I must say I love my job! My coworkers at the hospital are awesome! Everyone is very welcoming and generally in a good mood making for an extremely good atmosphere. Managers aren't intimidating or unapproachable which makes life so much better when you have an issue or a question. So far I haven't had any major need to speak seriously with my manager. However as the new target in the place, he has does a good job of giving me crap. Which apparently is the Irish way, they just don't know how to not give you a hard time. My manager has nicknamed me Miss. America, which really isn't bad when it comes to nicknames! I however will never sit with him at lunch and make a point of giving him as little information as possible. He has already harassed me about my dating life(which I don't have) and why I haven't found an Irish man yet after only being here for 4 days at that point. Oh and the fact I have a housemate that is a man is always a hot topic with my manager! He has also managed to talk about politics with me asking which side I'm on. Saying how much of an awesome person he thinks Obama is because he has connections to Ireland like 8 generations back. Doesn't know a thing about his policies or anything he is doing in the U.S. but still loves him! Oh and apparently thinks Hilary Clinton should be the next president. He really knows what to say to get a person going but also doesn't like it if you actually have a good retort! HA!!
I have probably the most ideal job, everyone whats that Monday-Friday 8am-5pm kinda job. Which I have now. And the funny thing with Ireland or at least at this particular hospital you get 3 breaks in a 8hr day. It really feels like I go from one break to the next! Get to work at 9am, you have two techs to an exam room and at 1030 the first tech goes for a 15-20min break. Once that tech is back the second tech goes for break. Then lunch is 1230-115 for one tech and 115-2 for the other. Then around 330 one tech would get there final break and the second tech would go when they return. Only to be off work at 5pm. On these breaks everyone has a cup of coffee or more likely a cup of tea and some kind of bread/pastry with butter, seriously! Never once have I seen one of my coworkers having a cup of tea with out some kind of bread.
On more of the technical side of things, Ireland is VERY aware of radiation exposure and do about half the views on a given body part. I'm sorry if I lose anyone at this point but I'm going to speak in Radiographer language for a minute. So the standard I've been taught in the U.S. is that on Hands/wrists, feet/ankles you do three views. Then with long bones (humerus, radius/ulna, femur and tib/fib) you only do two views. All the joints such as elbows, shoulders and knees can vary in the number of views and which views depending on trauma vs pain or what the actual order is requesting. Here Ireland they only do two views, unless otherwise requested by the doctor. And on hands and feet, in the U.S. if we were to do a two views it would only be a AP and Lateral, here they do AP and Obliques. With long bones if the point of injury is at one end, say closer to the hand and the full length of the forearm doesn't fit on the film they wont bother to include the elbow joint. Especially with femurs, most adult femurs wont be visible on one film but they generally wont bother to get the whole length as long as they get the point of injury! At this particular hospital they do a lot of hip replacements, so all of our hips/pelvis exams are "ortho" pelvis. Meaning you don't need the WHOLE pelvis. If a "hip" is ordered it is changed to a pelvis and we only do a lateral or frog hip view if there is a history of fall. With Spines the only do two views on all spines. Only doing three views if you need a specific joint space open or with a cervical spine only have to do an open mouth view when the patient has been in a trauma. One other thing that really threw me was with skull work, in the US we were taught specific names for the views, which even for us there can be multiple names for one view. But if I was to hear a name of a view I'd know what they are looking for. Here the say OM or OF, so they talk projection of the path of the radiation. OM = Waters view Occipital Mental(mandible) or OF= caldwell view Occipital frontal. Was so confusing at first to make sure I didn't get it mixed up in my head.
On the funnier side is listening to people talk and people listening to me talk. I actually get made fun of more than I ever expected because of how I talk! So in Xray school, we had a teacher that pronounce thoracic as thor-astic. A couple that are even better here are how they pronounce skeletal as skel-eetal and cervical as sir-v-eye-cal! Cracks me up!! One of the techs said that even though he is from Australia he pronounces cervical the same as the Irish because other wise it sounds similar to another female body part. Really? Pretty sure if you got an order for a cervical spine or a patient comes in with a neck collar and the order says cervical you wouldn't think of a female body part.....I hope!
