Working Woman Blues

I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya (to steal the words of my favorite Onion columnist), but sometimes night shift just totally owns me. That is how it has felt for the past week. I miss, on average, a full night of sleep each week as I always try to stay up the day after my 3rd night shift, so I can go to sleep that night with Adam. They say night-shifters have a shorter lifespan than day-shifters, and I think this must be why. For a girl for whom sound sleep ranks right up there with puppies, ice cream, and starry skies as far as the finer things in life are concerned, believe me when I say that my days on night shift ar numbered. The money is just so much better, so for now, that's what it is. The VERY BEST thing about night shift though? I never ever have to wake up before the sun. And for those of you who know how hard it is for me to wake up in the morning, you know what an awesome thing that is.

So, this whole "being a nurse" thing is going pretty well. I remember sitting on the front stoop on a clear night at The Milton (the perfect house I shared with Mary in Boulder back in 03-04) with my friend John, telling him I was thinking about going to nursing school because I was becoming so unfulfilled at my job with The Princeton Review and couldn't imagine a lifetime of office jobs where I was always having to consider the bottom line. It's hard to remember a time when anyone has been so supportive of me than at that moment, when he was just dumbstruck that I, or anyone else that knew me, had not thought of this sooner because it was such the perfect marriage of me and a career. After running this new idea by most of my close loved ones, I was so encouraged and hopeful, which grew into total, utter confidence that this was the path I was meant to be on. And I never doubted it since.

Hardly a shift goes by where I don't feel that I've made a true connection with someone in need. I actually can help really sick people feel better. I can listen to someone who has felt totally ignored. I can make someone feel that they have what it takes to live with their condition. I can do the tiniest, simplest things that show I am paying attention to my patient, and those things make the biggest difference. Like wiping the crust out of someone's eyes who can't do that for themselves. Such a small thing, but huge at the same time. These parts of being a nurse, I've got it. And I love it. The other, bigger part, is knowing exactly what is going on with my patient's heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, guts, etc. Trying to remember the past medical history, lab values, current test results, medications, new orders, assessment details and how all of those things play together, and on 5 patients, well that is still challenging.

But I actually feel like a nurse now instead of an imposter. And that is major progress.