Things I did today

1. Got my Student Card. My Student Card picture doesn't look too bad.
2. Applied to get an exemption for a Liberal Studies elective.
3. Got a College Bus Pass, that cost me less than $200 dollars. It's good for Sep., Oct., Nov., and Dec. My picture on the Bus Pass makes me look like an escaped mental patient, who's out for revenge. The only person who's ever going to be seeing that picture, is the bus driver.
4. Bought some things for my nephews. I'll be visiting them before school starts and must come bearing gifts.
5. Ran to the bus stop, as fast as I could for about 100m, so that I wouldn't miss it. That just sort of happened without me thinking about it and it didn't result in me feeling like crap. I think I'm almost not sick now.

Orientation Day: Maybe I am sick

Both my ears now seem to be all cleared up. The left one was bothering me today, so I used the magic ear drops and it's fine now. Thanks to 'RT Student In Chicago' for telling me about the magic ear drops. I've been so focused on my ears being clogged up, that I seem not to have noticed how sick I am.

I went to the College’s Orientation Day this morning and had to sit outside for the first half hour because I was all light headed and sweaty. It was 13C (55.4F) and I was outside, in a tshirt, sweating like a madman for at least 25 minutes! For a while there, I thought that I might end up being “that guy” who passed out during the welcome to college speech. The welcome to college speech was all that I missed this morning.

When I went back inside, everyone was directed on how to get to the program information session for their respective programs. The RT Program information session was good. There was a lot of useful information and very little blah blah blah. We were also fitted for and ordered our scrubs. It looks like I’ll be wearing XL sized scrubs. I was surprised by how well they fit and how comfy they were.

I was given a Student Information Manual that has a lot of useful information in it. I was pleased to see that it went into a lot of detail about the clinical rotation sites. We will be doing our clinicals at one of 9 hospitals. Our preference for sites will be taken into account, but a lottery system will come into play if certain sites are preferred by too many students.

These are some other things that I learned during the orientation for my program:

• We will be job shadowing RTs during the first three semesters. This will be done at sites close to the college.
• In the fourth semester we will be doing “High Fidelity Clinical Simulations”. Apparently the simulations are fairly intense and stress people out. There was talk of people crying.
• We're not allowed to take any pictures or video without permission :-(
• In addition to our regular exams, we will also be writing composite exams at the end of first, second and third years. Each exam will be cumulative and can be used to test us on any of the material from previous semesters. If you fail a composite, you can’t continue on with the program.
• During our clinical rotations, in third year, we will have to come back to the college a couple times for 3 days of additional training.
• I won’t need a stethoscope until second semester. Damn it. All I want is a reason to buy a stethoscope. Is that too much to ask for?

After the orientation I was supposed to go to a barbecue. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out at the barbecue.

I didn’t get my student card this afternoon because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out while in line to get his student card.

I didn’t go on a tour of the college because I didn’t want to be “that guy” who passed out during the college tour.

What I learned today

The pharmacy in my neighbourhood actually has an ear care section. I honestly never noticed all of those ear care products before. It's right beside the eye care section. The ear care section has a few products that claim to be able to do something about ear wax build-up. My ear is a lot less clogged up, than it was yesterday, but it's still not all cleared up yet.

I went to the pharmacy today and picked up something called Murine Ear Drops and started using it. The package says to use it "twice daily for up to 4 days if needed", so I'm going to use it for up to 4 days and see how things go. I've used it once so far and I think it's improved things a bit more.

Q-tips

Q-tips. I've been meaning to by Q-tips for a long time. I always forget. I don't really need them for anything but I really think I should have some. I've been planning on buying Q-tips for over a year.

On Tuesday night, while in bed trying to sleep, I noticed something odd about my right ear. If my right ear was face down on my pillow, it would feel all clogged up. If I turned my head around the other way, so that my right ear was face up, that clogged up sensation would go away.