Okey, enough about radiology! I know you all want to see more of the country side and hear about the small adventures I've had so far. Just outside the city limits is a castle called Charleville castle! It has a beautiful estate around it with tones of sheep and cows. The long driveway to the castle which is probably about a mile is surrounded by trees and thick ground cover. You can't see the sky through the trees and it really feels like an enchanted forest, until you come to the speed bumps in the road. The castle itself is lived in and they use it for conventions and things. It's also under a lot of repairs! As cool as the castle was you can tell it has been touched by the modern world and probably due to lack of funds some areas really looked a little shabby. The part that bummed me out the most is that I didn't get to go into either of the towers or on the roof. The one tower is where all the living quarters were and the other tower needed its stairs repaired so they'd be safe to walk on.This castle is also claimed to be haunted! However I'm not quite convinced, apparently they did a super natural investigation. Our tour guide really sucked so I didn't pay much attention. Sorry I can't give you much on that.
Charleville Castle
The castle walls
The Kings Oak
At the very edge of the Castle estate is is this massive tree!
Apparently it is one of the biggest in all of Europe.
I look so tiny and apparently like an elf according to my mom!
There is one other place I've gone that is a little ways outside the city limits. Not sure I could find it again since the roads are slightly confusing. But it's called Glenbarrow. It is actually a forest that was man made and has the river barrow running through it. I didn't think to ask how long the forest had been there but with the size of all the trees and ground cover it looks to have been there for many years. Extremely beautiful! Gave my nerd self the feeling of being lost somewhere in middle earth! Just so cool!
The Trails surrounded by trees
Never found a four leaf clover. The river has a multilevel waterfall!
The country land scape near Glenborrow
So far I haven't seen much outside my little town, but I'll be planning some train rides and adventures out into the country! It's quite funny to talk about travel with the Irish, for them a 2hr drive is a long journey. Even an hour seems like a long time for them. I guess when it only takes 6-8hrs to get from one side to the total opposite side that would seem like a long time! Once I've gotten a chance to explore more of Ireland then I also intend to see some of the UK and main land Europe! I must say life without a car makes things interesting. You really have to be motivated to get some where and just hoof it or plan ahead in order to catch a train or bus. If I had a car I could probably cover soooo much ground in Ireland! I do plan to rent a car at least once, if its not super expensive I may do that more than once so I can travel where ever adventure takes me!
To finish off this post I'd like to share some Irish slang and verbiage that I've caught onto in the last two weeks. First off they use the word "grand" like we use the words good, fine, great, awesome or even okey. Everything literally is grand!! The housing development that I live in is called an estate. A cupboard is a press. One of my housemates says "whats the story" like we would say "whats up." When saying you're tired or exhausted they tend to say they're "wrecked." When someone or something is funny they say "gast" or "gas"? I'm not quite sure on that one because they talk SO flipping fast. They do actually call the restroom the loo and gas for the car is either diesel or petrol. When telling someone thanks very much or thanks allot they tend to say "thanks a mill." When saying that someone likes you or is into you, they say they "fancy" you. Using the word posh is very common! Which I actually didn't know for sure what that meant?! Just means upper class or something fancy. I guess the fact that as Americans we tend to collect cars it is very "posh" to have 2+ cars regardless of if the car itself is posh. One of the other things that they use to say something is very good or something is of high quality is "class." Like if I was to get some fancy clothing or anything that's very high quality that would be said to be class! Any drink that is mixed is considered a cocktail. Oh and the Irish don't pronounce their "th's" Think = tink, that= dat, three=tree and so on!
Guess I could add the things that I've been made fun of for saying, the BIGGEST one is saying "oh dang"! I get a smirk when ever I say awesome. And just this morning I got mocked by my house mate for pronouncing the A in tomato differently.
As much as I like allot of the Irish sayings they really don't feel natural to me so I don't say them much, if at all! Ha And of course the first time I said "oh" with an Irish twang (totally not intentionally) I got made fun of for that. I feel like I've become quite self conscious of how I talk now, I just can't win!
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ReplyDeleteIt's all so pretty Lauryn!
DeleteLove the blog! Makes you seem not so far away! Have really enjoyed the pictures as well! Keeping you in thoughts and prayers! So proud of you...hugs and prayers xoxox
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