What's the Name for the Meal You Eat at 1 AM?
So. The night shift. 7P - 7A. I've now done it, twice. I think maybe it was about as hard as I thought it would be, but kind of differently from how I imagined.
My first night started inauspiciously. I usually take public transportation, but I was recently clued into the fact that we get free parking for night and weekend shifts (weekday parking is kind of prohibitive--you either sign up for a remote parking garage or pay fall-down-dead non-validated rates for a spot in one of the patient/visitor garages). Filling out a form and putting a little orange square sticker in my back window allows me to swipe in and out of the patient/visitor garages with my ID at designated hours. So I did that. ("Welcome to OFH!" said the parking office guy, with apparent sincerity, after he handed me my sticker.) And so Sunday night I drove. It was, naturally, dark, this being November and all. And it was raining. And then right as you get off the major crosstown artery to go to the hospital, there's a lot of construction. (Supposedly there's going to be this fabulous new subway stop that's actually going to be handicapped-accessible (that would be a nice little touch for the major public transportation access to one of the largest medical centers in the country, don't you think?), but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast.) And so the streets are now configured a little differently than they were the last time I drove to OFH, which was when my dad was an inpatient there a year ago. So. Well, see, I'm not sure quite... I mean, taking the right fork seemed at the moment... What I'm trying to say is, I somehow ended up going the wrong way on a one-way street. This was Sunday night, and so I managed to get the block and a half I needed to get to the OFH entrance without encountering any other cars, only realizing with horror about halfway along what I was doing. I pulled into the parking garage with my face bright red, emotions split about 30%-70% between delayed-reaction fear and profound, staggering embarrassment. OK, Rosie, nice work, and now you're going to go take care of sick people and be responsible for putting substances into their veins and stuff? Great. Just great.
Fortunately, there was no equivalent event on the oncology floor, though as the night wore on, I did find myself getting stupider and stupider. I had been worried about getting sleepy, but that wasn't it. I really didn't feel drowsy at all. I just felt as if my mind were moving through gradually congealing oatmeal. By the time I was supposed to write my end-of-shift notes in the chart, I sat there for probably a full minute staring at the page before I could even think of how to start.
I was surprised to find that the second night was easier than the first. I had really been able to sleep during the day on Monday, for nearly 7 hours, so I was in something a bit closer to a normal state. I did get sleepy and dumb right toward the end of the 12 hours, starting around 5:30 am, but I was overall significantly sharper. Plus there was a big plate of cookies a patient's husband had brought in for us.
I was also struck by how strangely different time is during a night shift in the hospital. Somehow I pictured 3 am feeling more... more like 3 am, I guess. Instead, it feels like an entirely different time from 3 am in the normal world. It's just that they happen to be called the same thing. Like homonyms. 3 am on the oncology floor felt like a kind of dull, prosaic downtime. Slow, maybe, but not remotely eerie or creepy, and frankly not even that quiet. Michelle and Kelly, two of the younger nurses who are apparently great friends, got the giggles both nights, the first night telling stories mostly on the theme of patients-and-poop, and the second night talking about miserable attempts at downhill skiing.
My new preceptor, Jessica, turned out to be very petite and pretty in a fresh-scrubbed way, with a movie star smile a little bit too big for her face. I probably have about 10 years and 90 pounds on her, but, well, who's counting. She was fine. Sweet, I guess, in a not-too-intuitive way. All the preceptors I've ended up working with since Julie (who I had for my whole "clinical" in my nursing refresher program, and whom I've also had a few times since becoming an employee) just make me appreciate her more. Not only is she a really exemplary nurse, extremely thorough and disciplined and great at keeping big picture and details in mind at once, she's amazingly tuned into just what you need when you're learning. She knows when to step in and help, when to step back and stay quiet, and when to disappear for a while to let you really have some independence. Jessica was never impatient or curt or anything, but she was kind of inconsistent, and our rhythms were all out of whack. The first night, her decision was that I was just going to take one of her two assigned patients (the usual night shift load on this floor is 4-5 patients, but Mr. A was looking really unstable, and it turned out the staffing level permitted her to get just him and one other). So I didn't really do the preparation for taking care of her other patient. But then it turned out that Ms. M really didn't need much between about 9pm and 6am, so I ended up doing a lot with Mr. A as well. And I was never clear on what should be my responsibility and what shouldn't. And then she suggested I write his note, too, at the end of the night. Which was fine, I guess. I mean, I mostly did know what the story was with him. I just felt all unprepared and off-balance. The second night, I got my own two patients, Ms. M again, and then a new lady with leukemia, Ms. G, in for her first round of chemotherapy. And I was able to plan a bit better, and that felt good. But then a couple times, Jessica asked me if I wanted help with some task (e.g., drawing blood off a central line) or felt confident handling it myself, but didn't seem to believe my answer when I said I could do it. She ended up coming with me anyway, which made me feel flustered and hovered-over, and I made some mistakes I might not have made alone, and anyway would have benefited from just working through on my own. I ended up all frustrated and embarrassed. Mad at her, mad at myself, black-cloud-over-my-head-ish.
As ever with trying to write about this job, I still have a zillion unsaid things (many still unformed) whirling around in my head, but I have to go pick up Cassie at preschool now. I had a four-hour nap midday today, and will try to sleep normally tonight. I'm back to the day shift the day after tomorrow, 7A-7P.
