Update!

  Oh my gosh how time flies when you are having fun! Or something like that. If you are wondering what the heck happened to me here is the abbreviated version, if you don't care and want to look at more funny pictures I'm fresh out so find someone to send them in to me!


  Well kiddo's here's the scoop.  Local hospital called me back just when I had given up all hope of hearing from them and offered this newbie a position in the ICU. Yep, never worked actue care in my life but I somehow landed an ICU position. Boy I can see some classmates faces turning green, hee hee! Sorry had to gloat abit there! 


  Now comes the fun part, I am Canadian, now you ask why is that significant? Because it meant that I now needed a Visa to work in the USA. Not a problem, Canadians are eligible to a TN Visa that allows them to work temporarily in the US for a maximum of 3 years before needing to renew.   Meaning I had to head home for a quick visit and then cross back and would be issued my visa at the border.  Sounds easy right? Wrong!


  Long story short, I got turned back on my first attempt due to the lack of something called a Visascreen that is now required for all foreign nurses coming to work in the US. Now I will go into details on the Visascreen in a later post, because it really needs that much space to get into it. But it did hold me up by 4 weeks! That "short trip" home ended up being a 5 week stay, thank god my dear friend who originally volunteered to let me crash at her place didn't get sick of me being there all that extra time.  Thankfully the lovely people at Local Hospital were amazingly understanding and did everything they could do to help.  I arrived home late last week to a very lonely Mr. who was tearing out his hair over final exams.


  The last week has been spent getting ready for my big debut in the ICU. The very next day after arrival I headed in for my physical, where I was cleared for duty and then told I would need to be stabbed with a needle 4 times. Here's a little secret, while I have no problems giving the injection, I HATE needles! Although this gal was awesome and the Tdap shot barely hurt. This was then followed by 4 days of orientation, teaching and then on the last day a surprise test!


  Anyone ever taken the B-Kat? It's a national exam that lets the folks looking at your file know exactly how much you know in your area of nursing. Yep they gave me a 100 question exam to test what I knew about critical care nursing. I could have helped them out with that answer...nothing!  The Nurse Educator came over after she had marked my test with a concerned look on her face.


  "So, how long have you worked in the ICU?"
  "Uhh, well never."
  "OH!"
  "Infact I'm a new grad and this is my first job ever"
  "OH! Well in that case you did great!"


  If you are feeling nosy, I'll tell you that I scored a 69% on the Critical Care B-Kat