Tuesday, April 08, 2008
There's gonna be some sweet sounds, comin' down...
... on the night shift. Which is really where I do all my best thinking. All my blog composing, which, HA, I bet you all thought was just a distant memory covered in dust to me. To be quite frank, I had a moment's panic thinking that I might not be able to remember my blog password, but Thank God, unbenounced to my computer-security-obsessed husband, I generally use some semblance of the same password for everything. A few alternated keystrokes and I usually figure it out. Shut up, you all do the SAME thing. Alpha-numeric combination, my a$$.
We have just returned from a delightful, if not wet and cold, jaunt to the motherland. Well, my motherland. And which also makes it my mother's land, too. Ireland, for those of you not totally up to date on my ethnic identity. I brought the Mister -- his first trip over the "pond" -- assuring him that Ireland was not scary EUROPE, it was Diet Europe. All the flavor, and not so much scary foreign language with Anti-American sentiments.
We kissed the Blarney Stone (#2 for me. Watch out, I'm so freaking charming now you all won't know what to do with me..).
We nearly got blown over the Cliffs of Moher and we took a neat jaunt into Northern Ireland. We did a lot of driving. We met up with my wonderfully hospitable and charming Irish cousins. The Mister was the most kick-ass left-sided driver, EVER. We made Dingle Peninsula jokes. He loved it. At least he told me he did. He loved it until he got a cold two days before our return. Then all he wanted was his/my bed, recognizable cold-medicine names and a bag of Ricolas. Poor bastard.
Lucky me, I was able to fight the jet lag home AND go right onto the night shift at work. Which was awesome. I don't mind the night shift, to be quite honest. And if it didn't put me at complete social hour odds with my husband and friends, I might consider it full time. The whole atmosphere is more chill, really. No anxiety stricken families (they be outta there by 8PM, when visitin' hours be over...), scant Doctor presence, few tests and access to sleep inducing medications for patients. It's a recipie for time to get work done, and a few magazines read.
My issues with the night shift have grown on me gradually. Namely, the girls who work the night shift always work the night shift and have become accustomed to running the joint as they see fit. Namely, choosing the radio station. And that wouldn't be so bad except that they insist on choosing the station that only plays slow-jams. All night. For 12 hours. And because there are, apparently, only so many slow-jams available, that the station rotates the same 4 or 5 songs every hour. By 6 AM, I'm delirious with the "love to love you, wo-man" tunes. That wouldn't necessarily be so bad except that the 3 or 4 other nurses I work with add insult to slow-jam injury by crooning along with said slow-jam. It's a marvel to me that they can remember what function Coreg has on heart rate, why you don't give morphine to a pancratitis patient AND all the lyrics (including all "Uh"s and "yeah baby"s) to every song. Where are they finding this kind of time?! It became quite clear to me that the only musical inputs in their lives are slow-jams when I had to call one of them at home and the ring-back tone was a sexy slow jam. Which is ballsy, since I'm not sure I'd want just anyone calling me to hear that.
Which brings me to my next point. There is nothing inherently wrong with slow-jams, but it is truly remarkable how many different ways, tunes and words can be used to sing about wanting to/going to/working on having sex with a woman. Which is fine. I'm sure a quick perusal through my iPod would wield just as much horror to them, though not of a sexual "what I am gonna do to your body, lady, when we all alone, uh... yeah.. uh.. WOO" persuasion. However, there was one night I put my nursing shoe down and said if I heard "Low" one more time I thought I might mercy kill myself right there in the nursing station and could I please change the station. For a blessed 20 minutes I heard good shit. And I was the only voice knowing all the words filling the nursing station. After a quick trip to a patient room, I came back to hear "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones playing. What a great song, man. I mean, really. What a great song. Except that I realized all the other nurses were discussing how terrible it was -- this SATAN music that I had put on. They decided that they just couldn't, in good conscience, listen to this DEVIL music. I argued. I pleaded. I insisted that it was a clever, lyrical weave of sarcasm and wit by the Rolling Stones -- old men who continue to love-to-love-you-wo-man without actually having to say it (helloooo, "Start me up"??), but sadly, I was overruled. And so thus is my night shift. I have begun bringing my own earphones because sometimes I think my brain waves are being slowly manipulated by all the slow jams. And then I live in constant fear that they'll see I'm listening to Air Supply.
