10 things about a new placement

I am back on the wards.  I've started a six-week placement in a rehab unit, which marks the end of Part II of my course - after this I will go from two to three stripes on my epaulettes, and have less than a year to go before I qualify.  It is both scary and exciting to write that.

I have only done two shifts, but already I am:

• missing being able to wear nail varnish (this post on A Cup of Jo just makes me swoon with desire);
• remembering how long a twelve or thirteen hour shift is;
• remembering how a long shift just flies by in a flash when you are busy, busy;
• enjoying working with gentle, kind nurses who have decades of experience and still take the time to teach me new skills and enthuse about their career;
• appreciating the colour and vividness of a day off;
• enjoying a nap on the sofa under a quilt, once the children have gone to school on my days off;
• getting back into the swing of constantly washing and packing uniform;
• wondering when I might do any Christmas shopping or planning if I spend all my days off asleep on the sofa?
• wondering when I might also write the essay which is due in on the 23rd December? 
• remembering how I end up eating and drinking at such odd times of the day when I am at work (lunch break at 4:30 pm and supper break at 5:45pm on Monday);

    

I am also missing my nursing friends who are on placements at other hospitals, and hoping they are getting on well.  This course...this profession...it asks so much of us, but it gives more back.  Each time I go on placement I realise I have forgotten how tiring it is.  But I also forget how much I love this job; and it's good to be reminded again.