Things in the recovery room can be both extremely dull, and overwhelmingly busy. When I came in this morning, I sat around for 2 hours with very little to do. I pushed some stretchers into the prep area. I read some blogs on my iPhone. Then, a couple of patients started to trickle in. Then it was lunch. Then the afternoon became very, very busy. It’s a lot like working at a busy downtown diner at lunch rush. Get ’em in get ’em out. Turn your tables. Everyone pretty much orders the same thing.

I spend an inordinate amount of time pushing stretchers around, transporting patients and wiping down equipment, because there are too many nurses and not enough support associates. I find it amazing that they are paying me premium nursing agency wages to record vital signs and stare at people’s groins to make sure they are not bleeding out of their femoral arteries. It seems like a mismanagement of resources, but what do I know. I’m just the nurse.

What can I say, I am bored.

I’ve been complaining a lot lately, but there it is. It’s a very dull job.

But since I am resigned to spend the next 11 weeks working there, I’ll try to focus on some positives:

When it’s slow in the morning I can read blogs on my iPhone and no one seems to care.

I don’t have to work night shift, or weekends.

The staff is a wonderful bunch of people; very friendly, helpful, and welcoming.

There are lorna doone shortbread cookies in the nutrition cabinet, and they’ve trusted me enough to give me a key to it.

There are a lot of cancer patients out there with awesome senses of humor. I love the way they laugh in the face of their disease.

For the first time in my life, I am caring for patients who are awake and alert enough to partake in some interesting conversations. For instance, I now know what it feels like to be in various arrhythmias, rather than just being able to detect them on the heart monitor. One patient told me that when she is in trigeminy, she wished she could just give her chest one good *thwack* and make it stop. Another patient described to me the heaviness of what a-fib feels like. I enjoy interacting with these patients, and hearing about how they manage their diseases at home. There are so many people out there with so much unsung resilience, and I never realized that before.