Temporarily to the dark side

If the early bird gets the worm, what does the night owl get? How about the confused coo-coo clock bird who doesn't know what time of day it is? That's what I resonate most closely with right about now. I am very much a dayshift girly.. I think I've worked less than 3 months of night shift in my entire 5 and a half year nursing career (some of which were way back on orientation). After this contract though, I'll be able to add 3 more months to that total. Now, I've only worked a few weeks on nights so far, but I have some thoughts.

1.What the heck day is it?? While I feel like I have never had a strong grasp on what day of the week it is because I don't have the typical "I'm not at work, so it's a weekend" kind of job, I especially have no idea what day it is when I go into work on one calendar day and leave on another. Sometimes, when I'm leaving work, someone will ask when I'm back, and I'll say tomorrow and then correct myself to mean tonight. On top of all that, often times when night shift nurses are leaving, dayshift will say, "goodnight," as we are going home to sleep.. which just makes it even more confusing.

2. I am exhausted. Sleeping during the day is not super enjoyable to me. Don't get me wrong, I love a good nap, but I don't love the constant feeling of FOMO or that I'm being a slug and unproductive and wasting the day away. Another fear of mine is that I am oversleeping for my shift, which is something I have always struggled with, but when sleeping in the daylight, I often am suddenly woken up wondering what time it is. Blackout curtains, while helpful to encourage good sleep during the day, also inevitably end up making me even more scared that I've slept too long. To combat these fears, I set lots of alarms and let my roomies know when I'm working so they can hopefully help wake me if I do end up oversleeping. My four legged roomie doesn't quite pull his weight in that department.. in fact he usually just wants to snuggle and snooze longer, but that is also appreciated.

3. The work is not in fact easier. A common misconception of night shift is that it must be so easy because your patients are just asleep the whole time anyway, right? Wrong. Nighttime, in fact, is many patients' witching hour.. how appropriate for spooky season, I know. While we love to encourage as much sleep as possible, most patients on my unit need to be interrupted at least every 4 hours if nothing more than to just check their vital signs or just that they are still alive and well. When they're not doing so well, and we need to intervene, it is also a little more difficult than dayshift because there are fewer resources available to help. Don't get me wrong, these nurses really know how to spring into action when they need to, but my goodness it definitely is a skeleton crew at night and especially on the weekends (there I go again with the spooky season references!).

4. You're on your own kid! Re: the whole skeleton staff situation, night shift is not the time to be paging the doc for every single little request. There often are only one or two people on call covering the whole floor, so you best save your pages for when it really matters or else you're gonna be on that provider's bad side.. which even as the "new traveler" (a title I wear with pride for just about my entire contract) that is not somewhere you want to be. There definitely is more autonomy on night shift; you can't always run to your manager or doctor or anyone "higher up" to solve your problems for you. You find yourself getting creative and finding even a temporary fix so that it can appropriately become a DSP.. a day shift problem. Xoxo, love you day shifters!

5. It's COLD. I had always heard this about night shift, but was always a little skeptical because of how warm I often was on day shift. No no, it's collld. Especially in the wee hours of the morning. I have learned to bring extra layers and just keep moving and it has been fine. It probably doesn't help that I'm cold at a baseline, but with that, I have had years of practicing for this moment.. I have plenty of jackets, sweatshirts, and vests to keep me cozy.

6. Food specific to a certain time of day is pretty much a scam. I know there's already breakfast for dinner, but what about dinner for breakfast.. or is it still called breakfast if it's eaten at the end of my work day? I don't even care anymore, I eat what I want, when I want. Which honestly isn't thaaat much different from how I was on dayshift, but it is simply just more noticeable now. I do find it difficult to eat enough in a "day" when I'm working a stretch of shifts, but that's kinda where my next thought comes into play.

7. Snacks on snacks on snacks.. I feel like all I do anymore is snack. I'm not usually hungry for real meals overnight, and it does feel more "normal" to just eat a dinner kinda late in the night and snack through the rest of the shift, saving my real meals for when I get home and when I wake up from my nap. The snacking though is an excellent way to keep me awake throughout the shift, especially when I inevitably hit my 4 o'clock wall (which I find happens both on day shift and overnight).

8. The sunrises are such a lovely way to end the shift. I used to think this way about the sunsets at my dayshift jobs, and was a pro at finding the empty room on the correct side of the hospital to catch a glimpse of Mr Sun going to sleep for the night, but now I get to see him wake up in the morning! Let's be real, I love Mr Sun no matter what he's doing in the sky and most hospitals don't have enough open windows to see the sunshine during the shift anyway, but the sunset on the drive in and the sunrise to end the shift in the morning definitely make me smile. (Oh and Mr Moon, can't forget about him!)

9. I have found myself chasing the happy a lot these days. Unfortunately, night shifters are at a higher risk for lots of medical ailments, especially depression and anxiety (but also other diseases and cancers.. yikes!). There are lots of studies about how much worse night shift is on the body, but someone has to keep the patients alive overnight! When I ended up with this job, I was definitely making a compromise by taking it, but this was better than the alternative-- which was not having a job at all, or having a job that didn't allow me to live with my one bestie from college who is a resident at a different local hospital. I've found that the time I get to spend with her and the proximity to my sisters/friends has been exactly what I need to survive these shifts. This was in fact exactly what I was missing during my adventures on the west coast.

10. It is very interesting being simultaneously the most and least experienced person on the unit. You wanna know where a specific thing is in the clean supply room is or what one particular doctor usually likes to prescribe after surgery? I'm not much help. However, you need help with something you don't usually see on the unit like a chest tube? You need help during a rapid response because your patient is having a seizure and their oxygen saturation is dropping? Ohhhh I gotchu!! I have experienced lots of different things at lots of different hospitals and have worked on units where the patients are generally sicker than they are here. That kind of encapsulates exactly why I chose to go into travel nursing in the first place. I always want to be learning something new and always want to be challenged.

Night shift is definitely it's own challenge. While I am very much looking forward to being back on dayshift shift (hopefully) for my next gig, I'm gonna make the most of my time here now, like I always try to do. I am grateful that I have a job, grateful that I am seeing so many of my people, and grateful to be able to have had some downtime on this shift to finish this post!

And one last bonus thought, if you're ever struggling with insomnia, feel free to give ya girl a text, chances are I'm awake (now if I'm actually coherent is a bit of a gamble, but who knows, could be fun!).

Until next time.. sleep well for me please!