My first night started inauspiciously. I usually take public transportation, but I was recently clued into the fact that we get free parking for night and weekend shifts (weekday parking is kind of prohibitive--you either sign up for a remote parking garage or pay fall-down-dead non-validated rates for a spot in one of the patient/visitor garages). Filling out a form and putting a little orange square sticker in my back window allows me to swipe in and out of the patient/visitor garages with my ID at designated hours. So I did that. ("Welcome to OFH!" said the parking office guy, with apparent sincerity, after he handed me my sticker.) And so Sunday night I drove. It was, naturally, dark, this being November and all. And it was raining. And then right as you get off the major crosstown artery to go to the hospital, there's a lot of construction. (Supposedly there's going to be this fabulous new subway stop that's actually going to be handicapped-accessible (that would be a nice little touch for the major public transportation access to one of the largest medical centers in the country, don't you think?), but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast.) And so the streets are now configured a little differently than they were the last time I drove to OFH, which was when my dad was an inpatient there a year ago. So. Well, see, I'm not sure quite... I mean, taking the right fork seemed at the moment... What I'm trying to say is, I somehow ended up going the wrong way on a one-way street. This was Sunday night, and so I managed to get the block and a half I needed to get to the OFH entrance without encountering any other cars, only realizing with horror about halfway along what I was doing. I pulled into the parking garage with my face bright red, emotions split about 30%-70% between delayed-reaction fear and profound, staggering embarrassment. OK, Rosie, nice work, and now you're going to go take care of sick people and be responsible for putting substances into their veins and stuff? Great. Just great.
Fortunately, there was no equivalent event on the oncology floor, though as the night wore on, I did find myself getting stupider and stupider. I had been worried about getting sleepy, but that wasn't it. I really didn't feel drowsy at all. I just felt as if my mind were moving through gradually congealing oatmeal. By the time I was supposed to write my end-of-shift notes in the chart, I sat there for probably a full minute staring at the page before I could even think of how to start.
I was surprised to find that the second night was easier than the first. I had really been able to sleep during the day on Monday, for nearly 7 hours, so I was in something a bit closer to a normal state. I did get sleepy and dumb right toward the end of the 12 hours, starting around 5:30 am, but I was overall significantly sharper. Plus there was a big plate of cookies a patient's husband had brought in for us.
I was also struck by how strangely different time is during a night shift in the hospital. Somehow I pictured 3 am feeling more... more like 3 am, I guess. Instead, it feels like an entirely different time from 3 am in the normal world. It's just that they happen to be called the same thing. Like homonyms. 3 am on the oncology floor felt like a kind of dull, prosaic downtime. Slow, maybe, but not remotely eerie or creepy, and frankly not even that quiet. Michelle and Kelly, two of the younger nurses who are apparently great friends, got the giggles both nights, the first night telling stories mostly on the theme of patients-and-poop, and the second night talking about miserable attempts at downhill skiing.
My new preceptor, Jessica, turned out to be very petite and pretty in a fresh-scrubbed way, with a movie star smile a little bit too big for her face. I probably have about 10 years and 90 pounds on her, but, well, who's counting. She was fine. Sweet, I guess, in a not-too-intuitive way. All the preceptors I've ended up working with since Julie (who I had for my whole "clinical" in my nursing refresher program, and whom I've also had a few times since becoming an employee) just make me appreciate her more. Not only is she a really exemplary nurse, extremely thorough and disciplined and great at keeping big picture and details in mind at once, she's amazingly tuned into just what you need when you're learning. She knows when to step in and help, when to step back and stay quiet, and when to disappear for a while to let you really have some independence. Jessica was never impatient or curt or anything, but she was kind of inconsistent, and our rhythms were all out of whack. The first night, her decision was that I was just going to take one of her two assigned patients (the usual night shift load on this floor is 4-5 patients, but Mr. A was looking really unstable, and it turned out the staffing level permitted her to get just him and one other). So I didn't really do the preparation for taking care of her other patient. But then it turned out that Ms. M really didn't need much between about 9pm and 6am, so I ended up doing a lot with Mr. A as well. And I was never clear on what should be my responsibility and what shouldn't. And then she suggested I write his note, too, at the end of the night. Which was fine, I guess. I mean, I mostly did know what the story was with him. I just felt all unprepared and off-balance. The second night, I got my own two patients, Ms. M again, and then a new lady with leukemia, Ms. G, in for her first round of chemotherapy. And I was able to plan a bit better, and that felt good. But then a couple times, Jessica asked me if I wanted help with some task (e.g., drawing blood off a central line) or felt confident handling it myself, but didn't seem to believe my answer when I said I could do it. She ended up coming with me anyway, which made me feel flustered and hovered-over, and I made some mistakes I might not have made alone, and anyway would have benefited from just working through on my own. I ended up all frustrated and embarrassed. Mad at her, mad at myself, black-cloud-over-my-head-ish.
As ever with trying to write about this job, I still have a zillion unsaid things (many still unformed) whirling around in my head, but I have to go pick up Cassie at preschool now. I had a four-hour nap midday today, and will try to sleep normally tonight. I'm back to the day shift the day after tomorrow, 7A-7P.
posted by Rosie Bonner at 5:22 PM
3 Comments:
well, when I worked nights we called it "dinner" but all the career night-nurses called it "lunch" which I guess sort of makes more sense. The best bet here at that hour is the made-to-order-omelette (yummy, filling, and cheap. also hard to ruin.) Do you have a grill?
I'm so happy you are liking so many things about your job: it sounds like a really good fit and they are lucky to have you. I bet the night thing will get easier -- my favorite part was getting to do more stuff (fewer residents/students around, so I got to catch sometimes) and also going home when everyone else was just getting up to go to work. I wonder what you will like?
If you want to keep the purple jumper until you deliver because it is your very very favorite, why don't you? I like to think of you wearing it.
xxx
Marina
Congratulations on popping your night shift cherry and your driving the wrong way on a one way street cherry on the same night! You're amazing.
I am loving this series of posts and am living vicariously through you-- not necessarily the oncology-nurse part (though that's fascinating to read about) but the starting-something-new-and-exciting part. Blog on!
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