Guiltless Rant of A New Recovery Sister - Ep 1

3 weeks ago, just a couple of hours after I landed in Heathrow after a 15-day sweet vacation in the Motherland, I did a horrifyingly cringy, jetlagged-infused, unapologetically honest interview for a Band 6 post in Recovery where I worked for the last 6-8 months (I transferred September 2022, please do the Math for me).  And since I am self-actualised, I can tell you from the get-go that it wasn't one of my best performances. I blame the jetlag. I blame the loneliness I was allowing myself to feel after a vacation. There was no one else to blame but me. 

BUT!!!! I was given a chance, I got in. I was offered the position. Yayyyy??! Uhmmm not really.

I know there is a vast space of knowledge and skills to learn and unlearn (and catch up) - but hey, I love studying new things. Eyebrows will be raised because I know that I am very junior compared to some of the staff - but hey, I am confident. I know that there will be a lot of instances when certain decisions will be questioned - but hey, I can stand up for myself. RIGHT? These and a lot of other self-destructing, self-doubting tags of war happening in my brain. I miss my mentor in the Philippines. The one who taught me the foundation of being a leader. The one who established and honed my work ethic. No one helped me process my thoughts and emotions like that mentor. But well, life goes on right? I must navigate this tricky "sister" role with patience and with an open mind. 

Fast forward to today, I was assigned to work in the smaller recovery area with only 4 beds, and 2 theatre lists running. I was only bank today so I decided to come in at 9am and finish at 20:00. As I was walking in, I was met with 2 theatre staff asking me for pillows (yes, pillows, as in the thin white ones provided by the government, guys). Rolling eyes emoji. (For christ sake, I am a sister - it feels pathetic to actually be met early in the morning and be asked to look for pillows). I wasn't even able to blurt that ugly thought in my head, as in that one in parentheses you just read prior to this sentence, and I was told again, "sister, you are the team leader today, we don't have pillows"

Now, you should know that the small recovery we have is not open during weekends, so every Monday, whoever is assigned to do a shift there needs to do a general cleaning of the unit. This means all the trolleys in the 4 bays need to be thoroughly cleaned and refilled. Each article in the 5-drawer trolley needs to come out and be checked for expiry dates. This and other machine checks are essential to maintain an environment safe for the patient to recover after surgery. 

At 09:15, we were yet to start with the cleaning and checking, and 2 theatre staff were asking us for trolleys and pillows. I was fuming. But, I promised to be calm so I did. I did not respond to anyone and carried on. After the clean-up, I told 2 of the other recovery staff that I am going out to look for pillows. And because I am favoured by the gods,  as soon as I walked past the main corridor, a cage of pillows was at the corner waiting for me. But seriously, if those 2 staff walked 10 more steps from recovery, they would have seen that cage full of the very things more important than my safety checks. 

Rolling eyes emoji x 5. 

This story extends longer than what I shared above. Unfortunately, several events, banter, and perhaps some relevant escalation which I will not bore you with keep piling up until 14:00 today. You would be surprised how trolleys and pillows have become the main characters of my recovery stint. Ha! Funny not funny.

I feel beat up. 

Ps. This is actually a funny story. I hope you get the humour. So please don't come for me telling me that being a sister means being humble and being able to resolve issues like trolleys and pillows cos I get it. This is just me spilling some guiltless rants cos I need a good outlet for my frustration.

Thanks for indulging me.

xx J

Hospital Anecdotes: Push push push!

Just 2 weeks into my new PACU/Recovery nurse role, I encountered a very childish, demanding, 60-year-old patient who just had a laparoscopic appendectomy. I have already given him a total of 100 micrograms of fentanyl yet he still complains of pain every now and then. His discomfort wasn't necessarily on the procedure site but just about everywhere in his body. Like when he wants his pillow to be adjusted, he goes ranting about his sore and painful neck. Or when we asked him to turn to his side because I want to check his back for any possible accidents and or skin damage, he complains about how heavy his body weight is for his right shoulder. At this point, I was already rolling my eyes and getting on quickly with the skin check so we can leave him in peace.

There was just one thing I need to accomplish, and that is to let him push himself up the bed so he doesn't look slumped. Since I was doing it alone, I adjusted the bed into a Trendelenburg position and asked the patient to bend his knees and pushed himself up the bed.

With a tiny bit of hesitation, he followed my instructions ever so slowly but would stop unless I tell him what to do. So, with the tiny bit of patience I have left, I coached him ever so gently: "Alright, Derek (not his real name), you are doing a good job, PUSH! PUSH! Just a tiny bit more PUSH!" He was inches away from the ideal spot I want his head to be when he stopped and told me: "Oh is this how you tell your boyfriend what to do?" And everyone around our tiny space in the recovery room burst out laughing, myself included. 

