all things night shift - part two

I'm back for Part Two of Q&A of working night shift...

Check in for Part One if you missed it.

When do you and your husband see each other?
The first 2 years of being married, Chris was into the heavy coursework of his Master's degree along with being a TA. There were many times I would get home from work AFTER he had left for school and wouldn't get home until AFTER I had left for work that evening. So many times we would go 2-3 days with seeing each other for maybe 15 minutes/day or none at all.
That was hard. But we knew it was a season and now we rarely don't see each other when I work.

His schedule is much more flexible now, so that hasn't really been an issue since last May.
Since I only work 3 days/week, even if we don't see each other in those days, I know we will have time together in the other 4 days.

How do you stay awake at night?
Some nights it is tough to stay awake. But it's weird how my body just knows {usually} that I'm supposed to be stay awake. Surprisingly, I do not drink coffee. I don't really drink caffeine at all actually. Occasionally I'll have a cream soda, but not usually at work. It helps that we have some lights on and I have other coworkers to help keep me awake when I'm feeling extra sleepy.

The night before my first night shift, I stayed up until 4am in the morning. I thought this would allow me to sleep into the afternoon and be rested up for the all-nighter. Well, my body wasn't tricked. I woke around 10am the next morning. So my first shift was tough because I was reeeally tired, but I slept really good the next day! :)

What do you eat? And when?
The only difference in my diet when I work is that I usually want cereal or some other breakfast food when I wake up in the afternoon. I know some night-shifters will eat "dinner" food in the morning after work, but I can not do that! If I don't eat "dinner" by about 3am, I usually don't eat or maybe eat a bowl of cereal. So when I'm working consecutively....
I eat "breakfast" when I wake up around 4pm. 
Snack around 10pm. 
"Lunch/Dinner" around 1am. 
And typically I don't eat anything when I get off work.

What's the atmosphere of the hospital like at night?
Quiet. Usually.
We don't use that word on the job though, because as soon as you say that, it gets chaotic or we have a kid get really sick, something happens! We don't usually say the S word either. {slow}
There aren't a lot of visitors at night. We will have some, but usually just before 10pm or so. Since I work on Pediatrics, there are always parents/family members.
It varies from night to night on how busy we are. Typically speaking, the weekends are the slowest. Monday-Wednesday are the busiest. And Thursday and Friday and somewhere in between. This can change at any point, but usually [again] this is true.

A few other things...
--I hate having to call doctors and waking them up in the middle of the night. It's easier than when I first started, because I'm more confident in what I'm doing/saying, but it's still hard sometimes!
--I do get shift differential for working night shift. I get an extra amount for working 7-11pm, and an additional amount for working 11pm-7am. It's nice, but I would give that up to be on a normal schedule.
--Having a "Do not ring doorbell." sign on our front door has been a lifesaver! Some people still don't read before they ring, but most do..and I'm grateful!
--My husband has been the best with me working night shift. He is so thoughtful and always stays quiet and lets me sleep as long as I need/want to. He is very understanding of me needing to sleep during the day since I was up all night. I'm one blessed wife. :)

Did I answer all your questions? 
Any of my readers also fellow night-shifters??

ps. My Etsy store, House of Shep, is hosting a giveaway on Heather's blog, Blonde...Undercover Blonde today! 

Go check it out!

all things night shift - part one

I've worked night shift since I started my nursing career. 

Over the past 2 years I've been asked many of the same questions and thought I'd answer them on the blog in case you have the same questions AND so someday I can look back on this and remember life working night shift.

Here is the good, the bad and the ugly of working night shift!

Do you rotate shifts?
No, not usually. Before this week, I had worked one day shift in the time since I've been off orientation and that was to help another nurse out that needed off. This month, day shift is short staffed, so I am scheduled 8 of my 12 shifts for day shift. But that is not normal for the scheduling on our unit.

Do you prefer nights over days?
When I started working, night shift was the only position available. I hope to move to dayshift permanently sometime this year. After working 3 day shifts last week, I would love that even more! They posted two positions this past week, but they are flex 7a-7p AND 7p-7a based on the unit patient load/staffing. They would alternate my shift as they need me. Chris and I haven't decided if this is something that we are willing to do.

When do you sleep?
I'm working when you sleep, so I'm sleeping when you work! :)
If it's my first night on, sometimes I take a nap before work, sometimes I don't. {which means sometimes when I'm getting off, I've been up for 22-24 hours straight!}
When I'm working consecutive nights (which is MUCH preferred) I usually come home and go to bed within 30 minutes. I am blessed that I have never had problems getting to sleep after working. I joke about falling asleep so fast I am sometimes in the middle of setting my alarm.
When I do not work the next night, I come home and go to bed like normal, but usually I'll get up around 1 or 2...or 3. ;) Then I'll go to bed with Chris that night and have a "normal" schedule until I work again.

Is it hard to sleep during the day?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Thankfully we live in a very quiet subdivision, so neighbors/dogs/traffic/etc have not been a consistent problem. There have only been 2 or 3 days where something was going on outside (ex. neighbor's roof getting repaired) that woke me up and kept me awake.

One thing we've found that really helps our schedule is me sleeping in the guest bedroom when I sleep during the day. We've done this since we moved into our house. Chris isn't always ready to wake up/get up when I come home from work at 7:30am, so it allows him to sleep until his alarm and then get ready and not have to worry about waking me up. Then he also has access to the bedroom/bathroom during the day if needed.

I always wake up at least once during the day, usually about noon, to pee. Always. No exceptions.
And I usually have no problems going back to sleep until my alarm goes off around 3:30-4.

I'll be back tomorrow with Part Two!

pine cove outback

This post is long overdue... I was the camp nurse for Pine Cove Outback (in Columbus, TX)

this summer for week 4 of camp. It was June 20-26 and the camp had about 220 3rd-9th graders.

I had a BLAST.

The nursing part of it was very different than what I am used to in the hospital, but my health assistants were wonderful and by the middle of the week I felt much more confident and had the hang of things.

Here's the sign outside the clinic.

This was one of my silly health assistants, and you can see some of the clinic around her.

This room held all of the medications.

Med cabinet!

my quarters...I was expecting to sleep in a bunk bed with a sleeping bag, so this was a wonderful surprise. I even had my own bathroom.

It was a great experience and I believe it helped in making me a more well-rounded nurse. I look forward to being a camp nurse again next year!