While we were in Tamarac Anna had worked a three month contract at a level 1 trauma center in Myrtle Beach. Anna was thinking of extending for a second three months if Lane came there too, so we decided what the heck... we could stand some time in Myrtle Beach. I mean we already had some nice beach chairs and an umbrella, and I had spent nine months perfecting my House Boy suntan.
So Lane signed the contract for the new assignment and we were going to have a week off between contracts and spend that week at home in F-town doing some much needed home maintenance/repairs, and then head to Myrtle Beach. But that was not to be. Around three days before we were due to leave Tamarac, the hospital in Myrtle Beach sent word through the travel company that we either had to advance the new contract by a week (no week off between the assignments) or delay it by two weeks (two weeks off between assignments). We chose to advance rather than delay.
I have found it is difficult, sometimes close to impossible to find an apartment that will lease to us for just three months, so we had already decided that for the first time we were going to use company provided housing rather than try to find and secure housing ourselves, so we did not have to deal with that issue in regards to the last minute change of start dates. We planned to leave Tamarac on a Thursday, heading north, spend one night en route, and arrive in Myrtle Beach on Friday. Then Lane would begin the new assignment the following Monday. But it turned out the company providing the furniture could not advance their delivery by a week and could not deliver the furniture until Wednesday of week one of the new contract, so the company had to put us up in a hotel for five nights until the apartment was ready for us. In retrospect that was a bad omen.
The hotel they put us in at Myrtle Beach was sort of a dump. And a travel nurse, her House Boy, and two dogs living in a hotel room is pretty cramped. But we managed. Lane began her orientation on Monday, and on Wednesday morning, after dropping her off at the hospital, I started getting us settled in the new apartment. It was the same apartment complex where Anna had been living and was really nice. It was also really close to a grocery store and I ended up walking to do shopping many times, which was nice. In addition, for whatever reason, they had put us in a two bedroom apartment, which was really nice. It even had a screened in porch. The furniture arrived and I got all our stuff unloaded and put away.
Then the bad shoe fell... after Lane's orientation ended and she actually began working at the ER she was absolutely miserable. All I will say is she hated it there. She was so unhappy with the way management operated the facility I thought she was going to break the contract and just quit the first week. But she managed to stick it out somehow. We have been married 30 years and I have never known her to so dread going to work before. It was a really dark time for her, but I am proud of her for managing to stick it out.
"You can't explore it if you haven't ever been there."
Brian Hallman
