Week 4 of CPE III - Struggling With The 12-Hour Shift Work

This semester we follow a real nurse's schedule.  This usually means working two 12-hour days and then switching to two 12-hour nights.  Then we get a few days off before beginning a new set.

It doesn't sound very difficult, but 12-hour shifts are hard.  I wake up at 5 am to catch a 6 am bus to make it to work by 7:30 am.  Then I work 12 hours until 7:30 pm and get home by about 8:30-9 pm.  That gives me just enough time to shower, eat a snack, take care of Poggles, and then go to bed.  I do this for two days.

On the second day home, I can stay up a little later.  Then I sleep in the next morning, do laundry (so I have clean uniforms), enjoy my day a little bit, then take a nap from 2-5pm, catch the 6pm bus to get to work by 7:30pm, and then work 12 hours before getting off at 7:30am.  When I get home, I sleep in as much as I can, and repeat for another night shift.

The flipping in sleeping schedules throws me off.  For the next couple nights, I wake up in the middle night for no particular reason.  It takes me about two days before I am back to sleeping through the night.  But I feel constantly groggy and slightly irritable, and I feel the need to take afternoon naps because I feel tired.

Part of the grogginess and irritability comes from swapping sleeping schedules, the other part comes from the stress of the work itself.  I have picked up the bad habit of worrying about patients on my days off.  I think about how they are doing and whether they are having a good day or a bad day.  I wonder if anyone has come to visit them.  Some of the patients have no visitors at all, despite telling me that they do have grown up children.  Why don't their kids come to visit them?

Another thing that bothers me is growing old.  I see all the patients struggling with their different diseases and conditions.  Some of them are so confused that they think it's somewhere in the 1930's or 50's and they are still a young adult instead of an elderly person.  They tell me about how they have small children (when their children are all grown up with children of their own).  Some of them cry constantly for a family member that has passed away a long time ago, and how do you tell them that they are gone?

I feel that working with confused patients is very draining.  I try to rationalize with them or persuade them or console them and so much of it is a struggle because they don't understand.  They fear their surroundings, the people, the medicine, etc, and they don't know if they can trust anyone or anything.  Their fear and anxiety becomes part of my fear and anxiety since I am the one working with them and trying to understand where they are coming from, and it wears on me.

The nurses complain about how many times they have taken a patient to the bathroom, even though it is only 3-4 times in 12 hours.  I feel bad for the patient because 3-4 times is not a lot, but I also understand their frustration because taking a confused person to the bathroom can be very difficult.  You often need 2-3 people to operate a lift and move a heavy patient.  It takes a lot of effort to explain everything we are doing and sometimes the person gets confused and upset or they hit out.

One nurse mentioned being punched in the throat before.  Sometimes they even change their mind about going to the bathroom and you have to undo the lift and put them back to bed, only to have them ask to go to the bathroom again after a few minutes.

On my days off I do a lot of thinking.  I think about how it sucks to be a sick and confused person, and how I don't want to be like that one day.  I wonder about whether it is worth it to live to be that old if I have to live like that.  Then I think about all the people that are suffering as a result of different things they did when they were younger like smoke a lot, or drink a lot, or eat a lot of fattening foods.

I look at how I am living my life and I think about whether I should eat that slice of pie (even though it would be really tasty and I would really enjoy it.)  I feel like it takes a little of the enjoyment out of life to see the possible outcome of some of my decisions.  At the same time, if I don't enjoy my life, what is the point?

So, as you can see, it is wearing on the mind to do the 12 hour shifts and shift rotations.  It makes one just groggy enough to poorly adapt to the shocking experiences associated with acute care nursing.  I have one more day off before it's time for another set.  I hope I'll be able to recover sufficiently by then.

Have a good week!

12 Hour Shifts and Grandma

It has been a very busy week.  I worked four 12-hour day shifts in a row.

12-hour Shifts

It's actually not that bad to work 12 hour shifts when things are busy.  Time flies by.  When I have a bit of a breather in my work, I go and help the other nurses with their patients.

The only problem with 12 hour shifts is that the days fly by as well.  By the time you go home, it's almost time to go to sleep.  I can shower, eat a little snack, play with Poggles for a bit, and then it's time to get ready for bed.  Otherwise I won't have enough sleep for the next day.

On some of the days I was working, I was so exhausted that I actually took naps during my lunch and dinner break.  I just meant to close my eyes for a bit, but I dozed right off.  When my co-workers got up to get back to work, the sounds would wake me and I'd get up and go back to work too.

Grandma's Fall
After the four days, I got home completely exhausted.  Unfortunately, I found out that my 93 year old grandmother had fallen and hit the floor face first.  She was in the hospital with a bloody nose, a black eye, and a fractured jaw.  I was horrified.

When I went to visit her, her face was so bruised and swollen that she could barely open her left eye.  I felt so sad.  I sat with her and helped her with whatever I could.

The nurse was very sweet and did her best.  My grandmother doesn't speak English, so she I translated questions for her.  We had to give my grandmother some extra medicine for pain because the scheduled medications weren't enough for pain control, and we found out that she was having some trouble eating her food.  The lovely nurse had the kitchen puree all of my grandmother's food for her and my grandmother loved it.

Chatting With Grandma
When my parents went for a walk, I sat on my grandmother's bedside and we talked about things that she likes to do.  She told me that she likes to play Bingo on Wednesdays with the other residents at her care home.  It costs 10 cents per card and she told me how she once played 11 games in a row and it cost her $1.10.  We had a good chuckle over it because $1.10 is not a lot of money, but she had made it sound like it was a very big deal.

On Mondays, they play for free and there are prizes to be won.  She says that you can win candy or crackers/biscuits.  When she won once, she got some lovely biscuits for herself.  She seemed pretty proud of that.

On Fridays, they go on outings to different places.  Her favourite place to go is T&T Supermarket.  She says that she can walk around and buy whatever she wants.  I guess she likes candy and biscuits a lot since that's what she says you can buy there.  I like how she makes it seem like such a great place to go because you can buy whatever you want.  She really emphasized how buying anything you want is such a great thing.

I thought it was very sweet to visit my grandmother.  She has been through a lot lately.  Her heart is not very good anymore and she caught Shingles recently too.  I hope she gets better soon.