Facing Fears

I've been facing a few fears lately, and whether it's been by choice or force that really doesn't matter right now. At least I'm moving forward right?!

In my schooling we finally moved past using fake arms to practice IV's and we practiced on each other. My first tries were partially successful, not entirely... but at least I was sticking a real vein. After that I boosted my self esteem with some easy veins provided by a couple guy friends. Fear faced. (For the time being, until I have to practice on a patient.)

I've been feeling more comfortable in the O.R. lately. I was perfectly fine Saturday during our extremely long femur case, but then I had one of those moments where the mother bird pushes her baby out of the nest so it can finally learn how to fly on it's own. I got pushed up to Endoscopy to do the ERCP exam ON MY OWN. I hate this exam. Mostly because I can't understand a word the doctor says (accent plus mumbling = complete confusion) and the atmosphere tends to get stressful quite quickly. There were only 2 techs working that day and then me, a student. One tech was covering the O.R. case and the other was out doing portables, so while I'm holding down tech hall doing E.R. exams, lovely Endo calls letting me know they're ready for me to come for the ERCP. I kind of died inside. But I went up and I did the exam all by myself. Fear faced. (With grateful help from the nurses working in on the case.)

So I had a bit of pushing out of the nest moments this past week but I'm grateful for them. It's a terrifying but nice way to see where you're at. I think I'm doing all right.