Sunday was the first day of my duty in UST Hospital to complete the required number of intravenous insertions needed to acquire my Intravenous Therapy (IVT) license.  To tell you the truth I’ve been freaking out since Friday about this; the feeling of pain of having a needle pierce through your flesh kept on popping up in my hand.  Phantom pain?  Maybe. 

When we were already in the Emergency Room, I actually begged Cha, my partner, to take the first case.  I was too antsy to perform well, that much I knew.  But then the staff nurse oriented us as to how it’s going to go down and BAM! I ended up getting the first case.

Well I wasn’t really that nervous anymore when the patient came in.  It was an extremely slow day and four of the eight hours we were supposed to spend in the ER were spent in idleness.  There were no patients.  So when finally there was a case already, I actually jumped up at the chance.

Since I’ve long decided that my first shot at in actual IV insertion would be an epic fail, the pressure was actually off.  I’ve accepted that I wouldn’t be able to get it in the first try so even though I was still very nervous I wasn’t a blubbering mess.

I introduced myself to the patient, with all the needed materials at the bedside.  I was very much relieved to see that my hands weren’t shaking.  Although I did see the patient cringe when he saw the needle.  He actually said that he was afraid of needles while looking at me straight in the eye.  So.  The pressure was back on. 

I went through the routine, as I envisioned it inside my head and was pleasantly surprised to see the backflow of blood.  Yay!  That meant that the line was in!  Hooray!  I did it the first shot!  I know that it definitely helped that his veins were already ridiculously dilated and all, but still I felt ridiculously proud of myself. 

So I dress the IV insertion site and went on my way, confident on my next insertion that I can do it.  Unfortunately that was the only case for me for that day and now I have to wait for a new patient for an IV insertion. 

I guess the one good thing about setting yourself up for failure is that when you succeed you get this huge surge of joy through your body.