After graduating college, I moved home to the Midwest for (what I thought was) a good job. Initially I commuted from my folks' place. It was 45 minutes to an hour each way, and I was counting the days until the first few weeks of orientation were over. They were five day work weeks, and the commute during rush hour was killing me. Eventually I settled into the typical three day work week of nursing with its avoidance of rush hour- a perk of twelve hour shifts. But the weeks of orientation felt like forever.
One morning my usual Chicago radio station did the classic radio show first-caller-with-the-correct-answer-wins-a-prize thing. Bored out of my mind during the 5:45 am commute, I chanced calling in... and won!
I'm not one of those people who seem to have good luck with drawings and lotteries (sorry Peleke, guess the lottery as a retirement plan isn't going to work out). Offhand I can recall winning two things in my life. The second thing was some sort of drawing at a yacht club when I was young. I won a teal blue tshirt undoubtedly advertising something. I was so excited regardless of the fact that there was no hope of it fitting me.
How long does it take for blood to circulate once through the human body? That was the winning question. Now of course there are a number of variables to account for here- size, heart rate, current activity/stress, cardiovascular status, hydration status, etc. I guessed something like a minute and forty-five seconds (having looked it up since then, answers vary, but apparently it was close enough to the radio station's source). When asked, I sheepishly told them that I was a cardiothoracic nurse at Chicago Big Hospital. I didn't tell them I'd only just started taking care of patients.
I heard my voice on the radio and realized how young I sounded. Is that how my patients heard me? We've all got to start somewhere, and I got my fair share of "how old are you, have you done this before*, you're so young!" and the like. That morning, the two other new nurses and I were sent up from our regular floor, the step down unit, to the ICU. As soon as we walked through the unit doors, one of the nurses proclaimed that she'd heard me on the radio that morning. I remember it being a good day up there.
I won $100 worth of movie tickets through Fandango, by the way. I didn't have any friends yet, what with the commute and where my parents lived. I moved into my apartment in Lakeview shortly afterwards, though, so in the end I used them with friends. Sometimes I hear or see ads for Fandango these days, and it makes me smile.
*There's just no good response to this. I always told the truth (or at least I didn't lie), but given the sink-or-swim nature of that unit, it sure didn't take long before I could say yes!
No comments:
Post a Comment