Guiltless Rants : 2022

7.10.22

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 🤣"

12.8.22

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.

21.4.22

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.