I returned to day shift this week. It's been a while since I posted and there really hasn't been much worth writing about. I did January and February on nights and it was slow the whole time. Nothing exciting happened at all, until the last night when I finally saw a little action, almost not worth writing about.
I had hoped that by working nights I'd get to go to codes, rapid response calls for crashing floor patients, or traumas. Nothing happened. The one code we had turned out to be an employee who passed out downstairs. By the time we showed up she was conscious and talking and who knows why she passed out, but the doctor was already there and we went back to ICU.
There were two rapid response team calls and both of them happened right at 7 am when I had to stick around the unit and give report to the day shift, so only the charge nurse went. And the one trauma that happened, I missed the opportunity to go because at the moment they announced it, I was gowned and masked for my MRSA isolation patient and in the middle of doing some boring task, and I couldn't get out of there and get free and cleaned up fast enough so someone else had to go.
I did end up taking the trauma patient, who turned out to be a drunk kid who got in a fight and broke some ribs and really didn't need to be in ICU. But that morning my MRSA patient who also had a pacemaker, decided to lose his blood pressure at shift change. That was the only excitement I had, but I was only there long enough for the cardiologist to show up and for me to give report to the day shift.
Nights were a lot more relaxed than days. The unit assistants were a lot nicer and more helpful than the ones on days. I like the night crew and I worked the same schedule as my favorite charge nurse, so it was always fun, but our plans to try to make it a valuable learning experience didn't pan out.
I have to admit I'd love to work nights if I felt better doing it, but you're always behind on sleep and get very little sleep between shifts. I never made the adjustment and would always go back to a normal schedule by the day after my last shift ended. I'd be lucky if I got 5 solid hours of sleep between shifts. Usually I'd get to bed by 9 am, wake up around 12:30 or 1, and then I'd be lucky if I could fall asleep and get another 2 hours in before I had to get up for work again.
I worked Sunday night through Tuesday night. I'd get off at 7:30 Wednesday morning, sleep all day Wednesday, and be up for a couple of hours, then sleep all night Wednesday night and be ready to be a normal daytime person when I woke up Thursday morning. You always lose that day after your last shift. And you're always behind by one night's sleep, and your sleep deprivation keeps accumulating until you finish for the week. In that way, it's hell.
My first day back this week I had it in my head that I was supposed to work Monday but I was really scheduled for Sunday. I got a call from the morning charge nurse at 7:30, where are you, you're supposed to be at work. I looked at my schedule and I goofed. I called her back but we were so slow that she told me to take the morning off if I wanted and to call at 2 pm to see if they needed me. When I called at 2, they did need me to come in from 3 until 7, but only because someone else had requested to go home early. That was okay with me, it made my first week seem that much shorter.
Monday when I went in for my second day shift, I got floated to the rehab floor! It was my turn to float, and it was only for 8 hours. All I did was sit there in the hall and watch a patient with dementia so she wouldn't get impulsive and jump out of bed and fall. They were trying to teach her to use her call light so they wanted me outside the room. Very boring.
Those patients have therapy all day long, and I was allowed to go on breaks when the patient was off the floor with speech, occupational, music, physical, and whatever other kinds of therapy they do. I got a lot of reading done and got caught up on all my work emails, also got to go to the cafeteria and ran into some people I haven't seen since I've been on nights, so I got my social time in as a bonus.
At 3 pm I was sent back to ICU and all I did was help one of the other nurses admit a patient at the end of the shift. Today I had a meeting at work and an inservice on new cervical collars, and tomorrow I work a regular shift. Then I'm done for the week.
I'm pretty bored. This ICU has been so much like a step-down unit that I feel like I'm not learning anything. I was supposed to start working as a guinea pig as we pilot this mentoring program for new ICU nurses, but I went to nights and the person who was going to do mentoring got a different job and now the educator is supposed to do it, but she doesn't even know about that yet. That's a whole other story I won't go into. It's crazy. There's been all this infighting and political crap lately among the higher ups in the department and I'm so sick of it.
Then they hired five people from the department for these glorified charge nurse positions, and all of the five people who applied got the jobs. I wasn't thrilled about two or three of them. We'll see what happens, it might not change a thing. I don't think they know what they are supposed to do differently, either.
Welcome back to days. Back to running my butt off every morning before rounds at 9a.m., uptight charge nurses, and department politics encroaching on everything we do. UGH! UGH! UGH!
Yesterday one of the night unit assistants was working a day shift, and I asked her a question about something and her response was, "Tough Titties". I looked at her with the meanest face I could make, and said, "'TITTIES' is NOT a day shift word!"
Peace, love, and tough titties,
Towanda, ICU RN
