Whatya Doin?

Here I am, constantly referencing my busy schedule and demanding job, but have I even told you nice people what I’m doing?

I am a dialysis technician with the hospital services group in good ole Sin City. What does that mean? It means any time someone receiving routine dialysis is admitted to a hospital, I am one of the people licensed to give them dialysis while they stay there. Sometimes I get to treat non-chronic care patients, but the bulk of my work comes from people who have been around the ultrafiltration block before. 

Since hospitals, emergencies, and renal failure are 24/7 issues, our group functions in a 24/7 format, with someone starting their shift at any given hospital every hour or so. We work one-on-one with our patients, transporting equipment bedside and maintaining peak infection control. This means one patient’s care can take anywhere from 4-6 hours to complete, with some rare cases taking even 8-10 hours. We’re expected in a given shift to care for two patients, making for a 10-14 hour shift that starts at your scheduled time and ends whenever you get done. 

I work four to five overnight shifts a week, starting around 1700, but with emergencies working the way they do, I’m often called in sooner than that. Loving what I do is a blessing and a curse, because it’s difficult to say no to any call for work. Of course I want to come in! With hospital care, there’s usually something else going on with the patient that requires them to be there, so every day is a chance to see and learn something. Inversely, when working with someone new to dialysis, or maybe with a healing kidney injury, I get the chance to teach them, which I’ll go into in another post.