Training, TB Test and Bus Riding

I have now finished my week long training.  While it was quite awkward being in a room with the same people for a total of 22 hours, it got better throughout the week.

That weird woman I mentioned earlier?  Her name is April.  I ended up developing quite a soft spot for her.  She's 33 and recently moved to Utah after having a baby.  While at first I just thought she was weird, I quickly realized that she is TERRIFIED.  She found out that she'll be working in a house where knives aren't allowed because there will be a young girl there that uses them to a negative advantage.  She doesn't know how she can work there and protect herself and teach this girl life skills.  We were partnered up a lot for restraint training and she would get the moves right until the teacher or class watched her.  Then she would get scared and not be able to remember the steps.  She needs to know this stuff to keep her and the young girl safe but she's so nervous.  On the second day of restraint training she asked if we were going to be partners again and I said that I wasn't sure, as we lost someone and now had an odd number.  She looked so hurt by the possibility that I didn't want to work with her again.  I quickly explained why I wasn't sure.  Friday she didn't show up to training and I'm worried that she decided she couldn't do it.

Our training included a lot of restraint training.  It was seriously 8-10 hours of restraining and being restrained by people.  My body hurt the next day each time.  But if anyone attacks me on the street I know how to restrain them, stop them from biting, choking or pulling my hair and prevent them from hitting me in the head.  I feel like those are some pretty useful skills to know.  We also had training on abuse and neglect.  There are so many things that would qualify as abuse or neglect.  Now I'm slightly terrified that I'll get fired for neglecting someone without realizing it.  The best part of training was learning CPR and first aid.  If anyone stops breathing around me I'm going to do compressions so fast and hard their ribs break.  That's... a common occurrence with CPR, not like a desire to harm someone or something like that.  FYI.

Having this job has required me to conquer a few fears.  I know this is ridiculous (most of my fears are) but I get really nervous about taking public transportation.  It's not that the people on the bus freak me out or that I think it's dirty.  I'm afraid that I won't get where I want to go.  It doesn't matter how many  times I look at the route map or if there isn't even a transfer.  And I'm scared that the bus won't actually come and then I'll need to find alternate transportation for where I need to go.  And I have weird fears about pulling the wire for my stop too early or late.  I feel like there's just a weird bus culture.  But this week I took the bus to and from training a couple of times on my own and everything worked out.  The bus came when it was supposed to and stopped where I wanted it to.  There was this one weird incident when I rode the bus home and I pulled for a stop.  The bus driver stopped and I assumed it was for me, so I got up and went to the door but couldn't get out.  I figured it was me and walked to the front of the bus, feeling bad for being annoying and taking up too much time.  But  no.  The bus driver just wanted to kill some time so he had parked so as not to be early for the upcoming stops.  Perfect timing on his part.  Why not just take me to my stop and wait?  It was way awkward.  So was the time that I brought all my nickels and dimes for the fare and knew I had more than the $2.35 fare price.  But I started dumping my change in expecting the meter to keep track for me.  Note:  it doesn't.  You need to know exactly how much money you've put in the thing.  But who's to stop you from putting in too little?  I ended up putting too much in...

I was also terrified of getting a TB test.  It's not that I think that I have TB.  I've had some really bad interactions with shots.  When I was little it would take 3 nurses to hold me down just to put eye drops in my eyes.  I don't like people putting things in my body.  I'm afraid of the pain.  Shots make me feel woozy and claustrophobic.  In 7th grade when I had to get my HepB shots we would drive from Snowflake, AZ back to Oxnard to go to the military base to get the air gun, because for some reason it freaked me out less than an actual needle.  The second of that series I put on my big girl brave face and made it through without freaking out.  I walked out feeling light headed but not crying.  Until Jason punched me in the arm.  But today Annette walked with me to the Health Department.  I told her that I might cry or vomit.  I get really freaked out.  I told the nurse that there was a large chance I'd start to cry and I even wondered aloud if I should just find a different job.  Annette held my hand and I felt the nurse press the needle onto my skin.  And then she told me to stay still while she put in the fluid.  The needle was already in my arm, not just resting on my skin.  It didn't hurt at all. But it was only between layers of my skin and not a subcutaneous type of thing.  So the shot thing... still an issue.