Luau and Reunions

It's been a pretty eventful weekend. Some friends from Wisconsin came down last night for my annual luau party. It was so much fun to see them! Also my one of my bestest friends from high school was in town, so she stopped by for a couple hours as well. She couldn't stay too long since she had surgery this past Tuesday; she had her gall bladder removed. I haven't seen her for a long time, so it was great to see her and catch up as well. Like most parties, it took place in the garage, or the pub, or the beer garden. What its called depends on who you ask. There were a few pool games going on, followed by pirate life. It's similar to the original life, cept its Pirates of the Carribean themed. In other words, the game pieces are ships. Instead of choosing a profession, you choose to be a pirate or a landlubber depending on who you draw for a captain. Instead of getting married, you stop at the shipyard to buy a ship. You then have a chance to RAID other players ships for money or for the Black Pearl. You also have a chance to pick a mascot. The game is a lot of fun, mostly due to the raiding. I came in second place thanks to all my life tiles. In addition the fun and games, there was a dog party going on. Bacon and Taffy were obviously hanging out in the garage. My sister was in Alpine Valley for the night, so I was dog-sitting Dax as well. Maeby, my 2nd lab partner's dog, also joined the mix. The dogs were a riot! They were chasing each other around the pool table and wrestling almost non-stop; it was great entertainment.

Today was another party, although it was of different sorts. Today was a family reunion on my mom's side. I admit, I wasn't really looking forward to it, mostly because I hardly know any of the extended family on my mom's side. But it wasn't too bad, other than long. There was a lot of food; everything from fresh fruit to pasta salads to deli sandwiches to desserts. In other words, the food was amazing! And there were left overs, so I'll have a good lunch tomorrow. As far as the relatives go, not very many people recognized me or knew who I was, but that's ok since I didn't know who they were either. It was nice to visit with the people that I do know though. The best part was my aunt convinced a couple people that I was her daughter and that no one knew about me because I didn't get out of the house much. It was hilarious.

As for the job update, I have started to look for other clinics hiring in case the situation progresses instead of inproving. I have contacted the rehab center that I interned at last summer to see how everything is going there. I loved being there, and I would love to return. With thanks to my internship there, I fell in love with animal rehabilitation. I believe that is more so my calling vs. a small animal clinic, so we'll see what happens. Time will tell.

The Job From Hell

It's been a LONG week; thank god it's over! So since my last post, I have been trying my hardest to do better at work but I don't feel like I've gotten anywhere. I ask questions and try to do better, but I feel like the doctor still hates me. Luckily I haven't caught anyone talking behind my back this week. However, I overheard a group of techs talking about a party that's next weekend. This party is a bachelorette party going on a week before the tech's wedding, and I was never invited to the party. I don't know if it was intentional or what, but it kinda sucks not being included when I thought I was friends with this person. It just goes to show how included I'm NOT at my work. Also, I thought things were going well with my doctor. Yesterday was surgery day, and half of our surgeries canceled that morning. That left us with 2 kitty dentals, both of which had to be done by the dental tech. I spent most of that morning trying to look busy and filling in where needed since neither the dental tech nor the doctor allowed me to help with anything. How am I supposed to get more comfortable with anesthesia if they don't allow me to have experience? It's almost as if they want me to do horrible so they can fire me, or maybe that is just in my head. I don't know anymore. Again today, I thought things were going well. Then I couldn't get an angry cat in his carrier. I guess I should have put my hand in the cage and had it ripped to shreds instead of asking for help because the doctor got annoyed when I asked for help. And I didn't even ask her! I asked another tech; the doctor just happened to walk back at the same time as the other tech. Oh well. I wish she would just be honest with me so I know why she hates me so much. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I ask for help when I need it, but she gets annoyed when I do. It's almost like one of my teachers in my anes/surg class; she was older too. Maybe its a traditional vet thing. Whatever it is, I wish it would leave the air of my clinic. I used to like waking up and going to work every morning. Now I am dreading every day and counting down til the weekend, or til my day off just so I can get away from everyone. I find myself hiding in the basement every night and on my days off because I just want to be away from them all. I thought my career was supposed to be fun; boy was I wrong there.

