Night shift
We don't call it graveyard in my line of work......
I am sitting here at 9:47 in the a.m., drinking what some people would suggest rehab for, should they catch me at it. But, for me it's more than "five o'clock somewhere", it's actually about a quarter to eight in the evening for me. While I ate supper several hours ago, the bars were just closing, so I had to wait until I got home.
Nightshift workers live in a very different world. Thankfully, the rooster worked nights for long enough that he understands. Greybeard understands. My children learned very quickly.....observed it most of the time. If your name was NOT God, you did NOT get to talk to their Mom during the day after she had worked the night before. No, not even if your hair was on fire. My Mom works very hard at trying to understand,I think hers is more forgetfulness than anything, and not remembering my schedule.
I thought I was a night person for years. First worked the 3-11 pm shift, then would go home and watch old movies for hours before going to bed. Partly because I had to wind down, and partly because I always have liked to stay up late, sleep in late. Drove my Dad nuts! He was one of those guys who got up at 0 dark thirty, got to work an hour before he had to.....HE drove the rest of us nuts! But, when I started working the 11p-7a shift, I found out I wasn't the night person I thought I was. Very different! When you get to bed when it is still dark out, you can generally get to sleep before the world wakes up and starts making the racket that the daytime world makes. The world is VERY noisy when the sun is up. I had to leave the phones on while my kids were in school, in case of emergencies. I would answer the phone, obviously groggy. I didn't care, I worked NIGHTS for heaven's sake!! And I would get "Oh, you're still in bed?" This is at 10 am, I had been in bed one hour.
I don't even get to sleep....to an astounding number of people what I do is "nap". No wonder I feel like crap so often, if all I do is nap!!! Would wear anybody down!
I now do 12 hour shifts, 7p-7a. If they told me I had to go back to 11-7, I would tell them adios. I love it. Still no "suits" hanging around, the time goes fast because the first 5 hours is very busy. I can tuck my patients in much more comfortably, (but, don't get the idea they all sleep....they most certainly do NOT) and do my charting at a little more leisurely pace. I do 3-4 day stretches, and while that means all I get done in that time frame is work and sleep, that schedule provides me with more consecutive days off to recover, get stuff done that night shift workers don't get done, because they are sleeping when all the "productive people" are at work running their stores, offices, etc. It was a Godsend when my Daddy was sick, I had six day stretches off, and could go on my 700 mile one way trips to check on him and not take vacation days to do it. AND drive at night when the contruction crews were gone and traffic much better.
You pray for dayshift neighbors with no kids, or at least people who stay in their houses all day. I had a neighbor for awhile who would tune his Harley by ear during the day....his garage pointed directly at my bedroom window......POWPOW, POTATOPOTATO,POWPOWPOW, POTATOPOTATOPOTATO,POWPOWPOW!!! I would finally get up, hair sticking up all over, hounds from hell look on my face, in my nightgown, and go out and around the fence, screaming, TOMMY! POTATOPOTATOPOTATO, POWPOWPOW!!...Tommy!!!!.....POWPOWPOW,POTATO....TTTTTTOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!!
He would look up finally, and with a stricken look on his face, nearly knock the bike over, apologizing profusely. We finally worked out a signal so he would know when his life might be in danger.
It's tough to switch back and forth sometimes from the nights I work to ty to have a "normal" family life, and I am sometimes unsuccessful. It takes a day or two to get there, quite often, so it's a good thing I get a few off in a row. Try to be at all the family get-togethers? Forget it!! It's against the law for them to occur on your normal days off. My schedule goes for 6 weeks at a time, so no impromptu plans for me, thank you very much! We try to cover for each other for the really important stuff, but we also try not to ask, because we know how badly it screws everybody's lives up for them to cover for you. And forget making a Doctor's appointment...not only do you have to contend with your six week's schedule, for them you have to plan ahead for 2 or 3 months. If you can't get an early am appointment, or one on your usual day off, you end up cancelling them. I need my brain, my brain needs sleep, or people die. Simple as that.
In spite of all the hassles that go with working nights, I still love it. If my patient is frightened, I am much more likely to have time to hold their hand and talk to them about what is making them frightened, or talk to them until I talk them out of it. I am much more likely to have time to really read the chart and be able to put 2 and 2 and 2 together and come up with 6. It has actually happened many times that I was the only person who did. Day people just don't have the time to read the chart. There is much we can't take care of, answers we don't have access to, things we can't schedule, until the "normal" world shows up again, but we are champions at leaving notes for people who follow us so they can do it. We tend to usher more people to the "ECU" (Eternal Care Unit) than days....studies were done that showed people tended to pass away more often between 2 am and 5am than any other time. (Don't look for the footnote and reference, it won't be there). I wonder if it is because the noise and chaos keeps them aware and tied to the world, and they are able to just let go more easily in the calmer atmosphere of nighttime?
Many years ago, my Dad got upset with me while I was visiting because I didn't get up and get ready for church when he thought I should. I was probably in my 40's....I knew just how long it takes me to get ready. I heard him mumbling JUST loud enough for me to hear "Dadblamed people stay up all night, and then expect to be able to get anything done during the day!!" Oh, boy. Hit me JUST wrong. I began to tell him in no uncertain terms that if it weren't for people like me, there would be no electricity during the night (something he could relate to), houses would burn completely to the ground in the night, stores and houses would be robbed at crook's leisure, there would be no one to fly people to the hospital after a bad car accident in the night, and PEOPLE WOULD DIE WITH NO ONE TO HOLD THEIR HANDS!!!! He never mentioned anything like that to me again. It had been one of his lifelong favorite themes until that day.
So, next time you get up in the middle of the night to go pee, think about us, but PLEASE, don't call us between 9am and 5pm to tell us you did!!