The night shift also poses interesting problems when I come off of it. When most people live and do shit during the day, I sleep. Unless there is some reason for me to stay awake (And sometimes that reason is Paradise Hotel 2. Don't judge.). Recently, our furnace broke. The Mister scheduled the repair man to come between 8AM and 11AM -- so I wouldn't be totally disturbed by letting the repair guy in. He arrives and I take him to the furnace in the basement. He's chit chatting and I'm dead on my feet. When we arrive at the furnace, I swing around and say to him, "Well, yeah. So this is where the magic happens." What's worse, is that I didn't see anything wrong with saying that for a solid ten minutes.
When it comes to strangers, I usually don't mention I'm a nurse anymore. At first, I would tell anyone standing still long enough what I did because I was proud and I dig the respect that people immediately have when you tell then what you do. And then I learned that after they shower their respect on you, they inundate you with medical questions or the story about how terrible or how wonderful your hospital is. Or the really long story about their child/mother/sister/friend's recent illness. Or worse, the symptoms they are currently having -- and should they go to the doctor for that? So when the repair man showed up and I'm all black-eye-circles and sexual innuendoing the furnace, I just made the excuse that I worked a night shift and forgive my rather subdued attitude at the moment. My fatigue made my attempts at artful dodging transparent. And in the end, he found out what I did. And then my plans of sleeping on the couch while he fixed what needed to be fixed until I had to sign something, turned into him sitting at the dining room table to talk about "when it hurt to pee -- why is that?" and how his mother is at this one hospital, but he wishes she were at MY hospital because it's better there (probably) and the time that his son.. blah blah blah.
Yeah man, the night shift.
Incidentally, my Lenten cake-giving-upping did pretty well. It wasn't a perfect 40 days, but it was better than last year, which gives me room to grow for next year. Naturally, the minute I give up cake is when grateful patient families inundate the unit with thank-you treats to the nurses. As one nurse slathered her face in delicious looking cake, she commented to me that if SHE gave up cake, the last thing she'd be was closer to God. Nice.
As we move liturgically towards Pentecost, I'll make a Pentecostal effort to blog more. I had a few irrate emails about my absence. My bad.
We have just returned from a delightful, if not wet and cold, jaunt to the motherland. Well, my motherland. And which also makes it my mother's land, too. Ireland, for those of you not totally up to date on my ethnic identity. I brought the Mister -- his first trip over the "pond" -- assuring him that Ireland was not scary EUROPE, it was Diet Europe. All the flavor, and not so much scary foreign language with Anti-American sentiments.
We kissed the Blarney Stone (#2 for me. Watch out, I'm so freaking charming now you all won't know what to do with me..).
We nearly got blown over the Cliffs of Moher and we took a neat jaunt into Northern Ireland. We did a lot of driving. We met up with my wonderfully hospitable and charming Irish cousins. The Mister was the most kick-ass left-sided driver, EVER. We made Dingle Peninsula jokes. He loved it. At least he told me he did. He loved it until he got a cold two days before our return. Then all he wanted was his/my bed, recognizable cold-medicine names and a bag of Ricolas. Poor bastard.Lucky me, I was able to fight the jet lag home AND go right onto the night shift at work. Which was awesome. I don't mind the night shift, to be quite honest. And if it didn't put me at complete social hour odds with my husband and friends, I might consider it full time. The whole atmosphere is more chill, really. No anxiety stricken families (they be outta there by 8PM, when visitin' hours be over...), scant Doctor presence, few tests and access to sleep inducing medications for patients. It's a recipie for time to get work done, and a few magazines read.
