Eustis/Leesburg, Florida

"The eagle has landed." I finally made it, and what an undertaking it was to get here. I finally left Gainesville on Sunday afternoon, after an abundance of help from my mom, who was invaluable in helping me pack and get out of my apartment. With all of my possessions in storage, except for what I could fit in my vehicle and take with me, I arrived in Leesburg, FL. (Even though my job is in Eustis, I'm staying in Leesburg, which is about 9 miles away. I guess it's the only place they could find for me to stay on such short notice.) My apartment was not ready to be moved into yet, so the company I work for put me up in a hotel for the night.

On Monday I checked out of the hotel and headed to my first day on the job. What a first day it was. I walked in, introduced myself to my new boss, who never even bothered to get off of her cell phone while introducing herself. When she was done with her phone call, during which I had been awkwardly standing there, she showed me where on the computer to find the documentation program and how to sign in, all while whispering conspiratorially to her co-workers about, I can only assume, me. She then proceeded to take me on a "tour of the facility", which involved walking out into the hallway and pointing to the left, "That's Wing One," and then to the right, "That's Wing Two," in between chatting with EVERYONE who walked by, without introducing anyone to me. After that, she pointed to the map in the hallway that listed the location of all the (130) rooms, then handed me a list of patients I was to see that day, and walked off.

So began my case of the "Mondays". No orientation, no introduction to co-workers, no pointing me in the direction of a desk or space I could use to put my things...nothing. Keep in mind I haven't ever even worked in a 'skilled nursing facility' before, which she was well aware of. I eventually figure out where the charts are, locate some of the patients' charts that I am supposed to see that day, and then go off to try to find them after looking on the hallway map at where their rooms are supposed to be. I spend most of the morning wandering around lost, trying to find patients that aren't in their rooms, and when I do find them, trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do with them. Mostly I just took them on "walks" around the hallways for exercise. Suddenly, I hear someone I've never met before yelling at me from down the hall..."What are you doing with Mrs. B, don't you know she's supposed to back in her room by 11:30??" Well, no I didn't know that, because nobody thought to mention that at any point until now. So I take Mrs. B back to her room, and head back to the rehab department to get my purse and head somewhere for lunch...but turns out, they also forgot to tell me that there was a two-hour meeting that day during the lunch period and that I was supposed to bring my lunch. The rest of the day was pretty much just more of the same thing...trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

The rest of the week wasn't much different, except that it got a little easier once I figured out where everything was, and watched other people to see what they did with the patients. There were a couple episodes of pure confusion and embarrassment, including the point at which one patient's PEG tubing got caught on the wheelchair, pulling the coupling apart and spilling her stomach contents all over the floor and on my shoe, right in front of the people that I had eventually figured out where my co-therapists.

Oh well, what did I expect? If this were such a wonderful place to work, they wouldn't be paying out some serious cash to entice traveling therapists into working there for a few months. (I later found out that there are several other traveling therapists working there.) On the plus side, I only saw my boss a couple other times that week, one of which was to yell at me for staying late on Wednesday to finish seeing all the patients that were assigned to me...But it meant that I got off early on Friday, so that actually worked out well...

Everything else about Eustis and Leesburg has been fine. The apartment that I'm staying in for the next few months is decent, and there's a lake less than a mile away. (There's so many lakes in this area, that you could probably find one less than a mile from anywhere you happen to be.) I drove by another lake that looks like it has kayak rentals, so I'm going to check that out tomorrow...and there's a gym a few miles away that I'm probably going to check out on Monday...assuming I make it through another Monday.