As I am all cuddled up in my very comfortable bed; with an excellent view of Sydney, I feel so at peace and so happy. My husband and I are celebrating 100 days married today. Whilst it is a silly little celebration, it reminds me of how thrilled and scared I was to come to Australia. I chose to leave the US behind and move to Australia to be with my husband. It was a hard decision because Australia is so far from everything. It’s a little joke that has frequently appeared in our relationship.

Not only is the flight long, the time change is exhausting. Currently, it is a 14 hour time change. If I plan to phone home, I have to get up at a decent time or make plans for Skype calls well in advance. Daylights Savings Time occurs here in less than a month and then it will be a 15 hour difference. Eventually when DST happens in the US, it will be 16 hours.

When we flew to Europe for our honeymoon, it was a LONG flight. We were in the air for 24 hours. Thank goodness for a stop Singapore. Australia is so far from everywhere, but it is so worth it.

My biggest fear wasn’t relocating to another country. Instead it was “how to be a nurse in a different country.” All of a sudden I was even more grateful for my experience as a travel nurse. If it weren’t for my travels back home, I might not be in the situation I am in today. It’s likely that I would have been far more stressed out and may not have been able to adjust to the differences.

I’m working at a Private Hospital in Sydney. The hospital has the same beds, monitors, IV pumps, and ventilators as I’ve used in the past. Those similarities made it easier to adjust, but what traveler hasn’t had to jump in with completely different equipment and just go for it after 12 hours of orientation. That was the easy part. The computer charting wasn’t difficult. Like most computer charting, it was just a matter of playing with it for a bit and remembering where to go to chart whatever needed charted.

The hardest thing has been and continues to be medications. There is not Tylenol here; Only Panadol (which is acetaminophen, but that is besides the point). If you ask for Tylenol, you’ll only get confused expressions. No Advil; The Ibuprofen is called Nurofen or Hedafen. You can buy Nurofen Plus over the counter and it contains codeine. If you want to buy medications at the Chemist, AKA Pharmacy, you will need to consult with the Chemist and he will decided what medication is best for you. I just go to Aldi and get Nurofen. Much easier.

I think the first few weeks I spent hours staring at medications and searching for them in the medication book only to find out that these are medications I’ve been giving for years and I have to say it was really frustrating. Dosing was a roadblock as well. Magnesium is administered in mmols instead of grams. So I administer 10 or 20 mmols. Just the little things that make you stop and think.

Lab values are yet another hurtle. Pathology was something I didn’t even consider. We keep our patient’s Blood Sugar Levels (BSL) between 5-10. It took months to not block that out.

But when I was working earlier this week, I realised how much I really love it here. I was with an agitated, intubated patient. We were planning to extubate which meant no propofol or sedation of any kind. It also meant frequent Inotrope tritration to maintain blood pressure parameters. Up and down on the Norad (Levophed) and SNP (Nipride). Back in the US, I would have had 2 intubated patients or 1 intubated patient and one easier patient (depending on the day and the Charge Nurse), but at my hospital; intubated patients are 1:1 no matter what. I felt very grateful to be working in this environment.

Our fresh open heart patients are 2:1 as is our large Neurosurgery cases for at least a few hours. In our Grade 5 AVMs, we’ll have one nurse just to titrate drips when they first arrive back because the blood pressure parameters are so tight.

I’m sitting in bed,on this beautiful Sunday morning, feeling blessed beyond belief.