My issues with the night shift have grown on me gradually. Namely, the girls who work the night shift always work the night shift and have become accustomed to running the joint as they see fit. Namely, choosing the radio station. And that wouldn't be so bad except that they insist on choosing the station that only plays slow-jams. All night. For 12 hours. And because there are, apparently, only so many slow-jams available, that the station rotates the same 4 or 5 songs every hour. By 6 AM, I'm delirious with the "love to love you, wo-man" tunes. That wouldn't necessarily be so bad except that the 3 or 4 other nurses I work with add insult to slow-jam injury by crooning along with said slow-jam. It's a marvel to me that they can remember what function Coreg has on heart rate, why you don't give morphine to a pancratitis patient AND all the lyrics (including all "Uh"s and "yeah baby"s) to every song. Where are they finding this kind of time?! It became quite clear to me that the only musical inputs in their lives are slow-jams when I had to call one of them at home and the ring-back tone was a sexy slow jam. Which is ballsy, since I'm not sure I'd want just anyone calling me to hear that.
Which brings me to my next point. There is nothing inherently wrong with slow-jams, but it is truly remarkable how many different ways, tunes and words can be used to sing about wanting to/going to/working on having sex with a woman. Which is fine. I'm sure a quick perusal through my iPod would wield just as much horror to them, though not of a sexual "what I am gonna do to your body, lady, when we all alone, uh... yeah.. uh.. WOO" persuasion. However, there was one night I put my nursing shoe down and said if I heard "Low" one more time I thought I might mercy kill myself right there in the nursing station and could I please change the station. For a blessed 20 minutes I heard good shit. And I was the only voice knowing all the words filling the nursing station. After a quick trip to a patient room, I came back to hear "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones playing. What a great song, man. I mean, really. What a great song. Except that I realized all the other nurses were discussing how terrible it was -- this SATAN music that I had put on. They decided that they just couldn't, in good conscience, listen to this DEVIL music. I argued. I pleaded. I insisted that it was a clever, lyrical weave of sarcasm and wit by the Rolling Stones -- old men who continue to love-to-love-you-wo-man without actually having to say it (helloooo, "Start me up"??), but sadly, I was overruled. And so thus is my night shift. I have begun bringing my own earphones because sometimes I think my brain waves are being slowly manipulated by all the slow jams. And then I live in constant fear that they'll see I'm listening to Air Supply.
The night shift also poses interesting problems when I come off of it. When most people live and do shit during the day, I sleep. Unless there is some reason for me to stay awake (And sometimes that reason is Paradise Hotel 2. Don't judge.). Recently, our furnace broke. The Mister scheduled the repair man to come between 8AM and 11AM -- so I wouldn't be totally disturbed by letting the repair guy in. He arrives and I take him to the furnace in the basement. He's chit chatting and I'm dead on my feet. When we arrive at the furnace, I swing around and say to him, "Well, yeah. So this is where the magic happens." What's worse, is that I didn't see anything wrong with saying that for a solid ten minutes.
When it comes to strangers, I usually don't mention I'm a nurse anymore. At first, I would tell anyone standing still long enough what I did because I was proud and I dig the respect that people immediately have when you tell then what you do. And then I learned that after they shower their respect on you, they inundate you with medical questions or the story about how terrible or how wonderful your hospital is. Or the really long story about their child/mother/sister/friend's recent illness. Or worse, the symptoms they are currently having -- and should they go to the doctor for that? So when the repair man showed up and I'm all black-eye-circles and sexual innuendoing the furnace, I just made the excuse that I worked a night shift and forgive my rather subdued attitude at the moment. My fatigue made my attempts at artful dodging transparent. And in the end, he found out what I did. And then my plans of sleeping on the couch while he fixed what needed to be fixed until I had to sign something, turned into him sitting at the dining room table to talk about "when it hurt to pee -- why is that?" and how his mother is at this one hospital, but he wishes she were at MY hospital because it's better there (probably) and the time that his son.. blah blah blah.
Yeah man, the night shift.
Incidentally, my Lenten cake-giving-upping did pretty well. It wasn't a perfect 40 days, but it was better than last year, which gives me room to grow for next year. Naturally, the minute I give up cake is when grateful patient families inundate the unit with thank-you treats to the nurses. As one nurse slathered her face in delicious looking cake, she commented to me that if SHE gave up cake, the last thing she'd be was closer to God. Nice.
As we move liturgically towards Pentecost, I'll make a Pentecostal effort to blog more. I had a few irrate emails about my absence. My bad.
# posted by Cathy @ 1:27:00 PM 
