A Little Bump in the Road to my First Travel Nurse Assignment

Håfa adai and welcome back! If you haven't read parts 1 to 4 yet, check them out here!

Pike Place Market

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GU to PDX

Flying from Guam to Portland, Oregon took my partner and me on a nearly 24-hour trip. Using miles that I accumulated through my various credit cards, I was able to book both economy class seats from Guam to Tokyo. From Tokyo to Portland, I was able to use the rest of my miles to book First/Business class seats. Fortunately, my agency was able to cover $750 of any additional travel expenses.

I have to say, flying United Polaris was one of the best choices we made for this trip! Having seats that fully recline made the 9.5-hour flight to San Francisco feel like 4 hours. Getting served 2 full meals, snacks, and complimentary champagne was probably the cherry on top. Once we arrived in San Francisco, we had to re-check our luggage (which wasn’t too bad of a process, except a freaking luggage cart cost $8). After a short layover, we boarded our last plane headed for Portland.

After flying comfortably in the United First seats (not as luxurious as the Polaris seats, but can’t complain there), we landed in Portland close to noon. Since neither my partner nor I knew how to drive on the highways on the mainland, we opted to use public transportation and Uber or Lyft. The first order of business was setting up our phones with stateside numbers. We took the public train to an outlet mall nearby and picked up new SIM cards for our phones. Once we had that done, we booked a Lyft to our rental.

Why did I go with Lyft over Uber? Chase has a partnership with Lyft (until 2024) that would offer 5x points on all bookings which would give me more rewards over booking a rental car for several months. However, as smoothly as everything was going, we would hit our first obstacle of the trip.

Portland, OR

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Our First-Day Obstacle

Only 15 minutes into our ride, we were rear-ended on the highway! See what I did there. We “hit” our first obstacle. Hah. It’s really only funny in retrospect, but at the time I was terrified. My instant thoughts went to making sure my partner was okay. Unfortunately, the police were not able to assist us as it was rush hour and the traffic was dense. After collecting whatever information we could from the driver that hit us, our Lyft driver kindly dropped us off at a nearby outlet mall.

Instead of booking another Lyft, I was able to get in contact with our landlord and he was kind enough to pick us up. By 4 or 5 PM, we were at our rental and were able to decompress. After a quick tour of the unit, we unpacked our luggage and I hopped into the shower to freshen up.

Here’s where I’ll get a little more vulnerable and open with all of you. I sat in the shower for a good 30 minutes, crying. Negative thoughts flooded my mind. “Did I make a mistake coming here?” “Did I make a mistake bringing my partner into this?” “How do I make sure this doesn’t happen again?” “How do I protect my partner and myself from having this happen?” “This would never have happened back home.”

In those 30 minutes, I felt the worst I had ever felt in a long time. Defeated. Vulnerable. Helpless. Until my partner saved me. She sat in the shower with me, still clothed, and cried with me. After the tears ran out, we promised to protect each other throughout this assignment and beyond. For a brief moment, the fog of my despair was cleared away and I could imagine a brighter future for us both.

If you’ve come this far, thank you for reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed this small, yet personal look into my life and my experience as a travel nurse. Check back again for the next part of my travel nurse journey!

Our first day dinner

Until next time! Salamat and si yu’us ma’ase!