Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Lots of things going on today

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I’m having an interesting day … one that I think I’m more than ready to be done with.

My husband finally had a couple of days off in a row so we’re busy doing some much needed renovations on the house. Yes we’re actually doing the renovations – not just talking about getting it done sometime, someday. It’s started. The living room dining room reno will finally be finished – soon. LOL

My poor dog is totally baffled by what’s going on. She’s wondering what all this banging is and why everything smells like spruce wood and saw dust all of a sudden. Not that she minds the smell.

One thing threw me for a bit of a loop today. I finally got the call I’ve been waiting for from the Human Resources department at my workplace. I’ve been waiting to hear from them ever since I had my first appointment with them two weeks ago regarding going back to work. You know, that appointment that ended up with me being interviewed by five people for over an hour! Yikes!

Well, now they want to see me for at least half an hour. I’m not sure what it’s about this time. It could be yet another interview type meeting or maybe they’ve found a place in the hospital for me. I don’t know. All I do know is that it’s nerve wracking each time. I just want to get back to work – get my life back on track again. I’m starting to feel like a yoyo – back and forth, back and forth I go … Hmm but I bet I don’t compare to the best yo yo at yoyoplay. Uh huh.

A while back I thought it would only be a couple of weeks and I’d have my old job back. That was in January or February … here I am after convincing my doctors that I’m healthy enough to go back to work, and convincing the occupational health department at my workplace that I’m healthy enough to return and getting cleared to return to work and I’m still waiting. Hopefully it won’t be much longer.





Back to work or work from home?

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Well I’m still waiting to find when I might be going back to my job at the hospital. Last Monday I had a nerve-racking meeting with the hospitals Human Resources department and now I’m trying my best to be patient as I wait to hear from them regarding where they might place me in the hospital and when I might be going back to work.

Two of the nurses at the meeting were from the hospitals Oncology Nephrology department. I don’t know if they were just part of the assessment team or if they were there because there’s an opening in that department and they are thinking of placing me there. I should have asked but as I said it was a nerve-racking meeting/ interview. It was about an hour and a half long! I’m assuming that I’ll hear something this coming week, but who knows.

At this point I’m getting antsy to get back to work. If something messes up and I end up not going back to my former full time nursing job perhaps I’ll continue to work on the internet. Well I never planned to give it up. However I’ll need to make more money than I make now if that’s the case.

If I were to truly work on the internet full time I’ve even thought of moving. Perhaps somewhere warm or even to the Outer Banks. I recently saw an ad for Outer Banks foreclosures and if I had the money to do it some of those properties sure sound good!

I do think I’ll be going back to nursing but I have toyed with the idea of working on my own and moving to different country. If not now, perhaps later in life. Have you ever thought of working from home in your dream country/city?

Time to buy some new nursing uniforms

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Since I’m pretty sure that I’ll be returning to work in the next few weeks I’ve been rummaging through the house for all of my old nursing uniforms and making sure that they are clean and ready to go when I finally get put back on the work schedule. (see my last post for more info on my return to work)

I have quite the collection of scrubs! I was surprised to find that I still had some uniforms that I used to wear when I worked in a pain clinic in the 90’s -and believe it or not they’re still in great condition.

Considering how old some of my uniforms are, even though they’re in pretty good shape, I thought it might be a good idea to treat myself to a a couple of new pairs of scrubs. Scrub styles don’t change all that much, but looking at some of the uniform websites I can see that there are some changes that seem to go with outside style trends.

I’m trying to decide whether to order online or got to a local uniform store. I’ve found that scrub sizes vary so I might be better off trying some on in person and once I find a style I like I can order more of the same online. Speaking of online stores .. when I was searching for uniform stores I kept getting ones that sold all kinds of uniforms – not just nursing ones even though I specifically put that in my search terms .. surprisingly I came across several sites that sold everything from restaurant wear to welding jackets to medical uniforms. I’m most interested in the sites that sell only nursing scrubs because they seem to have the best variety and often the best prices.

So … anyone in the Toronto area know of any great local nursing uniform stores that I can check out? Any Canadian Online stores would be good too!

Looks like I’m going back to work

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Well I haven’t quite gotten around to giving this site a new look. I know I mentioned that I was going to do that in my last post but I’m still working on some of my other sites and as I do trying to figure out which theme would work best with this site.

I’d still love to hear what kind of look you’d like to see for this blog.

I do have something else that’s been keeping me busy as well. I’ve been trying to get back to work. As long time readers of this blog know I’ve been on medical leave for some time and I wasn’t 100% sure that I even still had a job waiting at the hospital for me, but I thought I did. I certainly never received a letter of termination and I was still receiving tax information every year … so it sure seemed worth checking out.

So … I went to see my doctor and I got her to write a letter saying that I was ready to return to work, then I contacted the occupational health office at my hospital and asked for an appointment. It turned out that I needed to get my doctor to fill out a special form before I could have an appointment with the Occ Health doctor. Of course getting that appointment seemed to mean that my former full time nursing job was/is still in place.

I had my appointment this morning and it went well. I have to get a letter from my internist and then I’ll have another appointment with the Occ health doctor and then .. I should start getting schedule for some shifts in the ER. Yeah!!!! I’ll be on moderated shifts for the first while but that’s a good thing because it will take me a while to catch up on all the changes that have taken place, not to mention remembering how to put in an IV – I haven’t done that for oh 6 years!

I think I’m going to go shopping for a couple of new nursing uniforms tomorrow. Oh and it looks like our washing machine needs to get fixed .. something about the timing pulley or something … I guess I’ll have to look into getting that fixed tomorrow too! Busy busy busy!

Wish me luck on going back to work!

Hopefully returning to work

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I’m hoping to return to work in the next couple of months. If you are a regular reader of this blog you might remember that I’m an ER nurse and that I’ve been off work on medical leave for oh … 6 years!!!! I’ve been off work because of a bad flare of Crohn’s disease. Believe me if you don’t know what Crohn’s is – you don’t want to know.

I’ve actually been feeling somewhat better over the last few months. Even the migraines that knocked me out a year or so ago seem to be under control so I’m think it’s time to try going back to work. Also .. there’s some personal stuff going on here at my house that makes it kind of important that I try going back. I’ve been gone so long I keep going over in my head how to take blood, put in IV’s and do all of the routine things that I used to do practically with my eyes closed! It will take some time before I’m wheeling medication carts around again.

One of the only problems with my return to work is that my doctor isn’t convinced that I’m ready so I have to convince her that I’m going to be able to do it. I’m also hoping that if I do go back to work that perhaps instead of working four 12 hour shifts in a row that rotate from day shifts to night shifts through that four day period – terrible really – that I can do eight hour shifts that are just day and or evening shifts. No more nights, no more quickly rotating 12 hour shifts. We’ll see what happens I suppose.

Wish me luck – I’ll know if I’m returning to the ER very soon.

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