbered by praise and compliments from many other patients, and the husband was a complete jerk verified by other staff members, but it stuck and it hurt.
• Most disgusting (I would be a very happy nurse if I never had to do it again): Manual fecal disimpaction, if you can't figure it out google it. 
• Coolest new skill I have learned: How to access an implanted port. Again, google it.Closely followed by becoming ACLS (Advanced Care Life Support) certified (how to revive a person who has coded with CPR, drugs, and shocking them)
• Night that took me the longest to recover from, mentally and physically: transferred 1 patient to ICU because her calcium was so high she was paralyzed and having trouble breathing, received a patient that died within 20 minutes of being in my care (it was expected and the family was prepared), got yelled at by a doctor for not notifying him sooner of a patients decreasing urine output. Got orders to transfuse platelets, bolus 1L of saline, draw labs and give a few new medications, all done within the last hour of my shift. 
• Best piece of advice from Analee: "Whatever happens, morning will still come."