Night life

I did my first night shift on Friday. 

Holy cow it was exciting/nerve racking/interesting/fulfilling/exhausting.

Did you catch all that? 

I'm very proud to say that I survived and with only minimal caffeine. 

But we'll get to that part. 

I was supposed to work on Friday, but I had told Scott that I wouldn't be in because it was my first shift and all that jazz. I had planned to run a few errands in the morning, take half a benadryl around 11, sleep till 3, and then get ready to go. 

First shift and all, I wanted to be prepared and ready to go. 

As all well-laid plans go, it went straight to hell.

Not even kidding. 

I got guilted into coming into work, and what was supposed to be only an hour to help with charts turned into 2.5 hours and lunch to Masa (which if you've never been, GO!! Right now. Delicious.).

After finally getting home, I started getting ready and suddenly was completely dreading going to clinical. 

It's that awful pit feeling in your stomach.

I get it every semester before the first clinical. 

This was no different. 

Except no preassessment on my patient.

And it's night shift. 

NBD.

I stopped by Dan's work on the way to clinical, said hello, I love you, all that cute gushy stuff that married people say to each other. Reminded him of a few things I needed him to do when he got home, and I was off. 

Walking into the hospital, I had a minor moment of panic. You see there are 2 sets of elevators at UVRMC: the west elevators and the east elevators, the latter being the ones I needed to take. However, I didn't know the east elevators existed. 

I've only been on the west elevators to see a friend who had a baby.

Those elevators only go up to the 4th floor.

I needed to get up to the 6th floor. 

In my minor moment of panic, I decided to keep walking around the corner hoping and praying that another set of elevators would appear. 

Lo and behold, there they were. In all their shiny chrome glory. 

My preceptor is awesome. Hands down he's pretty legit. 

His name is Myles and I'd say we're in for a rocking semester. 

It's always nice when within 5 minutes of meeting someone you can joke around and be laughing. 

We had a great night. Fairly uneventful. New admit, and an adventure down to radiology. 

Did I mention I didn't get a nap at all on Friday? 

Well, I paid for that dearly between the hours of 1 and 3 am. 

Nodding off, my body practically begging for some sleep.

My preceptor even told me I could go take a quick nap. 

To which I definitely declined.

Seriously, never forgetting that again. The nap, I mean.  

I had a great and glorious plan to forego the caffeine. 

As I mentioned above, like most greatly laid plans, that went straight to hell. 

I finally caved around 245 and found the nearest vending machine. 

Surprisingly, I sipped it very slowly. Not really sure why, but it helped. 

I didn't get this huge jolt/rush of caffeine to my system. So, while I did wake up, I didn't crash 2 hours later, which was a huge blessing.

I just knew if I could make it to 4 am I would be totally fine. 

The rest of the evening whisked right on by, and before I knew it, we were giving report to the oncoming nurse. And when I say we, I mean Myles.

Let's be honest: first shift, the only thing I was super comfortable with besides head to toe assessments was hanging IVs. 

Got that in the bag. 

I learned a few great tips from Myles in the first shift: 

1. Chart as you go. That way it never gets put off and you don't have to remember what you did. 

2. Be a real human being with the patient's. 

I know that last one sounds pretty obvious, but it was really refreshing to see someone actually implement it. Sometimes, and I'm definitely guilty of it, nurses get too busy and too caught up in what they need to get done, that they don't take a minute to just sit with the family and talk to them. It was great to see that put into action and how well it works. 

And because we could all use a good duck face at 630 am after being awake for 23 hours....

One shift down, 17 to go. 

Oh brother.