Tuesday 10.20.2009

It seemed like it was a long night. And that I was awake frequently. And that I slept pretty good during the short intervals that I was asleep. And then the radio came on. When I was sleeping.

I got up and got ready for work. Dan and I had breakfast and we each left for our respective places of employment.

It was pretty dark this morning. On the entrance ramp to the freeway, just off to the right in the grass, was a deer. He turned away from the highway and walked into the foliage. I saw a small rack of horns, maybe a 4- or 6- point. I watched for more the entire way to Jackson, but I didn't see any more. That's way ok.

The shuttle got to the parking lot a couple minutes after I did, so we had a ride over to the hospital. We had had a couple more babies during the night, so we had a few more patients than we left them with yesterday. We were kind of busy, but we had a good group of co-workers which made the day better.

I was asked to attend a "train the trainer" session for the respiratory masks that we will all need to wear if/when needed. These masks are considered respirators, not unlike the ones painters wear with the cartridge filters on them, in that they filter out particulates. And the airborne viruses are large enough to be filtered by the paper-y masks. Kind of like surgical masks, but they need to form an air seal around your mouth and nose. It takes almost a half hour to test someone with the different types and sizes to get the proper fit. And there are OSHA guidelines and requirements that must be met and documented for everyone involved in patient care. Nursing, housekeeping, dietary, etc. Oh yeah--the mask that the majority of our employees were tested with successfully is not available from the manufacturer due to high demand. So everyone (80% of the those tested) will need to be retested, because OSHA sees each style of mask as an individual piece of equipment that needs to be tested for the appropriate air seal. Quickly, so we might be more protected against this flu stuff that is going around.

We were meeting in a room that had another meeting scheduled behind us, and we weren't finished when we were out of time. I don't know when we'll get the rest of the training, but they'll notify us. Soon, I hope.

I had a safe drive back, too, thank You. Dan was home when I got home. He's gone to bed. I'm kind of tired tonight and will go to sleep soon. I had a nice phone call, and wrote here. My breast is having those sharp achy pains that are yucky.

Tomorrow I finally get my hair cut.

Thank you for reading. Hugs.