A challenging muse or amused by a challenge? (otherwise known as Happy New Year)

I had my first night at my new job a few days ago, and there is something about the approaching end of the year that has me thinking about challenges.

They aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Some might liken them to goals, resolutions, purposes… but I feel that they have a more personal meaning. Challenges aren’t something you set on December 31st or what you write down on your 5 year plan. They arise from conflict or they exist in your everyday life. They are like trees, road signs or anything else ubiquitous enough that we don’t necessarily notice that they are there. For example, I was challenged on my first night as a transport nurse. Mostly, because I don’t know the ropes yet and because I have to find my footing, my voice.

There is a lot of organizing about being a transport nurse. EMS Dispatch will connect you with a doctor from an outside hospital who would like to transfer a patient to our facility, and they give you an over the phone report, and from that information, you basically have to decide which service you are going to contact next about the patient. Do they go to the Emergency Room, the ICU, a floor bed? Then you have to decide how they are going to travel to you, and who makes up the team in the ambulance or helicopter that will go to pick them up? Can they go by EMS only or should a nurse go, how about a respiratory therapist or an ICU Fellow? There are a lot of decisions to make and sometimes not enough time to dillydally.

I’ve also got to decide what my voice as a transport nurse is. Once I get more comfortable, I can work on that. Right now, I have to remember how to work the darned telephone. So, as it looks, I am setting myself up to be challenged on the regular in the upcoming 2019. And that’s fantastic! Of course, this is just in my work life, let’s not even start fantasizing about personal life. *insert sly grin here* I’m working on me, and as it stands, that is all I need right now. I am blessed in a wonderful array of family and friends who have become my family. Those who will stand beside me throughout my challenges, listen to me when I go on and on and hug me when I need to stop. I will say it again, folks, I am quite the lucky woman.

So on this note (I always end up waxing positive, don’t I?), I would like to wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year, full of challenges, love and everything good.

“Together we can face any challenges as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky.”

Sonia Ghandi