Funny thing about Q-tips. I don't really need them for anything but if they're lying around, I use them to clean my ears. Maybe if I got some Q-tips and cleaned out my right ear, that ear wouldn't get clogged the next time I went to bed. I'll get some Q-tips and clean out my ears. What could go wrong? On Wednesday morning I finally bought some Q-tips.

Nasty. There's something really disgusting about ear wax, especially when you remove globs of the stuff from your own ears. After a few minutes, and about 20 Q-tips later, both of my ears seemed fairly clean. I couldn't believe that I hadn't cleaned out my ears for over a year! I also noticed at that time that my right ear felt really clogged up. I figured that the clogged up feeling would go away after a few minutes, but it didn't. My ears were all cleaned up but my right ear was clogged up even worse than before. I could barely hear out of my right ear now and it was starting to hurt a bit. WTF did I do? How could I make things worse? Did I compact some of that nasty ear wax into my ear and make a minor problem into a big one?

I tried doing the Valsalva Maneuver many times and also figured out how to use an eye drop container to irrigate my ear. My ear was simply not getting any better. It was clogged up and it felt like it was going to stay that way for ever. I decided to leave things alone for a while and just hope that my ear would get better on it's own. When I got up this morning, my ear was still horribly clogged up. Crap. I think I might have to see a doctor about this.

Up hear in the land of universal health care we have a bit of a problem. A lot of people don't have a Family Doctor. Most Family Doctors aren't accepting new patients. There's a big problem with their not being enough Family Doctors here. Since I don't have a Family Doctor and this ear thing was starting to freak me out, I decided to go to a walk in clinic.

As I was waiting at the bus stop I started to think about how much it would suck to go to the walk in clinic. The city I live in has a fairly serious shortage of Family Doctors and the walk in clinic is probably where everybody like me goes for Doctoring. As I was pondering the prospect of sitting around, in a waiting room, with a bunch of sick people , I decided that maybe I could take care of this on my own. Perhaps I was being a little girl about this little ear thing. I wasn't sure what I could do but I knew that the answer was on one of the shelves in the pharmacy across the street from the bus stop.

On the way to the pharmacy, I decided that some Sudafed might do the trick. When I used to go skydiving, and my ears got clogged up, Sudafed always seemed to help. I started taking Sudafed at about 10 AM today and slept most of the day away. At about 3:22PM I started doing the Valsalva Maneuver again and irrigating my ear and it happened. Something shifted and I heard the glorious popping sound and gurgling noise that goes along the clearing of ones clogged ear.

Mature Student Orientation

I went to a Mature Student Orientation at school last night. Nothing terribly exciting happened.

The "real" Orientation Day is on Monday.

The great paper sale of 2008

OK. This may be the lamest post ever. I'm all excited because I bought 1200 sheets of paper. It was on sale. $0.47 for a pack of 200 sheets. I almost bought some at the local pharmacy for almost $3.00 a pack!

There was a limit of 6 per customer, so I bought 6. With taxes, that only cost me $2.82. I might go back for more tomorrow.

Get out of my head!

All weekend, I've been thinking about the stuff I need to get done at work next week. That's never been much of a problem, until now. Now it's a problem because I don't have that job anymore! I'm unemployed! Why am I thinking about a job that I don't have anymore?

I quit you! Why do I still think about you! Leave me alone! I hate you! Get out of my head! LOL...

Work is for weenies. Na na na na na.

End of an era

Yesterday was my last day at work and possibly my last day as a so called IT Professional. It was a bit of an odd day. I mostly cleaned up my desk, read blogs and answered a few questions about this or that.

Someone mentioned to me that it was the end of an era. Everyone who was in the IT Department, when I started, in April 2000 is now gone. I was the last to leave.

OK, now I'm excited

I will be unemployed in 31 minutes!

Last day

This is my last day at work. I thought I would be a bit more excited. Maybe something exciting will happen in the next 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Second last day

Yesterday was my second last day at work. The phrase for the day was, "I do not care". I was saying that a lot yesterday and almost everyone thought it was pretty funny.

