A day in Hudderfield

I have some extra time to kill this morning, I'll tell you why later. But I though I would let you know what a typical day for me is here in Huddersfield.

I go to bed each night and stress out when it comes time to set my alarm clock, which is on my cell phone. For some reason my phone is picking up a signal that makes my clock one hour slow. The clock on the computer that I have borrowed from the University is about an hour and half fast. So I never know what time it actually is. But I set my alarm on the phone and make sure that it is going to wake me at the correct time of day, even though the numbers are all wrong. I get up between 5-5:15 depending on if I need to shower and get ready to go to the hospital, in street clothes (I will NEVER BE A DAY NURSE!!!!). We hike to the bus stop about 15 minutes away (all downhill thankfully) at 5:45. It is a beuatiful walk and wakes me up in the morning so I am grateful for that! The bus comes at 6:06 (except for the first day, it was 10 minutes late and we thought we had missed it). We switch buses in the middle of town to take us the hospital to arrive at about 6:55 (side note: how to pronounce Huddersfield in an English accent-- uh-duhs-filled)We change into our atrocious uniforms and go the the units, which are called wards. My ward starts report at 7, and Brits are VERY punctual, almost to the point of no flexibility, and so I always miss the first three patients of handover. We get report from the night nurses and start medications. I will try to refrain from my spiels about the health care system here, but don't worry, you'll hear about it later if I haven't already told you! Anyways we start meds, which are called tablets. On my floor we have to wear these silly red vests that say ''DO NOT BISTURB MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION IN PROGRESS.'' The nurses think they're stupid too and don't wear them, but make me. So dumb. Anyways after meds, we go around with the doctors and write down what the plan is with the patient. We then follow their every wish...ok, don't get me started. Sometimes my nurse will disppear in the middle of an important time of day, giving baths, doing meds, admitting patients when it's really busy, etc. I find out, ''she's gone for her break'' or ''she's having her morning tea time.'' The atmosphere is so differenct in the hospitals here than in America. My shift is supposed to end at 2:30 and the nurses usually shoe me away at about 2:15 and say that everyone else has already left and I might as well go. After clinical we take the bus back to town and stop at the grocery store or just go straight to the bus that brings us the dorms. In the afternoons, we take walks, watch movies, take naps, plan our Europe trip, or just sit around and talk. At 9pm we have devotional and then we get ready to do it all over again.

Right now I am sitting in a computer lab on at ''uni'' (what they call campus, or the university). I was supposed to go around the hospital today with an ICU outreach team, but they got schedules mixed up with another student nurse, so I decided to just take the morning off because Erin told us we could have one morning off during our three weeks. So a caught up on reading blogs and looking at pictures from friends and family all around the world right now: Taiwan, Ecuador, Jordan, Australia, Washington D.C., Japan, Connecticut, Utah, and England :). The computer won't let me upload photos for some reason, otherwise I would have put some up of Huddersfield. It really is beautiful here. I am so glad that we are staying in the countryside and not in the city (I don't like ciites). I will soon post pictures from York, Fountains Abbey and everyday life in England. Miss you all!!

English lingo hospital and non:
Are you queueing? -- Are you in line?
BM -- blood sugars...none of the nurses know what the M stands for.
Off-duty book -- the work schedule
Cheers -- Can mean just about anything you want: hello, goodbye, thanks, what's up?, nice to see you, etc
Love -- everyone is called, ''love'' How are you paying, love? What's your pain like, love? Cheers, love!
Tablets -- Pills or medications
Sick --nausea and vomitting. I was so confused the first time someone asked me for a sick tablet. I was thinking, ''you're in the hospital mister, of course you're sick!''
Stayin in or take-away? --For here or to go?
Cannulas -- IVs (it's like in New England they put an R sound at the end of the words that end in A like idea. But in other words, they don't pronounce R's''

CHEERS, LOVE. I'm off!