Corny World

Firstly, my favorite rock radio station NU 107 changed its format a few weeks ago, now playing mainstream music instead of its former format of cool genre like rock, alternative, and grunge music. Second, The ex-girlfriend of our country's president Noynoy Aquino, Shalani Soledad, has joined Willie Revillame in the new noontime show Willing Willie as his co-host without prior training or rehearsals. Shalani is now ridiculed or mocked for her somnolent voice. Third, the new slogan of the Department of Tourism is now "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" (Philippines so Beautiful) which to me sounded like the title of the morning show in one of the biggest networks in my country. Thank God, I heard in the news that Pres. Aquino ordered that the slogan will be changed since so many Filipinos are not in favor of this.

Things to Do

1. Time to renew my passport, but first, I must find it :(

2. Get a part-time job, i.e., a home-based job, preferably

3. Pay the bills. My insurance agent already texted me about my premium balance. Good thing I don't have credit cards anymore (I used to have 3 credit cards) and no loans.

4. Brush up on nursing concepts. Maybe one of these days, I might be called for an exam or interview.

5. Look for a job online.

6. Control my diet. I want to look good, as always :)

Sembreak

My 3-months contract as a nurse reliever ended last month. NSO said our batch will be called for duty by next year when the census starts to increase again. Hopefully, I would be hired as a staff nurse to be able to fulfill the 1-year hospital experience as required by my prospective employer.

I was enjoying the first week of my vacation. But the following weeks became monotonous and left me penniless. I have so many plans in my mind to improve my career as a nurse. I want to apply for NCLEX and IELTS while I am on "vacation" mode. I could use my personal savings for those expensive exams.

Meanwhile, my father wants me to go to Saudi instead of "wasting" my energy for a minimum wage in my recent hospital job, because Saudi do accept nurses even without clinical experience. How cool is that! But my all my closest friends do not want me to work in Saudi because of sexual harassment experienced by them or their loved ones or acquaintance or other scary stories about male arabs chasing/abusing/raping women and men.

It's hard to imagine how my life's gonna be in that country with that kind of scenario. Does it mean I have to go out with a group all the time to protect ourselves from those potential danger? What if something happens to me (knock on wood, wag naman sana) in that country and the Philippine consul can't fight or can't even protect my rights and I would end up in jail or lose my head like what happened to Flor Contemplacion, or be scolded by our own consul just like what Philippine consulate in Hongkong, Mr. Labatt did to a distressed OFW who sought Mr. Labatt's help in HK?

I promise to myself to stop procrastinating my plans. I talked to my friend, Steph, about those stuff and gave me encouragement and inspiration. Thank you, tsong!

Surprise!

After my 2-10 p.m. duty, Ron picked me up at the hospital to tag me along in his night out with his college friends at the Harbor Square in Manila. I was not prepared so I had to go with him in my nurse uniform.

Inside the car, he surprised me with a whole cake from Starbucks called the Midnight Black Cake.

The cake tastes like Ferrero Rocher, bittersweet and with a crunchy layer. My hubby never fails to surprise me.

Sick Leave

In the previous entry, I said that I was on a sick leave. Yes it's true that I was sick due to a nagging toothache. I was procrastinating the dental check-up due to a low budget. I'm ashamed to ask my parent to pay for it. My salary is pathetic. But in the last payroll I really got a nice paycheck.

So off I went to the dentist near CEU (Centro Escolar University) in Manila. This is not my personal dentist. The bf just recommended it to me because he's good and the fee is reasonably lower than my dentist. At first I was reluctant to be "handled" by the new dentist. I wanted to see for myself first the clinic.

Well, the clinic looked nice with 2 dental chairs, autoclave machine, clean area, cable tv, etc. The dentist knows what he's doing and explains to me my case.

After the rapport has been established, the procedure started. I got an oral prophylaxis, 2 dental x-rays (for my impacted wisdom tooth and the problematic upper molar which is the culprit of my pain), temporary filling, and 21 capsules of amoxicillin which cost me less than 400 pesos ($9) all in all! What surprises me most was the cost of the dental x-ray--only 50 pesos per tooth ($1.13)! I had a dental panoramic x-ray 9 years ago in SM Megamall and it cost me 4,000 pesos ($90).

Now, the toothache is gone and I was able to buy that skirt in Greenhills sa laki ng natipid ko sa dentist. I also bought Anne Rice's "Servant of the Bones." Happy :)

Big Mistake

The biggest mistake a noob can commit is to take a leave from her duty for 2 consecutive days. It happened to me due to a major burn out. In truth, this is the first time I have experienced a burn out at work. In my previous careers as a copy editor and administrative assistant, there are stressors such as deadlines, performance evaluation, colleagues, and bosses. But being a nurse is an entirely different dimension. Buhay ang nakataya. A nurse must always have a presence of mind and common sense no matter how toxic or stressfull the situation is, ensuring always the safety of herself and her patients. Most of the time, you have to sacrifice your meals and bladder break just to serve all the needs of all your ten (10) patients. If I'm lucky, I would handle 6 patients in the least, but 1 of them is either intubated (his/her life depends on a breathing machine called mechanical ventilator) or feeds via NGT (nasogastric tube that runs from the nose through the stomach). If the patient is intubated, that means I have to go to the patient's room and suction secretions as often as necessary. And I have to feed him/her via NGT so all the medicine tablets will be pulverized by me using mortar and pestle and I have to double check each feeding the patency and placement of the NGT to make sure it's still in the stomach by auscultation using a stethoscope. Aside from these cases, there are still your other 4 patients waiting for your nursing care and other stressors (human beings at their worst) which make your entire shift horribly challenging.

Now, if you happen to be assigned in a toxic ward in every effin' work day, handling the above cases, then burning out would be your body's way of crying out and your best defense mechanism is to take a sick leave in order to survive the next 2 weeks of your contract, right? I thought I could adjust to it because I'm now familiar with the environment and the people. Yes, I handled it well, I got no warning slip or incident report, at least. But when I get home, I just couldn't shake the stress off. It made my nights sleepless. My weight went down to 104 lbs (the only thing I'm happy about). Ikaw ba naman ang hindi makaupo or kumain in 15 minutes kasama na ang toothbrush and powder. I thought of giving up. I asked my close friends' advices. I was so unhappy last week.

Sabi nila, konting tiis lang, there are thousands of jobless nurses out there wanting to have a hospital job in this country blah-blah-blah. So I listened to their blah-blahs which are relevant blahs.

Salamat sa sick leave because it helped me regained my sanity.

Congrats sa Batch 6

Marikina Valley Medical Center is continuously hiring some of my batchmates as NA's and Nurses this year. Congratulations to Miko, Jelo, Erwin, Marc, Allan, Erika, and to some who will be called in in the next few days or so. They are the people who were never absent, never been late, and are always willing to work their butt off.

Congratulations, guys!