I am sitting here at 9:47 in the a.m., drinking what some people would suggest rehab for, should they catch me at it. But, for me it's more than "five o'clock somewhere", it's actually about a quarter to eight in the evening for me. While I ate supper several hours ago, the bars were just closing, so I had to wait until I got home.
Nightshift workers live in a very different world. Thankfully, the rooster worked nights for long enough that he understands. Greybeard understands. My children learned very quickly.....observed it most of the time. If your name was NOT God, you did NOT get to talk to their Mom during the day after she had worked the night before. No, not even if your hair was on fire. My Mom works very hard at trying to understand,I think hers is more forgetfulness than anything, and not remembering my schedule.
I thought I was a night person for years. First worked the 3-11 pm shift, then would go home and watch old movies for hours before going to bed. Partly because I had to wind down, and partly because I always have liked to stay up late, sleep in late. Drove my Dad nuts! He was one of those guys who got up at 0 dark thirty, got to work an hour before he had to.....HE drove the rest of us nuts! But, when I started working the 11p-7a shift, I found out I wasn't the night person I thought I was. Very different! When you get to bed when it is still dark out, you can generally get to sleep before the world wakes up and starts making the racket that the daytime world makes. The world is VERY noisy when the sun is up. I had to leave the phones on while my kids were in school, in case of emergencies. I would answer the phone, obviously groggy. I didn't care, I worked NIGHTS for heaven's sake!! And I would get "Oh, you're still in bed?" This is at 10 am, I had been in bed one hour.
I don't even get to sleep....to an astounding number of people what I do is "nap". No wonder I feel like crap so often, if all I do is nap!!! Would wear anybody down!
I now do 12 hour shifts, 7p-7a. If they told me I had to go back to 11-7, I would tell them adios. I love it. Still no "suits" hanging around, the time goes fast because the first 5 hours is very busy. I can tuck my patients in much more comfortably, (but, don't get the idea they all sleep....they most certainly do NOT) and do my charting at a little more leisurely pace. I do 3-4 day stretches, and while that means all I get done in that time frame is work and sleep, that schedule provides me with more consecutive days off to recover, get stuff done that night shift workers don't get done, because they are sleeping when all the "productive people" are at work running their stores, offices, etc. It was a Godsend when my Daddy was sick, I had six day stretches off, and could go on my 700 mile one way trips to check on him and not take vacation days to do it. AND drive at night when the contruction crews were gone and traffic much better.
You pray for dayshift neighbors with no kids, or at least people who stay in their houses all day. I had a neighbor for awhile who would tune his Harley by ear during the day....his garage pointed directly at my bedroom window......POWPOW, POTATOPOTATO,POWPOWPOW, POTATOPOTATOPOTATO,POWPOWPOW!!! I would finally get up, hair sticking up all over, hounds from hell look on my face, in my nightgown, and go out and around the fence, screaming, TOMMY! POTATOPOTATOPOTATO, POWPOWPOW!!...Tommy!!!!.....POWPOWPOW,POTATO....TTTTTTOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!!
He would look up finally, and with a stricken look on his face, nearly knock the bike over, apologizing profusely. We finally worked out a signal so he would know when his life might be in danger.
It's tough to switch back and forth sometimes from the nights I work to ty to have a "normal" family life, and I am sometimes unsuccessful. It takes a day or two to get there, quite often, so it's a good thing I get a few off in a row. Try to be at all the family get-togethers? Forget it!! It's against the law for them to occur on your normal days off. My schedule goes for 6 weeks at a time, so no impromptu plans for me, thank you very much! We try to cover for each other for the really important stuff, but we also try not to ask, because we know how badly it screws everybody's lives up for them to cover for you. And forget making a Doctor's appointment...not only do you have to contend with your six week's schedule, for them you have to plan ahead for 2 or 3 months. If you can't get an early am appointment, or one on your usual day off, you end up cancelling them. I need my brain, my brain needs sleep, or people die. Simple as that.
In spite of all the hassles that go with working nights, I still love it. If my patient is frightened, I am much more likely to have time to hold their hand and talk to them about what is making them frightened, or talk to them until I talk them out of it. I am much more likely to have time to really read the chart and be able to put 2 and 2 and 2 together and come up with 6. It has actually happened many times that I was the only person who did. Day people just don't have the time to read the chart. There is much we can't take care of, answers we don't have access to, things we can't schedule, until the "normal" world shows up again, but we are champions at leaving notes for people who follow us so they can do it. We tend to usher more people to the "ECU" (Eternal Care Unit) than days....studies were done that showed people tended to pass away more often between 2 am and 5am than any other time. (Don't look for the footnote and reference, it won't be there). I wonder if it is because the noise and chaos keeps them aware and tied to the world, and they are able to just let go more easily in the calmer atmosphere of nighttime?
Many years ago, my Dad got upset with me while I was visiting because I didn't get up and get ready for church when he thought I should. I was probably in my 40's....I knew just how long it takes me to get ready. I heard him mumbling JUST loud enough for me to hear "Dadblamed people stay up all night, and then expect to be able to get anything done during the day!!" Oh, boy. Hit me JUST wrong. I began to tell him in no uncertain terms that if it weren't for people like me, there would be no electricity during the night (something he could relate to), houses would burn completely to the ground in the night, stores and houses would be robbed at crook's leisure, there would be no one to fly people to the hospital after a bad car accident in the night, and PEOPLE WOULD DIE WITH NO ONE TO HOLD THEIR HANDS!!!! He never mentioned anything like that to me again. It had been one of his lifelong favorite themes until that day.
So, next time you get up in the middle of the night to go pee, think about us, but PLEASE, don't call us between 9am and 5pm to tell us you did!!
posted by Mommanurse at 7:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home