Saturday, June 21, 2008

I'm Alive :)

Hello All! Sorry it has been so long since the last post. I fear that I have officially turned into an old woman. Though my 24th birthday is drawing near, I still feel I am far older.... Since I got my new job, I have to get up much earlier than I'm used to. I've gotten used to getting up early now. I don't like it ( LOL) but I've gotten in the habit of it now. I have to travel as part of my job, so that means a lot of times I have to get up even earlier to be on time. I have to follow my doctor where he goes. By the time 9PM rolls around, I'm starting to yawn and the eyes are getting heavy. It's a very sad sight to see. The girl that didn't turn into a pumpkin until at LEAST 3am, has now finally met her match...

I'll give you a bit of a run-down of what a typical day at Tidewater Eye is for me. :)

I normally get to work around 7:45 or so, depending on how kind traffic was to me that day.
Dr. Pavilack gets to the office around 8:30 (if he's feeling motivated... ;) but that gives me time to set up the exam rooms a bit. I stock his eye drops. Make sure our numbing drops are full, the florescene drops are full, prescription pads are there, eye drop instruction sheets and consent forms are in the drawers for me; stock the alcohol swabs; AND, the most important thing of all: Because my doctor is a corneal specialist, he sees a lot of his post-op patients that have to have sutures removed from THEIR EYEBALLS ( OH MY LORD). So I have to make sure that there is a 15 blade and jewlers (which are curved tweezers) in each exam room that he sees patients out of. This is Dr. Pavilack. I know the picture is little but it's the only one on google I could find... lol. He's really goofy looking and acting (with his goofy jokes) but he's VERY nice.



The day starts with patients who range from problem visits (scratches on their corneas, ulcers on their corneas, we had a spider bite on the cornea the other day...eeeww) to regular routine COE patients, which just means that your eyes have been dilated and you are having a regular exam at the slit lamp with the doctor. I'm in the room with him whenever he's with a patient. I write the prescriptions, drop instructions, changes in medications on their charts, code their office visits and diagnosis on their encounter forms, write the recomendation (when they are to return) send his dictation, assist in suture removal when he has to take them out, put florescene drops in people's eyes who have infections or corneal abrasions (the florescene helps pick up where the problem area is on your eye and allows the doctor to see it with a blue light when they're at the slit lamp). By the way, the slit lamp is the microscope that the doctor puts up to your face and shines that bright light into your eyes when you come for your exams. I also write down all of his dictation for new patients (in case the dictation he dictates gets lost) and I get doctors on the phone for him if it's an emergency and he needs to talk to them. Last week he had a work in patient that had been washing his car with a power washer and it got away from him a bit and it sprayed the ground. This blew some dirt in the man's left eye. He said it didn't hurt, but two days later is peripheral vision was becomming blurry. When Dr. Pavilack examined him, he took one look at him with the slit lamp and said, "Your retina is detaching. You need to go to our retina specialist right now." If your retina detaches, you go blind and that's it. There's nothing doctors can do for that yet that's been approved by the FDA. ALWAYS wear glasses when you're working outside. That man went blind in that eye we later found out because it was too far advanced. I see a lot of these:


These are corneal ulcers. You can get these by being poked in the eye or some sort of misc. trauma. I've seen some pretty gross stuff. But for some reason the corneal ulcers really get me. This one in particular is very bad because it has encroached upon this persons' vision; so most likely, they can't see. Like I said, really gross.... By the end of the day, I wash my hands a lot. ;)

Then I get into what I like to call "I love Grid-lock, aka 5 o'clock Traffic" and I dream about my weekends. But it's really good. I really like it. I'm catching up on some much needed rest this weekend. Kiel went on a canoe trip with his dad's church this weekend. AND, (I thought Anita would be interested to know) Bess, Von's girlfriend (the crazy one that lives here) FINALLY moved out!!! Yay! So that's good. I'm enjoying nice quiet things. We definately have to get together soon. I will have to take some pictures of me in scrubs. That's another plus. I'm starting to skip around in topic so it must be time for me to go...lol

I love love love you ALL! :)
Tina

7 comments:

The Craziness that is My Life said...

I just realized that the eyeball as that of a Sharpei.. lol. It looked like a human eye! The ulcers all look alike

The Craziness that is My Life said...

*is

trresa said...

Your new job sounds way awesome, thanks for telling us all about it. Now when I think of you during the day I can imagine some of the stuff you're doing. I'm so glad you posted because I was beginning to think you might be in a ditch somewhere...really, this was too long not hearing from you! :) I'm glad you're enjoying your job.

Eye can't wait to see you! It's been so long I hope I still retinaize you! Lens get together soon! (I can't take credit for these, you know Keven came up with them!!)

Anita said...

Tina - that picture is GROSS!! And it doesn't matter to me that it was a sharpei and not a human - hey, isn't a sharpei a dog? Hhmm, either way - you're a mighty good woman taking care of those eye issues! I love you Tina and miss you greatly!!! So...lens definitely get together soon!!!

Anita said...

And hey, about Bess, it's about time!!!:)

The Craziness that is My Life said...

yes, a sharpei is a dog. and yes, it is DEF gross.

your jokes teresa and kevin were hilarious, and I laughed. :)

Eye'll be in touch :) haha

Amanda said...

christina - your job sounds pretty good. offices have a nice rhythm to them, i think. :)

mom & dad - classic.