It took a lot of self-control for me not to answer him back. But in my head, this is what I said, "That's way too slow for my liking hun 🤣"

Remembering D

Young Summer Love

More than a decade ago, during a surprisingly cool summer season, I fell in love with a boy. He was only vacationing with his relatives who were my compound neighbors. He sang, played the piano, and ate at our house. We played table tennis, rode bikes, and sat together for hours at the flagpole talking about the future. We laughed, teased each other, and secretly made fun of other people.

55 full days of that summer, we were together. 

In 7 days, he was gonna fly back to his hometown. In 7 days, I was gonna feel lonely. Between the waiting and the looming sadness, he bought a local tattoo kit-- tattooed a dot on my middle finger while I did one on his. He told me, no matter what happens, he was mine and I was his. 

Irreplaceable. 

Young love, how innocent, raw, honest yet naive.

4 years..8 years..10 years..I never saw him again. But he was right, we were right. We don't really un-love people. It's funny how a tiny piece of muscle contracts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week non-stop, and yet, has all the limitless capacity to squeeze in every single person who comes through our lives in this lifetime. Whether they stay or they move on, their place remains as theirs. 

Life Lately: Moving to Europe

6 months ago, on Sept 24th, I secured a one-way ticket to Europe, to England specifically. Although there have been a lot of hard work on my part before that flight happened for me, it still felt surreal and "kilig" when I finally boarded my flight. Yes, months of hard work, meaning: the out of this world hospital hours, the study hours for 2 exams I had to take in the Philippines before I even get a shot at a job interview, the not so convenient flights to Manila for the TB test, my intentional isolation from friends to make sure that I don't turn up positive for COVID on my flight date and the physical exam which was the most inconvenient of all by the way. 

I flew out of the Philippines as an OFW. For the little audience who I still constantly chat, they knew that I quit my corporate job at Lexmark when COVID started and applied as a nurse in one of the private hospitals in Cebu. I worked as a respiratory nurse and have had the first hand experience in seeing people deteriorate and die from COVID prior to the vaccines being available. It's horrible, I know. During this time, nursing became an important profession again. After so many years, Filipino nurses became in demand..AGAIN. I graduated in 2011 at a time where I had to pay a hospital to secure an internship, after passing the boards, and after being registered. Ridic, I know! 

COVID, despite the havoc it brought, has become a blessing to me and to few other nurses who invested in passing the English exams and passing CBT. 

Here's a little timeline: 

August 2020 - I came across Nurse Even who vlogs about his UK experiences as a nurse. I started watching his journey and got totally inspired to do the same 

September 2020 - Enrolled me in an English review center for my IELTS (did not attend most of the classes because 12hr shifts drain me) 

October 2020 (1st - 2nd week) - reviewed like crazy. Since classes are made available online, I focused on attending the writing classes and booked one on one coaching sessions daily. This meant that I had to write sample articles for both Test 1 and 11 daily so the coach can comment and make correct. 

October 2020 (3rd week) - practised reading, listening, and speaking + I still write articles daily 

October 2020 (4th week) - took the computer-based exam in Cebu November 2020 (1st week) - results came out, PASSED! My lowest score was 7.5 which was writing. Not bad 

December 2020 - I never really did anything here. Maybe because I got busy with meeting friends before the holidays I had a slump beginning of the year, I did not really know what to do next. I thought, I wouldn't be too stressed because I was already past the hardest exam which was IELTS. 

In May 2021, I read in one of the groups I joined in Facebook that agencies and hospitals prioritise interviewing candidates with CBT or those who are OSCE ready in their NMC application so I studied for a week and took my CBT on the last week of May. I then processed my NMC (the governing body for nurses in the UK) application and handed out applications to several agencies. Initially, I really wanted a hospital which is in Central London because that's where I want to work and settle. But destiny has other plans. 

In June 2021, because of the scarcity of nurses manning the hospitals in the Philippines, the government has put out a ban for nurses going abroad. They capped outgoing nurses to 5000 in a year. This made me panic because, the timeline I set for myself was to get out of the Philippines on the same year. 

So despite wanting to be placed in a Central London hospital, I started looking for hospitals which are not too far from central (1 hr max by train) but are deploying as soon as possible. This is why I ended up in East Surrey Hospital. An acute facility located in Redhill, Surrey which is 30 mins by train to London. 

They interviewed me June 23rd. The next day, while I was at work, the agency called me saying that I passed. I waited for 2 weeks for my COS (certificate of sponsorship). By the end of July, my VISA was already available. It's true when they say that if it's meant for you, everything will fall right into place. All the other steps leading to my deployment went as smoothly as they possibly can.

