I've been working a lot this month. Last weekend I did two night shifts, and a 12 hour shift. And this past weekend I did two 8's. This led to me being a) exhausted beyond belief and b) more in love with my job than ever before.

I am the first to say how important it is to get a job you like, or if at all possible, a job you love. I am extremely lucky to have the latter. This month I am passing my 4 month anniversary working as a Patient Care Assistant in the Intensive Care Nursery at UCSF Benioff Childrnen's Hospital (say that ten times fast). Every time I head to work, I kid you not, I get excited for the 8 or 12 hours ahead of me. This may seem crazy to some, but I am just undeniably in love with my job.

I get a lot of questions about what I actually do. As a PCA, I basically am in charge of helping make the floor run smoothly and do anything the nurses don't have time for. This means I do a lot of the busy work, like stocking the linen warmer, making sure each bedside and admit cart is stocked, and making sure each room has the right equipment. This also includes running to and from the blood bank, pharmacy, and lab for what is needed. I also work with the triage RN to set up for whenever we get a transfer. We can get babies from Labor and Delivery or from other hospitals via helicopter or ambulance. When we get them from our own Ors I help set up. I am in charge of making sure every syringe, ET tube, suction, etc. is in place so the nurses and doctors can do their job. I am also a self-proclaimed professional baby soother at this point. Really, I think I should put it on my resume, I can't even tell you how many hours I've rocked, held, and soothed babies. It is undeniably the best part of the job. But with a census that can go as high as 55 babies, I am always busy, always running to do something, and never end a shift feeling anything less than exhausted.

Some shifts are harder than others, and unfortunately since this is a hospital sometimes this means not all the babies live.  When people hear that I work with babies, they often coo and comment how fun that must be. And it IS cute and fun, some of the time. But there's also a darker side to the job. I spend a lot of time comforting very sick babies. I'll hold them because they are just so uncomfortable that they won't stop crying or sometimes because their parents can't visit (often because they are trying to work and make enough money to pay for the child's care). And then there's the babies that don't get better. Some babies stay sick for months and just can't seem to heal, and some babies die. And that is so sucky. Nothing is worse than trying to comfort a screaming baby at 4 am and knowing you really can't do anything more than put their pacifier back in and rock them to sleep.

But thankfully other shifts are my saving grace. Recently, I got to attend my first C section! I can go to C sections with our triage RN if I am not busy doing something else. The section was everything I imagined it would be. I am a self-proclaimed Grey's Anatomy enthusiast, having been a loyal fan for years. As most Grey's Anatomy fans will attest to, I felt prepared for the OR, after watching Mer and Der and the whole gang preform countless surgeries. But it was different than I expected. First of all, these doctors, unlike McDreamy or McSteamy, have their faces covered (for obvious sanitation reasons), and astonishingly enough, don't talk about hospital gossip over the open patient. Secondly, it was thankfully, not as intense! The C section was quick, maybe 15 minutes, and before I knew it, out popped the screaming baby. It was truly a humbling experience to see a new life begin.

This weekend was such a lesson for me. It reminded me of life's fragility and beauty. It made me grateful for my job and my life. I often leave work feeling both heartbroken and in love. I ache for the babies I can't help and the ones we lose. But I am in love with this profession and I always can barely wait to walk back through the front doors to do it all again. 

Time for a late, but still great Mardi Gras update!!!

Now I know I'm a week late to the game on this one. I came back late Monday night and have been slammed with school, work, and exhaustion ever since, buuuut that being said, i had one of the best weekends of my life in New Orleans and I'm ready to share!!


This idea started last year this time, when Maddie Ham and Emily Bryars (two of my best friends) and I started dreaming about how fun it would be to do Mardi gras together in New Orleans. Maddie's older sister, Emily Ham, lives in NoLa, and attends Tulane University, and is a senior this year, meannig it was our last year with a free place to stay. So a few months ago, we decided to just go for it, bought the obscenely priced tickets, and that's how this became a reality!

