The night crew definitely felt the extra hour yesterday or last night. Well, at least to where I was working. It was a fairly busy night for the weekend. The first hours of the shift did not really feel new, as we were all walking fast making sure that our patients have been settled well and their medicines are given in due time. Of course, along triaging our patients, you’ll have patients wanting their pain medicines ASAP or wanting to go to the bathroom right away. So for the first few hours of the shift, it was a combination of call lights and bed alarms.
We knew that we will be working for another hour. We have a good night shift team, so it really makes a difference when you can have fun with the people you work with inspite of the busy task ahead. For me, it was enough to feel good. But when the clock turned 2:00 am and we saw the clocks automatically turn back, there was a couple of sighs around. It was time for coffee. lol!
It was when 5:00am when I can feel my legs were getting really heavy. lol! It was because it was suppose to be 6:00 am and believe it or not, this is the time when we usually make sure that all the work is done and we then complete our charting. It doesn’t happen all the time but if it does, we actually can end the shift without running around and it’s beeaaauuutttiiffulll!
When it was already 6:00am, nobody was talking lol! We were laughing coz we seem to catch each other teary eyed from yawning. I don’t even remember when I had my second cup of coffee lol! Then when we saw the morning crew coming in, we just laughed at each other. My face had “finally!” written all over it. It has been 12 hours for the shift itself we come in early, so we had more and this extra hour. We have had busier shifts and our charge nurse last night was very helpful but I was ready to go home.
Nurses have great resilience to the stress at work whether it’s night or day shift. Yes, we complain (we are only human) and we sometimes cry but we still come back because for those who remain bedside nursing, the responsibility is rewarding. I have a different perspective on it. The extra hours was a drag but hey, we have had bigger problems that we have handled well. The extra cup of coffee or the friendly pep talk may have helped… who knows. What matters is that the shift ended. lol!
Emotista 