I went out with all of my friends, at work, for lunch. The guy who recently got a job someplace else, joined us. Lunch sucked. The service was horrible and the food was crap. In the end, I didn't even get what I ordered because my order was given to someone else. After an hour and a half two people had to leave before the food was served. That was the second worst restaurant experience in my life. There were about 15 tables in the restaurant and only our table was getting shit service. The tip on a $60 bill? 25cents. I've never done that before, but I was pissed!

About 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave work, I ran into an "Oh my god" problem. Something was seriously messed up and it had to be fixed. WTF? Why am I always the one left holding the bag, when things go to shit? Where the hell are the other two guys, who can work on this? I have to catch a train. If I miss my train, I have to wait over 4 hours for the next one. Why am I the only one still in the office, who can look at this? F this! I banged out an email essentially saying, "I can't work on this. This is a serious problem. This is what's wrong. Good luck figuring it out." and went home.

Glenna over at G's spot has been writing recently about "going above and beyond" and then getting screwed over because of it. Glenna, you are not alone.

Immunity

I went to the doctor yesterday. I got my second dose of Hepatitis B vaccine. My blood tests show that I have immunity for Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella (Chicken Pox). I still have to get one more dose of Hepatitis B vaccine in 5 months and then a blood test to prove immunity. Two more needle sticks to go...

Timetable

My Timetable was available on the Student Portal yesterday. A few things about my timetable:

• 9 hours of Anatomy and Physiology every week! I have 3 A&P courses in first semester (regular A&P, cardiovascular A&P and pulmonary A&P). Is the human body really that complicated? (Air goes in. Air goes out. Blood goes round and round. What else does an RT need to know?)
• My earliest classes are at 8AM. I was kind of hoping 9AM. Waking up at 7AM, like a civilized human being!
• My elective is an ethics course. Do not lie, cheat or steal. If you lie cheat or steal, you will be punished.
• If I get an exemption for my ethics elective, my first class on Tuesday will be at 10AM. I don't lie cheat or steal, so I don't need to be taught about that! Sleeping in, until 9AM on Tuesdays!
• My first class on Friday is at 10AM. Sleeping in, until 9AM on Fridays!
• I finish classes on Monday at 11AM. Very Happy to see that. I have some stuff I want to do, in another city, late Monday afternoon.
• My General Therapeutics course has a theory and a lab component.
• The General Therapeutics lab is for 2 hours on Friday. I'm pretty sure that I only have to wear scrubs in the lab, which would mean that I only have to wear scrubs once a week on Friday.
• There seems to be a job shadowing component in the first semester. That appears on my timetable for 4 hours on Thursday. I don't think that it's for 4 hours every Thursday, because I only get 24 credit hours for it. I'm guessing that it will be for 4 hours for 6 weeks.
• Without the job shadowing stuff, I have 22 hours of class and lab.
• My latest classes are finished at 3PM.

Why I'm looking forward to RT School

Freadom over at Respiratory Therapy Cave recently wrote A list of what I like about being an RT, which got me to thinking about why I am looking forward starting RT School.

10 Reasons I'm looking forward to RT School:

1. I can sleep in every day. I won't have to get up at 4:30AM on work days anymore.


2. I don't have to pick up, drop off and pay for dry cleaning any more. No more wearing dress pants, for me.


3. I can be unemployed. It's OK to be unemployed when you're a full time student.


4. I don't have to shine my shoes on a regular basis.


5. I get to buy a stethoscope.


6. I can spend a few years learning some interesting things.


7. I can stop worrying about looking for another IT job.


8. I can start using the, "I can't because I have to study" excuse.


9. I can get to school in less than 10 minutes. It now takes me hours to get to work. I'm not kidding, or exagerating, it takes me over 2 hours to get to work.


10. When I'm finished, I'll be a Respiratory Therapist.

You know you hate your job when...

...you're all happy when you realize that you can be 3 hours late for work on Monday. I have to get my second Hepatitis B shot tomorrow and find out if my blood tests confirm that I have immunity to Measles, Mumps, Rubella and the Chicken Pox.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, a Hepatitis B Vaccination requires three injections over a period of six months...