Getaway

So looks like it has been another month without posting, and I am definately feeling it mentally. There is so much going on in my head right now that I will prolly forget half of it while posting. Thats just the story of my life, or at least part of it. I have been feeling so overwhelmed lately, especially in the past few days. As most of you know, a new month started a week ago. June seemed to go really well, or so I thought. Doc and I were getting along very well. She was very helpful, yet fun to be around. She was very knowledgeable, yet open to jokes and sarcasm. She would give me tips in a friendly manner instead of criticism. Or at least I thought that's how the month went. Today I found out some other news, but I'll get more into that later in this post.

As I said previously, the new month's schedule started a week ago. This means its my last month of my first full doctor rotation. This doctor and I haven't had a lot of interaction, so I wasn't sure how the first few days would go. Let's just say they didn't go as well as the first few days with the other 3 doctors. The first day was a little shaky, but it always is. It takes time getting the routine down since each doctor has their own way of doing things. Anyways, there were 3 times last week that got me into trouble, and I'm still not exactly sure how. Maybe someone out there can help me make sense of each situation.

1. A fellow tech wrote me a note accusing me of leaving at the end of the day without asking if anyone needed help. In my defense, I asked everyone but her because someone asked her when I was standing right there and she said no. I checked with my doctor and she was fine. I checked with everyone up front and they were fine. I checked with all other techs and they were fine. Yet she accused me of leaving without checking with anyone. Apparently she is specialer than everyone else in the clinic.

2. I got in trouble for not knowing anything about fluid therapy. So even though I have properly set-up several fluid therapy machines and properly calculated fluid rates and properly connected them to patients, I don't know anything about fluid therapy. The actual scenario: there was a machine beeping "occlusion" that was connected to a very angry kitty. I checked the machine and there were no blockages so I set it to start-up again. A few mins later it started beeping again. Normally, you were disconnect it from the patient. I tried and was almost attacked, so I simply stopped the machine. And then what happens? I get yelled at by the same tech with accusations from scenario 1 and accused of not knowing fluid therapy. So I guess she wanted me to get eaten alive by an angry kitty. Nice to know that I'm appreciated at the clinc.

3. And that brings us to the last scenario. The same tech was involved, but this time she was the teacher and my doc was angry with me. We had a frisky cat to be spayed that we couldn't get an iv catheter in, so we had to box the kitty down to intubate and place a catheter. I have never boxed down a cat before. We had one chance to do it in school, and there were no kitties that week so we watched a video. I never had the chance to assist during my internship. The doctor almost had a cow right then and there when she heard that I've never boxed down a cat before. The doctor also shot down my self-esteem when intubating the dog we were spaying later that day. So that made me feel so much better about myself (sarcasm). I am stressed-out enough on my surgery day, and it doesn't help when my doctor has no confidence in me.

So that's my 3 horrible scenarios of last week, the week from hell. And that brings us to today, the day I had a meeting with the head tech at the clinic. When she called me into the meeting room, I knew she was going to ask how everything was going so far. What I didn't know was that she was going to confront me on those scenarios. So my self-esteem is now shot at work, especially when it comes to surgery days. The doctor I was with last month went to the head tech claiming I'm not trained well enough in surgery and anesthesia. The doctor this month claimed that I know nothing about monitoring equipment. I'm sorry if my school wasn't good enough for more than an EKG and pulse oximeter. My school didn't have a blood pressure monitor that worked. And up until 2 weeks ago, all we had working at the clinic was the EKG. It's not my fault that no one in the clinic took me up on the offer of helping me in the past few months. I am not afraid to ask for help, but no one shows me how to do things. Everyone just does it for me, so how am I supposed to learn? I don't ask people to do things for me. I ask for them to help me and give me their tips and advise. Yet in the long run, I get in trouble. And now, if I don't get my act together, I will lose my job. Isn't that a great way to start the week? As if I don't have enough stress in my life already. Long story short, on top of being on "probation," I am living with my parents--one of which [my mom] hates the world and lets everyone know it, and the other [my dad] is trying to ween himself off of oxy which hes been taking for his shoulder since december==who hate each other pretty much all the time, and I have no friends in the area, not to mention free time away from work or home just for myself. I have always tried my hardest to keep my work life and personal life separate, but after today it all hit me. I had a mini breakdown while talking to the head tech. I feel bad because she thought it was just work-related. I didn't have the strength to tell her about my personal life. Anyways, hopefully things with get better. I figure the only thing that will make it worse is losing my job, so it can't get much worse. So if anyone out there has any advice, feel free to pass it along. Thanks in advance!