Reality

Tomorrow marks the first day of week 20.

Halfway there! Halfway (if its full term *crosses fingers*) to being a mom.

And reality is setting in hard.

In a couple months I will need to stop working where I work. I will simply be too big to keep doing my job correctly.

Then I will be out of money. I am putting some posts online trying to find some freelance work to do right now and after I leave Cedar Hills.

And then there is the reality of Job Stress. Without going into detail about incompitence, rude people and whiners, I do not have the supplies I need to do my job to the fullest extent of my abilities. And between that and some of the other staff members, I dread going in to work. I use to be happy to go, confident in what I could do, be the coolest chick with a needle and get blood out of some of the hardest sticks in the business. Now I feel like a failure. I try 3 times with the equiptment I have, and miss, and miss, and miss. If I had a butterfly, I would be able to stick them in other places, lower on the arm, higher on the arm, in the hand if I had too! but I don't have those. So I am stuck sticking them in places where a straight 21 gauge BD Safety Needle is safe to use.

I mean, a phlebotomist uses a butterfly when they have a harder draw because then you can see the flash, you know when you are there. Which means less digging around, less annoying the patient... I mean, I even had a phlebotomist use a butterfly on the friggin HIGHWAY of a vein in my arm because she thought it was smaller because she didn't tie the tourniquet tight enough... It is the only kind you can use in a hand, or on the lower arm... so when a heroin junkie has killed all the veins in the crook of their arm, and THEY can't even find it, HOW the heck am I supposed to find a vein if that is the only place I can look.

Or the patients who REFUSE to be drawn with anything else. Or the ones whos veins collapse under the normal pressure from a tube?

I just do the best with what I have. But it is starting to get noticed that I have to try over a few DAYS on some people, waiting until they get healthy enough to have a decent vein show up.

Then there is the reality of MONEY.

Now, I know my family won't let me starve if I am broke, I know I will always have a roof over my head and a warm place for me and my baby... But its scary when I see how small my pay check is and take into account Rent, Bills, and now, more than ever, FOOD COSTS!

Since I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes my food costs are insane. No more pizza and a salad nights. No more grabbing a Lean Pocket on the way to work when I got hungry. No more juice... that one is the hardest, since all I have craved this whole time is orange juice.

Now its having to cook all my meals, buy lunch meat to be able to make a sandwich for a snack. And have you seen the cost of lunch meat lately! 5 dollars or so, for something that lasts me only 4 sandwiches! (I'm sorry, but one slice, does not a sandwich make!) and having to get the good kind, not the processed kind, cause that can have SUGAR in it! and stuff I shouldn't be eating....  It's salad fixings, its snacking on green beans and broccoli, not tortilla chips, its needing to buy more snacks, since now I am not supposed to go over 4 hours without eating something... snacks are 15g of carbs, meals are 30-45... That means not much pasta, but still a hungry belly, so I have to get veggies to fill it! I think my food costs have nearly doubled since I have to start being so careful.

I know the baby is worth it, I know that giving up every vice, down to my last one... (sugar) is worth it. But damn, its soooooooooooo hard right now!

And at least OHP covers all my sugar testing supplies. Oh yea, thats another fun thing.... 4-6 finger sticks a day. It is only 4 normally, but if the number is weird, I double check it, then re-check in an hour. Cause if it STAYS weird, its a hospital trip for me! Fun stuff.....

But I will manage. I always do.

Gotta go pick up my guy at work, its too rainy for him to walk home. I love him too much to want him to be soggy and cold when its just a short drive...