At the beginning of October, it was my one year anniversary working night shift.

In the land of long-term care, nights are the most unique shift of all three. Where days are the rising and afternoons are for being tucked back in, the first question I get from new people on nights is “So what do you guys do all night?” You’re about to find out, darling.

People don’t really sleep all night. We have nomads and behaviours, nighthawks looking for coffee and chocolate milk and then early risers who need more of the same. Assisting with suppositories and enemas – fun! – is how we end our day, and there is the universally hated task of wheelchair cleaning if you’re bored till then.

I’ve learned to be a bit of a psych nurse, more bodyguard than I ever wanted to be and how very many ways there are to get meds into someone.

Mostly our task is to keep them clean and dry from incontinence, but after that, the sky’s the limit. Anyone who works nights develops the really handy and extremely necessary superpower of knowing when someone is comfortable in bed. Because the better they sleep, the better everyone sleeps – well, except you.

On nights you learn how to make occupied beds faster than you ever thought possible, you are always under-appreciated, always younger than your patients and you get to experience life as a vampire only with none of the brooding men for tag along. No Spike, no Angel. Darn it!

We, night staffers, stick together. Like glue. With so few of us against so many, we have our assignments but help anywhere help is needed. In fact, we run. One minute, the dark halls are cavernous spaces with no sign of life. The next minute half the hallway is teeming with activity that you didn’t know was brewing under the surface a few seconds ago. You need about five more pair of hands, but all you usually get is one, so we run about doing our version of triage, keeping everyone safe until you can convince dementia-stricken minds that it really is 3am and not 7 or see what else may be the matter.

Relationships with our residents are different at night. The ones that waken you get to know extremely well. You turn into one of their favorites and don’t understand how everyone else has a hard time with them. It’s true that there are some I never see, but from the ones I do, I get way more high fives, hugs thumbs-up and giggles than ever before. Just fine with me. The man that begged me not to leave his room last week had tears of loneliness in his eyes to break any heart. And I had the time to sit and the time to wipe them away. Better that real time. That’s nursing.

It’s certainly been a clinical smörgåsbord of a year.

and what’s it done to me?

All of the elements above have made me much more confident in my own skills – to respond to an emergency, to prioritize tasks and get them done efficiently, to make judgement calls, to flex growing biceps of experience and ever-expanding quads of an adult consciousness. Because sometimes rules really are meant to be broken. Can you believe that I’m growing into a rebel? Me either.

My creativity comes alive at night in ways I hadn’t experienced before. There are nights when I impatiently wait through checks and rounds and dishes and call bells for break, that moment when I can furiously type in the half dozen blog posts that have suddenly sprung to mind all at once. I sit at the desk, I ignore everyone else, I type into my ipod.

Other nights, we talk and have coffee on break. Somehow it’s always talk about food and our sleep or the lack thereof. A warning however: they will wake-ring-fall-cry-yell-beg-bleed exactly in the middle of break. Don’t get too comfy with that cup of coffee.

Night shift really works for me. Just me just my residents just my delicious break time.

It’s flip-flopped home life a little. Breakfast might be breakfast or it might be supper and our coffee pot at home is exercised twice day.

I like that I’ve found my groove. I like that I have a voice. And it’s heard and respected. Very lucky am I, to have a nurse that listens, respects and doesn’t think my IQ is in the gutter.

Change your vantage point, change yourself. I’m so glad that I shifted. One more year to go. Because I’ve already applied to enter a BScN program next fall!

ps. There’s a new book out called The Night Shift.

It’s by Canadian Dr. Brian Goldman and he talks all about his experiences as an ER doc working, you bet, the night shift. I can’t wait to pick this one up!

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Today my creative energy came out of the closet and made this display.

Having realized that I’ve bought way too many silk fall leaves in various forms from craft stores and then forgetting and buying more, I’ve been wondering how to bring autumn inside without the fake and with way more real.

Melissa over at The Inspired Room has been helping find me that real. Stop to see her by if you have a minute. I think you’ll enjoy it. She posts tons of ideas and photos to inspire how to make your home both real and beautiful. This week her pictures helped me think of an autumn, both authentic and personal, with items I already own.

My favourite is the bouquet of sharpened pencils. The one line from You’ve Got Mail I will never ever forget.

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