training

Today I started training to be a nurse's assistant. Upon hiring me the children's clinic did promise me they would train me as an NA. They taught me to take all the measurements like height, weight, and head circumference. They also taught me to take a pulseox. That's a little thing that you wrap around a baby's toe, it shines a light through and reads both the pulse and the oxygen.

The baby I did the pulseox on was quite happy to be in the doctor's office and wasn't bothered by the fact that I had to do it over and over to get it right. That was nice. Working at the front desk with a near continual background noise of screaming I am quite aware that most of the time being a nurse's assistant will not be quite so pleasant.

The best thing by far though was learning to time the respirations and heartbeats. This is done by listening to a child's chest with a stethoscope and counting the heartbeats or breaths for fifteen seconds. The great part is that I got to do it on a two-month-old. He was born after I started working at this clinic. I've never listened to a tiny baby's chest before. His heart beat so fast! I counted forty beats in fifteen seconds. Listening to that teeny little chest I felt some of the same awe for God that I feel when I look at the stars.