Best. Shift. Ever.

Yesterday I was still trying to recover from my previous night shifts. I couldn’t sleep the night after until 0500 and I was woken up by construction at 1000. After eating a nutritious breakfast consisting of rice and lentils followed by a gargantuan cup of coffee, I parked myself in front of the television so I could let re-runs of Oprah lull me into a thoughtless daze and promptly started weaving in and out of sleep. This continued until 1400 when I finally drifted off into a deep sleep. At 1420, I was once again woken up by an obnoxious noise – the telephone this time. I begrudgingly reached over and answered gruffly only to hear the obviously forced saccharine voice of the ward clerk asking if I could pick up a night shift. Figuring that I probably will spend the entire day zonked out worse than the guy who OD’d on clonazepam, I might as well go in and earn some (time and a half + night differential) cash. Turns out it was a pretty good decision – I was on a float assignment, I had relatively well behaved patients, a doc who was thorough but quick and because I didn’t take a break, I could leave early (or as administration knows – the last break). I got a chance to catch up with nurses that I normally don’t work with and helped play a pre-April fool’s day prank our staff doc!*

*It involved making fake patient ID and putting it up in the gyne area and a fake chart with PMHx including G20P17, untreated STIs and an extensive psych and drug seeking history. It was great watching him run around the department looking for the ‘patient’. Heh heh heh.