Adding FB posts first.

3/26/18:  First day under my belt. Definitely will wear my Fitbit. I'm pretty sure I got close to my 10,000 steps today. At least it feels like it! The campus is HUGE. Have met all of my coworkers. We're already moving into a bigger space so all 6 of us can be in the same room. Have access to the Wellness Center. The Navajo Nation has the the oldest Native American medical facility in the US established in 1930. The hospital building was erected in 1963. There was a nursing school on the campus at one time. Have to learn more about that. There are some adobe buildings that are historical, but in such disrepair they cannot be restored. However, because they are historical, they can't be demolished. I am now living as an minority. Pictures soon. I see so many things to shoot, but I'm always driving. Eating dinner and then to unpack! The adventure continues.

3/31/18:  The first week in Ganado is complete. I'm still employed...as far as I know. It has been an active week. Slowing a bit, but since the DM Program is in two places, the main office at the hospital and the outpatient portion in the Poncel Building, there is lots of walking. The move was made on Tuesday after it was decided to put all 6 of us in one space. The Outpatient DM where 3 people lived, was just too small for all of us. And it is now open for diabetes consults.

Let me give you the lay of the land. The actual site of the hospital and clinic as well as a Presbyterian church, PT, Behavioral Health, the Wellness Center, daycare, dentist, eye doctor, Human Resources, Administration and all of the other things needed to make all of the above run smoothly was a Presbyterian mission as of 1901 as best as I can find out. There is probably more info on the hospital site proper. There was also a nursing school at one time, opened in 1930 I think. I'll post pictures of the monument when I get them. As I said before, the current hospital building was erected in 1963. It hold respiratory, radiology, security, 25 pt beds, dietary and EVS (aka Housekeeping). It functions as an Urgent Care as well as true emergencies. There is a heliport so really serious cases are shipped to Flagstaff. I honestly don't know if any procedures are performed such UGIs, etc., but I'm pretty sure no surgery is done here except very minor (which of course there really isn't anything minor about surgery. But I digress.

There is also housing on the campus for employees. The homes are predominantly modular homes, although I've noticed a building known as "The Stone House" because that is was it is made of. Don't know if anyone lives there. I'm in Modular #10, Room 1. I share my "home" with 3 Filipino nurses who all work 7p-7a, 7 days on and 7 off. Two of them are on the same schedule. They didn't know each other from the Philippines, but 2 of them were from the same town and had never met prior to coming here. There are a lot of Filipino staff here, some for almost 3 years. Of course, 90% of the staff of Native American/Navajo. Not too many blonde, blue eyed folks here. Interestingly, the hospital CEO is a woman and Anglo (that's what the whites are called). I don't understand why a Native American is not running things. It seems to me there are any number of highly educated NA who could be running their hospital, but I'm sure that knowledge is well above my pay grade even if I were a permanent employee.

I work with five other women. I confess, working solely with the female gender is not something I do well. That said, I can suck it up. A little testosterone doesn't hurt a group. Maybe it won't be so bad since I have far more of that then estrogen these days. Speaking of which, I have to tweeze my chin hairs. Again, I digress. The ladies range in age from mid 20s to just 60. I'm the oldest. {Sigh} There are three nurses: Emmeline, the program coordinator, BSN, RN, 40 yo; Karen, a BSN, RN traveler been here almost 3 years and myself. Dorothy is an CNA and 60. Bebah and Shiah are MAs and in their early 20s. All are NA except myself and Karen who is Filipino. BTW, because Karen was here first I'm known as Kay (my middle name). I went by Kay when I was first out of HS working for Optimist International. There were two of us and both named Karen/Caren so I went by Kay. Seems like full circle to come back to that--because, honestly, THIS IS MY LAST nursing gig. I'm too old for this!

This has gotten waaaayyyy toooooo long. So I'm adding pictures with captions. I'm going to look into the blogging thing. Then I can just post updates there and you all can read as you desire instead of blowing up your feeds with ramblings.