I am completely wide awake right now. Rather than continuing to toss and turn, I decided to get up and write about the happy news that I got today.

First off, no, I’m not pregnant 🙂 I am, however, employed! I was jogging on the treadmill this morning when my cell started to ring. Normally I’d just let it go to voicemail and check it after my workout, but I knew that one of the hospitals was making a decision about a job today, so I decided to answer. It was HR Rep from An Area Hospital, calling to tell me that they hadn’t made a decision but that if it was alright with me, she wanted to go ahead and call my references. Well of course it was alright! I figured that the fact that they wanted to call my references must mean something good. After all, who calls references on someone they’re not interested in hiring?

Later that afternoon, HR Rep calls me back and officially offers me the position – working full-time in An Area Hospital’s ER! Yay! She reiterated the details about the job, and asked me if I was still interested. I told her that I was and that I was flattered, but that I wanted to talk with my husband about it before accepting anything. I’m planning to call her tomorrow morning to accept, and I’m pretty excited about it. If you had asked me what job I would’ve wanted to come out of this move, I would have said, “Working full-time in an ER”. Perfect 🙂

I’m not without a healthy dose of anxiety. To be honest, it sounds like the department is going through their fair share of ups and downs, though they’re mostly trending upwards these days. There’s also the fact that my last job didn’t deal with the level of acuity that this ER deals with. The closest hospital that can handle what they handle is in Chicago. Translation – the worst of the worst cases from all over the area are sent via ambulance or mediflight to my new unit. That’s intimidating. I think what worries me the most are the pediatric traumas. To put it in the words of my soon-to-be new Nurse Director, “We see more death and destruction in a typical 12 hour shift than most people see in their entire lifetime.” You’d have to be made of stone to not feel a little nervous after statements like that.

I’m so excited, though. I know that I’m going to learn a lot and I know that it’s going to be challenging, and I am really, really glad. The only slight negative is that it’s a night shift. However, it’s only three 12 hour nights a week (6pm – 6:30am), meaning I’ll have 4 days off. I can deal with that. I’m not under the misapprehension that those three nights will be easy. Nights are the busiest time for an ER, so I’ll definitely earn my pay, but I would rather work three 12 hour night shifts than five 8 hour day shifts, and that’s the truth.

I don’t start till September 14th, so I can relax and enjoy my time off without being stressed about finding a job. I plan on using these 2 weeks to read, read, read all that I can about trauma nursing and brush up on some of my knowledge. By the time I start, it’ll have been 7 weeks since I worked. I know that I’ll be just a tad rusty, and I want to be as prepared as possible.

Thank you, my lovely readers, for your kind thoughts and encouraging words during my job search – I’ve really appreciated it!

Now, I’m going to try to get some sleep. Have a great weekend!