August 2022 - The Zinn Diaries

3 Practical Ways to Care for Yourself as a Travel Nurse

August 30, 2022 No Comments

I love getting my nails done as much as any woman, but nursing demands a new set of self-care skills! Since hospitals won’t let us have our nails painted, we have to look outside the box to care for ourselves and support our mental health. The physical, mental, and emotional strain of being a nurse combined with the unique challenges of living miles (or states) away from your family can be hard to handle. I believe self-care and self-love are essential for success as a travel nurse, so read my best suggestions for travel nursing self-care below!

1. Your Health Comes First (get it? It’s #1!)

Eat enough food

It’s easy to find yourself not eating enough food when you start a new travel contract. Driving back and forth between cities on very little sleep, taking quick naps before shifts or required social gatherings, and having limited time to go to the store can lead to terrible diet choices. I used to eat like a kindergartener when I first started traveling because I had only a microwave and minimal fridge space. If your goal is to survive off mini microwavable mac-n-cheese cups or Lunchables, you do you! However, ensuring that you actually eat home-cooked food can make or break your traveling experience.

My tip: Never rent somewhere without a stove or electric cooking top. You can eat a reasonably healthy diet and cook various meals if you have a functional kitchen area. Right now, I am blessed to be staying in an apartment with a beautifully stocked kitchen, which is THE BEST. If you can find a good kitchen in a rental, I highly encourage you to utilize it!

I started eating healthier and saving significant money by packing hot lunches to take to work. Some of my favorites are pasta with grilled chicken, rice with cooked diced vegetables and grilled chicken, and high-protein veggie burgers. I get pre-cooked grilled chicken from ALDI, which is lean meat, high protein, and easy to add to my pasta or stir fry when I warm it up at the hospital. The burgers that I eat are also from ALDI, and while they get pretty soft when you microwave them, they have still proven themselves to be a solid option at 2am!

Something about cold lunches never feels satisfying in the middle of my shift, so I typically avoid them. I save tuna salad or chicken salad sandwiches, refrigerated fruit cups, and salty snacks for when I get home!

If you already have an exercise routine, stick with it if possible. Many popular gyms, including the YMCA and Planet Fitness, are national memberships that will grant you access to any location. My membership to the YMCA lets me in the door and allows me to sign up for classes at my home gym and the gym in my contracted city. If you don’t have an exercise routine, now could be the perfect time to start one! You probably have more free time than you did at home, and it’s a scientifically proven way to prevent depression, normalize your hormones, and keep yourself energized. If you’re homesick, a little forced exercise definitely couldn’t hurt.

2. Make Sure You Follow Your “Why”

Why did you decide to travel? Was it for the increased pay? Did you want to travel for adventure and sightseeing? Were you looking for new experiences? Was it because you wanted to live in a specific area or be closer to other family/friends? There are endless reasons we decide to travel nurse, but I’d like to encourage you not to lose sight of your “why.”

If you’re trying to make as much money as possible, ensure you don’t neglect your health as you chase that (very reachable) goal. If you choose to travel for the actual travel experiences, use that reason to prioritize your free time. By following your “why,” you will end your contract feeling much more satisfied and fulfilled than if you just plodded through your assignment.

My “why” was not originally money-focused. Of course, it was exciting to see my pay package offers for my first assignment, but I ultimately decided to try it because I wanted to get out of town. I wanted to travel the world, so I was thrilled to start traveling the country! The extra income has helped fuel the leisurely side of traveling, but the adventure of it is still where my heart lies.

My tip: Carefully choose between 36-48 hours. Remember, you can always pick up overtime, but you can’t usually decrease your hours after you’ve started! Those 48-hour contract price points might seem tempting, and that might match your personal goals, but remember to take care of yourself first.

3. Don’t JUST Work.

I know it can be tempting to pick up those extra shifts when you know you’re making travel pay. Fridays are my favorite day of the week (thank you, weekly paychecks)! However, you need days off during the week even if your goal is to make tons of money. Those three months will fly by faster than you expect, even as an experienced traveler. My favorite memories from contracts are always time with friends and having new experiences, and I’ve made some really incredible friendships while traveling!

Make friends with other travelers. Nurses love to eat, and some breakfast mimosas after a long shift are a multi-purpose way to unwind! I love a good mimosa flight and pancake brunch! Bonding with other nurses can build connections for switching shifts, give you people to chat with at night to stay awake, and can be convenient when you need a new reference at the end of your contract.

