Sunday, January 1, 2012

Some big changes for the new year

So for the past few months I haven't posted as many updates as I have wanted because I have been really busy. Busy with work, busy with the kids, busy with the holidays and also looking for a new job. I have known for a while now that I wasn't meant to be a labor and delivery nurse, or a bedside nurse in general, forever. So I had decided last year when I got pregnant with Reese that on my maternity leave I would update my resume and start looking and applying for new jobs. Of course I waited until the last week of leave to start doing that but I did finally update my resume. Just to learn that you really need cover letters to to apply for anything worth while. Long story long, for these past several months when I wasn't looking for jobs, writing cover letters and applying for jobs, I was feeling bad about not looking for jobs, writing cover letters and applying for jobs. So that was the reason for much of the lack up updates.

But now that is all over because as of two Thursdays ago I have accepted a new position at SLU hospital transplant clinic as a Vascular Access RN Coordinator. So I will be making sure patients with vascular access needs (dialysis patients), and patients with liver and gall bladder issues have all their appointments and are getting the care they need in an appropriate time. I am so excited for this new phase of my life, I think it will be a perfect fit for me. In addition to that, it is Monday-Friday 8am-4:30pm, no weekends, no holidays, salary and a nice pay bump. So all in all, a lot of good changes for me. I will miss having random days off with the kids, but it is going to be so nice to know I am off every weekend and holiday and to do little things like have dinner together every night. How much do I know about the subject matter that I am going to have to become an expert on pretty fast? Not much but I am a smart girl so I can figure it out. I have a week between my last day at St John's and my first day st SLU so I plan on using some of that time to start reading up on it. My new boss said it will take me about 6 months to feel like I really know what I am doing so I have to remember to give myself that and not stress that I don't know everything right now.

How did a labor and delivery nurse go from delivering babies to working at a transplant clinic you ask? Well I have a friend who does the transplant surgeries and it sounds so interesting. And I have always thought care coordination or case management sounded like something I would like to do so I started looking for transplant coordinator jobs. BJC and SLU are the two hospitals in the St. Louis area that have those services. BJC shot me down immediately (as in I am pretty sure no one even read my resume). And I couldn't get the HR contact to return my emails or calls. Then I applied at SLU and heard nothing. I was starting to think about transferring to a med-surg unit in the hospital to make myself for marketable for case management/care coordination type of jobs when I saw an opening for a RN in SLU's transplant clinic. I thought maybe they would hire me, I would get to know the subject matter really well, and then they would eventually hire me into the coordinator position. So I applied and heard nothing until about 3 weeks later when I got a call. They apparently had called and left a message right after I applied but my phone messes up sometimes so I never got the message. So I had a phone interview. The next day I was offered a face to face interview for the following Thursday. That Thursday I interviewed with the HR lady, then the head of the transplant clinic. During the interview with the head of the clinic, I mention that my goal is to ultimately become a coordinator, to which she starts to tell me about the 2 different coordinator positions open, none of which are transplant coordinators but one is this vascular coordinator. By the end of the interview, I realize that she is considering me for the coordinator position. So she tells me the next step is to meet with some physicians and then have a peer interview. We set that up for the following Tuesday. Tuesday comes and I have my peer interview followed by the meeting with the physician. I felt like it went well so I was pretty confident I was at least going to get an offer for the RN position at the clinic. I just hoped it was a good enough monetary offer to be able to take it since we would have to put the kids in part time day care. They told me I would be hearing from HR by the end of the week. So on Wed (the next day), I am at work and I get a call from SLU, I dash into the bathroom to answer my phone and get the news that they are offering me the coordinator position for enough moolah that we could swing it with child care and not eat saltines every day!!! It was so exciting and a huge relief. So on Thursday I accepted the job. (Later on that same Thursday my sister was offered a job and the next day Tom's brother got engaged, we kind of like to steal each others thunder. Not really, but on a serious note, what an awesome 2 days for our family).

My first day is Jan 16th and my last day at St John's is this coming Saturday the 7th. It will definitely be bittersweet leaving there. I have come to care about so many of the girls there but I know I can't stay, doing something I don't love, just because my co-workers are awesome. (Well...most of them I mean, I do work with almost 200 people, they can't all be winners). It is scary going somewhere new and having to learn so much in a short amount of time but I am up for the challenge and I know I will do well if I set my mind to it, which I have.

The other part of this is that Tom's mom is going to watch the kids M,W,F which means that we need to find care for the kids on Tu, Thurs. I know this will be great for Donovan, he needs to go to school and play with kids his age and learn new things. I was just having a hard time thinking of where I would feel comfortable sending Reese. Thanks to the magic of facebook though, we have found Reese's daycare and I am so relieved. She will be going to one of my former co-workers house's who lives pretty close. Her name is Amanda or "Ms Amanda" as we will be calling her. She is wonderful and I trust her and she is just going to be watching her own son Nicholas, and Reese for now. I know she will love and treat Reese like her own so I have no reservations sending her there. This week we will visit some places and decide where Donovan will go. We have one place in mind we really want to send him, so fingers crossed they have an opening and it work's out.

So anyways, 2012 is going to be a year of big changes, hopefully all good!

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