I bought a camera! Can you believe it? I bet you can't begin to guess what brand. Living with Brad, of course, it's a Canon. It's a little mini camera and I'm still not used to how tiny it is. I have taken a few pics just to get used to it, but it has so many options I have yet to figure out. It is just a point and shoot, but that's all I need. I will leave the ISO, shutter speed, aperture, field of focus stuff to Brad. I just want some pictures that I can put on our blog to show you what we are doing. This was my first picture! Lucky Brad will probably be in alot of my pictures.
This is my good friend Shirley. We lived in West Valley together before Brad and I got married. She was the RS President when she asked for me as a counselor. We had some great times together and she and her husband were wonderfully supportive friends when I got divorced. When I was dissatisfied at American Fork with my job, I looked on the IHC job line and saw a job was available where Shirley worked. So I called her and said tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly about the job. Now I have the opportunity to work with Shirley again and many more great people at the dialysis center.
This is Marcia. She is the dietitian that works at our center and also at the downtown center. Every month we do lab work on all the patients. The patients have to be careful with their diets and fluid intake or it will really mess up their lab values, with messed up lab values, it effects the other systems in the body. After the monthly lab results come in, Marcia and Phyllis, our nurse practitioner, meet with the patients and let them know what the lab values are and consult with them if needed about their diets to keep them as healthy as possible. Marcia also writes the monthly newsletter for the two dialysis centers.
These are our social workers, Kim and Jason. They are the morale boosters for our centers. Kim works at our center, Jason also works at Tooele and once a month goes to Richfield. Ron who is not pictured, works at the downtown center. They help our patients with billing questions, family issues, personal problems, they make arrangements for the patients when they go out of town on vacation so that they can still obtain their treatments, and much, much more. They also help the staff deal with difficult patients. They are a valuable asset and help to our center.
This is Elga one of our technicians. She is from Columbia and we love having her translate for our Spanish speaking patients. We also have a tech that is from Romania, one from Pakistan, one from Thailand, and a return missionary that also speaks Spanish. They are great workers and a big help with our patients. Our technicians work really hard and they can make or break our day. They are responsible for setting up the machines, getting the patients on the machines, monitoring the patients through their treatments and charting, and taking the patients off the machines. They do all the stocking of supplies and equipment.
These are just a few of the wonderful people that I work with. I enjoy my job a lot. Of course we have our days that don't run as smoothly as we would like, but everyone who works, have days that don't run well. We may be changing the schedule that the techs have to help make our days even smoother. Right now we have two RNs that start at 6 am every day. But on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have an RN that comes in at 11 am and stays until the last patient goes home(about 9:30 pm), and a RN that comes in at 4 pm and stays until about 8 pm. We are changing the tech schedule to four pods, we now have 3 (they have 4-5 patients) and they start their day at 5 or 5:30 am. Then at 10:30 we have four more techs come in and they stay until the last patient goes home. They work as a team putting and taking patients off. They all have assignments that they are responsible for during the day besides taking care of patients. On Tues, Thur, and Saturdays we have just two RNs all day and I don't know how the tech schedule is going to go. This is the schedule that they had just before I started working there. They switched to the three pod schedule with a floater tech while I was orienting to the job. I will be going to work tomorrow and then I will have the next two weeks off. Whooppeee!
I have a few things planned that I would like to get done during my time off from work. Cleaning carpets, washing windows, cleaning the stove and refrigerator (my least favorite job) are just a few of the things that are bugging me. I also intend to watch all four sessions of conference, read a book or two, sleep in, get a hair cut and color. I have invited the women that served with me in YW's for lunch and getting caught up with our lives and what has been happening. And of course, spending time with Brad!