Don’t be afraid to be a tourist! A quick Google search will pop up plenty of bucket list activities in most cities/areas, and there are usually options advertised on the city’s official website too. Experiencing the local attractions together can be a smooth entry into befriending other travel nurses too!

VACATION! If you’ve read this blog at all, you know this is my FAVORITE topic! I try to take 1-2 weeks off between each contract or contract extension for some R&R. I’ve never had a problem getting a few weeks of vacation time off during my contracts.

My tip: Arrange your time off to start on a Wednesday and end on the following Wednesday. This lets you work your three shifts each week and allows you to have a vacation without compromising your budget. Managers appreciate this format too! 😊

On vacation in San Francisco, CA between contract extensions

For tips on finding restaurants to visit with your new travel nurse friends, click here to read my article, “How I Find Great Restaurants in New Cities!”

Getaways in the United States, Travel

Skip The Line: The Magic of TSA PreCheck

August 10, 2022 No Comments

Have you ever heard of TSA Precheck? Neither had I until my mother discovered that I didn’t have it and decided to nag me about it! Luckily, I listened to my mother and realized that being prechecked by the TSA saves me hours of waiting in security lines at airports. For those of you who have never heard of this but hate lugging your baggage through lines like cattle, this one is for you! (No, this isn’t sponsored, but ways to save time should always be shared with others!)

If you’ve ever flown, you’ve been through exactly what I’m talking about. You get to the airport, luggage in tow, and you find the security check only to see an endless line weaving between ropes as far as the eye can see. According to the MyTSA app (Transportation Security Administration), security line wait times can take anywhere from 15-45 minutes depending on the airport location and size. Add a toddler or two and your exciting vacation isn’t off to a great start. However, have you ever noticed that extra line to the left that rarely has anyone waiting? You can join that random businessman in a suit who gets to skip the line by making an appointment online with the TSA to complete a background check.

According to the TSA website, in July 2022, 95% of TSA PreCheck passengers waited less than 5 min.

To make a background check appointment, you will need to input your full name, contact information, mailing address, and social security number. Click here to jump straight to the appointment page! Most appointments are held at an actual airport, and multiple smaller airports in central Illinois provide this service. I made my husband and I appointments online two weeks in advance and didn’t have to provide any payment information online. The website did request that we both bring our driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and a copy of our marriage certificate to support my last name change. I used a debit card to pay $85 per person and we both got electronically fingerprinted on a machine in their office. They snapped a quick picture of each of us and we were done within 20 minutes!

For $85 per person, both of us now have unique “Known Traveler” identification numbers that are valid for the next 5 years to allow us to jump into the TSA PreCheck line at any airport in the country!

Obviously, I was excited to try this out, and I was lucky to have a short trip coming up the week after. I trotted into the TSA PreCheck line with my backpack and was gestured straight to the front of the long line of travelers. Skipping over 50 people made me nervous, but the security guard smiled and took my boarding pass like nothing was amiss. After verifying my ticket, he sent me through the security gate with a cute piece of paper that said “TSA PRECHECKED”. I had no clue what to do with it, so I started to take my shoes off like normal before the guard stopped me.

On that note, here are the perks of being TSA PreChecked!

You don’t have to take off your shoes, belt, or jacket. Leave ‘em on and walk right through the scanner with your cute piece of paper.
Your electronics can stay in your bag! They advertise that you can leave your laptop in your bag as it goes through the rolling x-ray scanner, but I also left my Nintendo Switch and cellphone in my bag with no issues.
3-1-1 liquids don’t have to be removed either. As long as they meet TSA’s liquid rules, they can stay packed away.
Kids age 12 and under can go through the TSA Precheck line with a parent/guardian with no extra fees. Anyone over the age of 12 is eligible to be Prechecked, but it’s difficult to complete if they don’t have a driver’s license yet. For more details on qualifications for minors, click here!

Note: Yes, they still x-ray your belongings, and you still have to walk through the scanner to make sure you’re not carrying deadly weapons or peanut butter.

I got through security in less than 3 minutes, which was lucky because I was running short on time. If I would have had to wait in the general line, I would’ve been significantly more likely to miss my flight. On the return home from my visit with family, my dad decided to fly back to Illinois with me. Not only did we accidentally end up in the wrong terminal, we went through the entire security check process before we realized that we were on the wrong side of the airport! (Orlando Airport is big, okay?) However, we could still laugh at the situation because our TSA PreCheck sped us through both security lines and got us to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Without skipping the 100+ person lines, we undoubtedly would have missed our flight home. This is an awesome way for travel nurses to minimize commute time when they fly home to visit family, and I am thrilled to skip through the line on every trip in the future!