Emily Maddie's sister, whom I will refer to as Emmy for confusion's sake, lives just a block from Tulane's campus in a beautiful apartment, so we all stayed there for free, which was nothing short of a miracle honestly (thanks again em!) 

Thursday morning my two best friends and I set on our separate journeys to the Big Easy - Emily flying from Tucson, Maddie driving down from Tuscaloosa with her roommate (also named Emily), and me flying from sfo. My journey started a little bumpy, with a cracked plane windshield that delayed my flight so much I would have missed my connection. After pleading with customer service reps and almost losing it in the airport, which resulted in my mom getting on the phone to work a little magic, viola! I was rerouted through LAX. Armed with a gluten free cookie to brighten my mood, I cruised through the two flights and ended up in New Orleans about 11pm, reunited with my ladies and we headed out for the night. 

There is an amazing college spot called The Boot that is basically on Tulane's campus, just a ten minute walk from the apartment. Now if you are of college age and find yourself in New Orleans, do yourself a favor and visit this bar! It is open till 6 am and is crawling with every cute Southern boy you could ever imagine. Fun fact, it also has an adjoined pizza joint/grill if you get the munchies. Since it's open every night, is 18+ and has no cover fee, on a given night you'll probably find half of Tulane's student body inside. It's really everything you could want in a good college bar - the bartenders are quick, the DJ is good, and the drinks are cheap. We ended up here every night, because we couldn't just resist the atmosphere! 

Friday we spent the first half of the day lazing about relaxing, munching, just happy to be together! In the afternoon we headed to St. Charles Ave to catch the Krewe of Hermes Parade, my first Mardi Gras experience!! Maddie and Emily have both been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans multiple times, so I was in very good  hands in terms of knowledge about where to go and what to do to have the most fun! Now i will be the first to say I love free things. And these parades are literally all about that! People create these beautiful floats, usually themed to the parade, and they dress up and throw free things (beads, koozies, light up stuff, ect.) at you!! What could be better?? And the atmosphere is electric! The only way to really describe it is a huge party! There's music and dancing in the streets, it's fun for all ages - everyone from toddlers to frat guys to grandparents mingles in the crowds. We ended up catching a bit of Krewe d'Etat as well before calling it a day to get some street car corn dogs and fries. We ended Friday with another ridiculously fun night at The Boot!

      

One thing we didn't really think through was transportation, and after getting several wrong suggestions on how to get to the French Quarter, we ended up walking the 6 miles to Bourbon Street. It was a long walk, but we had a lot to look at to keep us busy. We had to exercise some patience with getting through the parade route and blocked off streets. For the millionth time this weekend, I was grateful Emily has so much experience getting through a drunk crowd from frequenting frat parties, because she would bust through a group of people with us in tow, me uttering "sorry" out along the way as I get squeezed through groups. Bourbon Street was a craziness of its own, full of drunk, happy people either throwing beads, flashing people for beads, dancing in the street, or just reveling in their drunkenness. It is the epitome of Mardi Gras, and you can't not go when in NoLa!

Now here's a little advice: the only thing harder than getting downtown is getting out of downtown. Uber was so backed up we couldn't get a car even with the crazy surge pricing. We ended up waiting on several corners trying (and failing) to flag cabs before Maddie finally got through to uber. After a dinner of taqitos we were back in action for our last night together at the Boot!!

Sunday morning Emily and Maddie left, and I spent the day with Emmy and her two friends who were in town, Cara and Emily M. We went for bagels, refueled, then Cara and I walked to the French quarter AGAIN. See you'd think I'd have better sense than to do this two days in a row, but apparently that's not so. We finally ended up in Jackson Square and Cara got bengiets at Cafe du Monde, which is an absolute must for any New Orleans trip. Then we cabbed back, ordered pizza and watched my friends ham it up in the crowd for the 50 Superbowl halftime show!

 

All in all it was an amazing, exhausting weekend! Before I went, people told me, "you only Mardi once," and I thought, "no way! I'll want to go back next year!". Well let me tell you, I think it might be a few years before I brave Mardi Gras in the Big Easy again, but I am already looking forward to it!