My life has changed pretty dramatically lately, with the new job at Baptist working as a phlebotomist. Every conversation I've had about it goes exactly like this:
Person: What have you been up to?
Me: I've been working a lot.
person: Where do you work?
me; at the hospital
person: doing what?
me: I'm a phlebotomist
person: a what? a LOBotomist? (wide-eyed expression)
me. HaHa. Hahaha. um. No. PHLEBotomist. Like, I draw blood.
It was funny the first, oh, five times around. Anyway, one thing I have figured out about working with lots of other people is they have an entirely different way of talking to each other. I think it's what people mean by "getting along" with the people you work with. It means that about 80% of the time you have to crack jokes. And it is very friendly, and fun to listen to, but if you're terrible at being funny like me, it kind of makes the job a little more stressful. So, in addition to trying to learn how to feel for veins, stick people without causing them to yelp, OW!, etc., I'm working on cultivating a, eh, sense of humor. anyway.
So another thing about being a PHLEBotomist is that I get to wake people up at 4 am to stick them with a needle. So you have to also work extra hard to be likeable, because when you're waking someone up + inflicting pain, you have some forces working against you. And sometimes I'm praying basically the entire time I'm going through the motions, just saying, God, please please please let me hit this. And when I do, I give thanks like never, ever before.
But it's good. I'm liking the job. It's the first real experience I have in the hospital, on every floor, for hours and hours. And one big perk: I get to see what goes on in the lab, and on the floor. So I'm going to try to make it really count and learn as much as I can. A really helpful and nice MT was telling me about a troponin chem test today and showing me what books I can read to learn this stuff. I think the more comfortable I get with my job, the more I'll be able to really try to digest some of the conceptual stuff behind the blood work.
Work, work, work. I am off for the entire weekend! I woke up at 3 AM this morning, so I'm feeling a little groggy but don't want to go to sleep. I might read later... or cook...or tkae my film in to get it developed, or any other number of things... it's funny how different "free" time is when you don't have much of it. Well, that is all for now. | 
