I blinked, was confused and finally came round to the fact, yes, Nixon and Elvis could have conceivably stood in the same room together. The story of how they got there is fascinating, amusing and colorful. Don’t miss it. I’m happy to have read it. It spices “Thank you very much” at 4 am up with a bit of history.
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!
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!
What was I thinking? Oh yeah, I’ll help out some. Get extra cash. I’m insane.
Home now and about to go to sleep before my twelfth shift in a row.
Then two gorgeous Halo Reach filled days ahead after that. I hope the weather this weekend is terrible.
What was I thinking? My back is worth more, my sanity means more.
But I’ve seen things. Learned things. No, this was probably not the greatest brain wave. And yet is that my head I feel swelling simply because I’ve survived? You bet.
no matter who you are
what you do or not do
where you came from
as night staff
you are swimming with the fishes
morning arrives just as chatter comes through the door
of juices undelivered and lunches incorrectly ordered
naps and families and where are his dentures
none of my concern anymore
but missed
and i wonder
if my work is only filler
to pass the wee hours
for no flowers or boxes of chocolates
appear on our desk
and everything you do is invisible and undone
how silly of me not to know that
incentive programs
only run in daylight
that’s a better description for us
vampire fishes
so invisible
people, especially managers, hardly even know we exist
except for those we turn
and clean and feed
funny how chocolate milk
goes missing in the middle of the night.
Robyn: "Save another mom some trouble? Mission accomplished! We are having a Jedi Training birthday party for my son. The one thing he keeps asking us to do is a scavenger hunt….how? we keep asking ourselves. This..." (read)
cecilia: "just omit the meat from your bean meals, like meatless chilli and spaghetti. we love lentils here, lentil soup, lentil curry over rice… I’ll put some more thought into this." (read)
Kalanna: "Amazing, eh?! I’m going to have to read up on what to do with them next. hehe But it is lovely to have a bouquet of lavender on my kitchen table in late November. They kept blooming!" (read)
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." — C.S. Lewis
Robyn
cecilia
Kalanna