If you fly regularly, have kids in tow, or just don’t want the extra stress of waiting in long lines at an airport, we highly recommend getting you and your family TSA PreChecked! For more tips on picking flights, check out my article, “Flying Cheap: The Hopper App and Spirit Airlines”!

Nursing, Nursing Education, Uncategorized

The Nurse That COVID Made Me

August 3, 2022 1 Comment

My name is Skyler Zinn and I was born as a nurse into the COVID-19 pandemic.

I graduated from nursing school in December 2019, ready to take on the busy intensive care unit where I had worked as a nurse aide for two years while finishing school. I chose the nurse who I wanted to train me; a friendly guy named Jason who was smart yet still funny. He was nice to everyone and the critical, dying, hard patients were given to him because he could handle it. I wanted those patients, too. I wanted to be trusted to be a competent, efficient nurse who could save lives and manage stress, just like Jason could.

Eventually, I wished that I wasn’t that nurse.

I began orientation the week before Christmas and could not be more excited to switch from nurse aide green to those royal blue “official” nurse scrubs. Even though I was extremely nervous, I followed Jason like one of the brand-new interns from Grey’s Anatomy; I watched, took notes, asked questions, and probably drove him crazy. I passed my NCLEX licensure exam on January 24th, 2020 and became a registered nurse. I got that bright red “RN” badge and continued my 12-week training to become an ICU nurse.

Our state shut down on March 21st, 2020.

COVID shut down all normalcy. Suddenly, nurses in the hospital started cross-training for other roles. ICU became filled with orthopedic nurses, surgical nurses, and labor/delivery nurses who had been yanked from their comfort zone and landed in our noisy critical care environment. These nurses were rockstars, and those first months were made immeasurably better with their support.

Unfortunately, as they helped with our patients upstairs, we were put on a rotation to help in the outpatient surgery area on the ground floor, aka “the dungeon.” No windows, one door, and tiny rooms only meant to hold a surgical stretcher. Our nurse directors and administrators were tasked with building a brand-new COVID unit with air filtration and creating policies with no pre-existing government guidelines. They brainstormed ways to get supplies in/out of rooms safely and stocked critical meds that had never been needed before. Our building maintenance team even built new doors and walls to make the existing unit safe for COVID patients. Respiratory therapists prepped ventilators and other oxygen devices so that we would have equipment on hand.

All of us were faced with an unknown future and the fear of bringing disease home to our families. We showered in the abandoned psych ward rooms on the top floor of the hospital after our shifts. After shift change, you could see rows of hospital staff changing their shoes in the trunks of their cars in the parking lot. Tiptoeing into the house naked after leaving our “hospital clothes” in the garage became the norm, even though we had just put them on in the psych ward!

My friends and I finished ICU orientation just weeks after the state closed and were launched into the madness along with long-term experienced nurses. I was pushed to learn how to put COVID patients on life support as efficiently as possible, how to titrate multiple medications at the same time, and how to run a code in a tiny patient room that wasn’t big enough to hold all our equipment. We had to learn fast because our patients could crash on us rapidly. I felt supported by my managers to safely improve my skills, and we all worked together to keep our community alive. Restaurants brought us food to eat (can’t go to the cafeteria in COVID scrubs!). Patients’ families sent individually wrapped snacks and sodas to get us through because we often didn’t have time to sit for lunch breaks. Nurses helped other nurses and critical patients were a team effort.

I watched a lot of people die. I have seen things I don’t want to remember. I’ve heard things that I pray never to hear again. But the privilege of being able to be there at someone’s last moment, even as we did everything we could to keep them alive, was an honor that I never want to forget.

Nurses stepped up during the pandemic. Even when our families argued about wearing masks at Walmart, we gowned up under layers of protective gear and worked countless hours to keep high-risk patients in our community alive. Now that the pandemic is “over” and normal ICU life has resumed, we reminisce around nurses’ stations with a mix of dread and nostalgia. Those years changed the healthcare world permanently and have shined a light on how important nurses are.

Even though being born into fire hurt like hell, I’m proud of the nurse that COVID made me.

For more details about what life has been since COVID “ended,” click here.

Skyler in PAPR
Danielle in PAPR
Astrid in Bunny Suit
Shannon in PPE
Skyler in Bunny Suit
Skyler with N95 unicorn mask
Shannon with her mom in COVID ICU