Culture Shock

I knew when I moved to Minnesota from Virginia (affectionately…or not…known as “yuppieville”) that there would be differences to which I would need to adjust. I was right. The east coast go-go-go is not so readily embraced in the mid-west. There’s time to think. Time to enjoy being alive. Time to not sit in traffic on 495 for hours on end.

Even so, it wasn’t a huge adjustment. Minnesota is home. It’s always been home. I know the lifestyle there. I just had to learn a different hospital, different ER, different set of protocols.

Contrast that with the move to Montana.

Dear goodness.

IV setups are completely different. We do not use extension sets at all. Just the hub on the catheter. Boom. They also use a different sort of IV catheter than I’ve ever used…fortunately veins are the same.

The hospital is small, so the ER doc is the admitting doc. They write the admission orders when they get to it, and then the patient is transferred to the floor. Which is actually called the “ward”

The biggest difference of all, though, is there is NO DILAUDID.

None.

Zilch.

Zippo.

You may now cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

There are other differences. I’m sure I’ll end up writing about them at some point, but they aren’t really forefront to my brain at the moment.

Yesterday I went to Kalispell – it’s a really cool city. I might actually look for a permanent job there, since there’s a bigger hospital. I explored their outdoor gear store and got a pair of North Face hiking boots on clearance - $120 down to $60. Score one for awesome. It started to snow around 5, so I decided to head back to the apartment (a 2 hour drive through the mountains along Glacier National Park) The roads were pretty decent and there was still some daylight, so about half way home, I stopped at a river access and took Rocky for a 30 minute hike. It was absolutely gorgeous. And Rocky loved the chance to run around.

I have yet to see much wildlife around here. A patient told me about the cow elk he shot, but I haven’t seen anything besides a few mule deer – and that was on the drive out here.

The rest of the drive home was slightly more treacherous, though my car handles snowy conditions like a champ. Even so, I didn’t really hear much of the audio book I downloaded for the long trips for groceries – Stephen Abrose’s “Undaunted Courage” the story of Lewis and Clark.

Today I dug out my car to trek to the post office and the Laundromat, cleaned the apartment (I got a hand vacuum yesterday: 1 dog + 1 cat + small apartment = fur everywhere :-P) and now I have a honey mustard chicken and rice cooking in my cast iron skillet – complete with lid, for my wondering mother ;-)

More adventures to come – after two night shifts…which are kinda adventures themselves….