First semester text books

This is the stack of required text books for the first semester of my Respiratory Therapy Program.

Maybe Monday

When I was at work on Friday, I heard that the Ass clown was talking about me on Thursday. He was trying to figure out if the 8th could be my last day instead of the 15th. He told someone that he would talk to me first thing in the morning about that. I waited all day and he never talked to me. Maybe Monday will be my last day.

1, 2 or 3 more days until I'm unemployed. My last day will be on Monday, Wednesday or maybe Friday next week...

Ass clown

4 more days until I am unemployed. I wish I was a bit more excited. The idea of going to work tomorrow has filled me with dread.

After reading one of EE's posts on Backboards and Bandaids, I now have a new nickname for my boss: Ass clown.

7 ate 9

Stupid song. Make the stupid song get out of my head! Dontchya hate it when a stupd song gets stuck in your brain?

Not what I wanted

My new most favorite TV show is on a Canadian TV channel called CLT (Canadian Learning Television). The TV show is called Situation Critical and it's about the trauma center at Sunybrook Hospital in Toronto. It follows patients and medical professionals as they are dealing with various sorts of traumatic injuries. I've seen about 3 or 4 eisodes so far and I'm quite impressed with how the show has been done. At first I was kind of shocked to see how graphic the program was. I'm actually quite interested in seeing all of the blood and gore, but I'm kind of surprised that it's being shown on a mass market education channel at 9PM on a Sunday night.

Most of the show focuses on the Trauma Doctors when they're treating patients but they do frequently acknowledge the other people who are a part of the trauma team. They did a good segment on the RNs who are a part of the Trauma Team, in a recent episode. As I've been watching the show, I've been trying to identify the RTs that are working in the trauma room and was hoping that they would mention RTs in one of the episodes.

They mentioned an RT in last nights episode, but not in the way that I was hoping for. A 50 year old women was brought in after being ejected from a car during a car accident. She was conscious and was bleeding a lot from a nasty head laceration. She was in a lot of pain and heard one of the Doctors give an order to draw up some Fentanyl. As soon as the Fentanyl was mentioned the patient said something like, "Yes, please, Fentanyl...". The person closest to the patients head found the patients reaction kind of funny and asked her how she knew that word and was told that, "I'm an RT". Everyone stops for a few seconds and the Trauma Surgeon asks her where she works. She works at Mt. Sinai. At that point the narrator dramatically states that, "The patient has just identified herself as a Respiratory Therapist from...Mt. Sinai" and then goes on to refer to her as one of the trauma teams colleagues.

The RT was actually pretty lucky. Other than the head laceration, she had a concussion which seems to have resulted in some minor problems with her memory. A few weeks after the accident, she was talking about how she could find herself sitting at a traffic light and not knowing where she was going.

Crap. That's not what I wanted, when I wanted RTs to be mentioned on that TV show.

Most Children Strongly Opposed To Health Care

Current Student

On Friday I received a big envelope from the college. The envelope contained a student Orientation Guide, Student Enrollment Form and instructions for picking an elective. The Student Enrollment Form shows a status of Enrolled for all of my courses and lists the choices that I have for my elective. All of the instructions in the orientation guide, and on the sheet that explains how to choose my elective, tell me to go to the "Current Student" section of the college web site.

Current Student! Yippee! I feel kind of lame for mentioning it, but I now feel like more of an RT Student than I did on Thursday. When can I start calling myself an RT Student? Now? After the orientation day? When I get my student card? On the first day of classes?

Not interested

I went for a long walk during my lunch, at work, on Friday. I like books and I like wandering around and hanging out in book stores, so I found myself in a bookstore during my walk. Mostly out of habit, I walked over to the computer section and was kind of surprised by something. I had no interest in any of the books. None. I didn't even bother picking up any of the books to take a closer look. I'm starting to have trouble remembering why I was so interested in IT. That's a good thing. I'm really not interested in IT anymore and I'm glad.