Until now, the story of how I moved here in England still gives me a genuine smile I feel inside my soul. I am grateful daily of this life I get to live here in Europe. It's truly a dream come true. Just like in any part of the world, life isn't easy but because this is something I truly truly want, it makes things a lot more bearable and light and fun even.

Here are some random photos from the airport and quarantine hotel which both made or not made it to my FB/IG feed.

View from my quarantine hotel in Kensington (Central London)

Random Breakfast food while quarantining

Random supper food while quarantining

Another day, another breakfast

This was probably the hardest, enduring instant coffee! I am so used to Nespresso cups in Cebu 🥲

Online review class for OSCE! Meet my cohort!

Hello London!

My only luggage!

I wanna go out already at this point. I'm only on my 2nd day 😬

Product Obsession: Lucas Papaw Ointment

I have seen so many rad reviews about this product online but never really gotten to purchase it sooner because 1, it's an imported product and there's no local drugstore carrying them here in PI. 2, I always just chance upon it online but never really felt the need or intention to own a tube. 

Recently, someone from Lexmark started selling stuff from Australia and had a dozen or more of these on hand so I got one out of support for her and for hoping to resurrect my ugly chapped lips. 

After one application which was exactly a minute I got hold of it, I felt an instantenous effect. It felt like petroleum jelly on acid. Yes! That fast!

I searched for more uses of this amazing tube online and learned that some people put it over their nails as mositurizers and alas, it worked wonders on my dry tips. I am not even exagerrating when I tell you that I use Lucas Papaw on my nails daily as compared to using it on my lips (cos my lips don't dry out as much). 

I haven't finished this tube yet but I already re-ordered a bigger one from my friend because it has become an absolute necessity in my everyday existence. 

Also, 2 weeks ago, I burned my lower lip from hastily tasting the pasta sauce I cooked for the fam and guess what? Lucas Papaw healed it for 2 days only. I kid you not, this tube is a miracle worker. 

Go get one now!

xo, J ♡

Product Obsession: Nuxe Dry Oil

It's been a while. I know everyone has transferred to a new platform which is Youtube. But really, ever since I deactivated my Facebook, I felt I needed a good place to write again. Currently, I am obsessing with looking for 'products that work'. In that fashion, I return to this abandoned space to blog about some of the products I've been using to make me feel my best.

My first one is definitely this:

Nuxe is a French brand that I came to the Philippines a few years back. This oil retails for 2150php but is definitely worth the splurge. This is a repurchase already and I love how the scent is clean and fresh but not overpowering. It isn't sticky as well which baby oils are known for. I especially love slathering this after I do a scrub bath because I feel like they soak through my clean skin.

If you want to feel extra on a special day or a bad day, this one's a pick-me-upper :)

xo, J ♡

TRAVEL DIARY: Jas X Osaka Part III

Our 2nd day in Japan happens to be our last day in Osaka. I know there's a lot more to see and eat in Osaka alone but we also wanted to see the other places in the Kansai region. Before we headed off to Kyoto, we visited this one famous tourist spot in Osaka...

The breathtaking site that is The Osaka Castle

The Osaka Castle was built by the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi who dominated Japan in the 16th century. Stories had it that thousands of people were asked to report daily to finish the construction of this 5-tiered, 9-story castle. It took only about 2 years to finish it considering how huge it turned out.

The castle is a 10-15 minute walk from the train station but very easy to find since you can see it's glory from afar.

I can hear my heart beating fast when I saw her from a distance.

I wouldn't really mind walking when the scenery is this amazing. There is just too many pretty corners and back drops in this place. I can easily categorize this place as one of my favorites. 

The weather in Osaka was about 13-14 degrees C. And Jp wasn't even wearing a coat. 

How can a "very urban" area incorporate so many trees? Japan is really something else.

This little pathway is love.

This river offers cruises which is another way of seeing Osaka.

Getting closer

 I think the travel time we chose is just perfect. These trees are my favorite kind backdrop.

This angle is your view when you're tired from walking and you just decide to chill for a bit in one of their benches in the castle area.

Hello Love!

One whole class of little Japanese kids waiting for their tour inside the castle.

Matcha Green Tea Soft Ice Cream. Gaaaaaaah! (So there's a whole lot of food stall in the castle grounds -- it's like a tourist spot on it's own. And being the bad storyteller that I am, I got no pictures because I was busy going from one stall to another.)

A European couple offered to take our picture after I took a *reallyyyyy*** nice snap of them. Hahaha

One of the many artists I see around the castle grounds sketching a beautiful portrait of the castle.

Oh Japan, it's only my second day but my senses are already on a travel high. What a beautiful sight you are! Thanks for not letting me down. 2016 may have been a bitch but thanks to you, you still got me believing about the beautiful things this world has to offer.

x O x O, 

jb