Hey It's Beginning To Snow

The first words out of my mouth on this first day of December weren't “Rabbit Rabbit” but rather “Holy Crap” as I looked out my window and saw that about two inches of snow had fallen over the night. The first snow is always a surprise for me, even this time when the weather people had been talking about it all day yesterday. I was exciting, having not seen snow in such a long time, especially Midwest snow (the Seattle stuff hardly counts). In fact, I think that I am the only person in Iowa over twelve who was actually excited about the snow. On Friday, when I mentioned to a patient that we were getting snow the next she ordered me so sternly not to use four-letter-words at work that for a moment I thought that she was serious as was going to tell my boss.

The first day of snow comes with a tradition of taking the day off and sitting at home sipping cocoa and listening to Christmas carols. I had to forgo the tradition this year as, like Thanksgiving, people still get sick on the first day of snow. It's actually quite nice to have a job where the world might actually stop spinning (for one person, at least) if I don't show up for work that day. Although it's a lot of responsibility, it's nice to know that the work that I am doing actually needs to be done-- something that can't be said for snake handling, writing tools for video games and teaching English to people in non-English speaking villages that rely on elephants for transportation.

I haven't really talked about my job too much... I am a nursing assistant (or a nursing “tech”) at a local hospital, and I really love it. I give baths, change beds, provide comfort, help people around, take vitals (blood pressures, temperatures, and so on). I get to do tech stuff to, like take EKGs, bladder scans, and play with catheters. I am also generally the one that will be the first to note an emergency, and so the most important part of my job is to be alert for that. Basically I am a cross between an orderly and a nurse. I do all the things that nurses are generally credited with besides giving medications. What I like the most is that I am in a position to help a person who is scared, in pain, or upset. And the best part of my job is that when I go to sleep at night, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have done something that day to make the world a better place, and got paid for it too!