06 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
I haven’t worked much the past week or so. I expected to work more, but one of my extra shifts, it turned out the charge nurse didn’t even know that I was on the schedule, and then I didn’t get called in over the weekend, during my on-call hours. So I’ve pretty much been home for 7 days straight, other than a 3 hour stint last night when I filled in a scheduling hole for someone.
However, it is baby central at work right now, so it looks like I’m going to more than make up for not working much lately. Tonight, I will work 6 hours extra to cover for someone who is leaving on vacation in the morning. Friday night, 12 hours. Saturday night, on call for 12 hours, and almost definitely getting called in, since there is only one nursery person scheduled and they like to keep two around whenever possible. (Not looking forward to doing 3 in a row, but yay for call pay!) Then Sunday night, 12 more hours. Off Monday, then 6 more hours Tuesday night, and no babysitter Wednesday morning. Good times. 
But hey, we do need the money, so I know I should just be happy that I have a job that I mostly like. We did FINALLY get our mortgage stuff finished, so we now have a real live 30-year mortgage, a full 3 percentage points lower than our old mortgage. We now own our first house free and clear. It’s completely trashed, completely flea-infested thanks to the renters who just moved out a few months ago. It probably needs more work done on it than it would even appraise for- as in needs a new roof , and needs the entire back half of the house needs to be ripped off and redone. But if worse comes to worse, it’s nice to know that we actually do own it.
I am breathing much easier now that we have a real mortgage. However, we are still paying what Dave Ramsey would call the stupid tax from having bought the house we live in now before we sold the first one. Stupid, stupid, but nothing we can do about it other than work our hardest to pay off all these bills. So it’s off to work I go, tonight and the three nights following.
06 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
I am useless today. After a 10 day stretch off from work, I worked very busy 12-hour shifts the last 2 nights (one of them was a 13.5, actually), slept 4 hours today, and now at 6 pm, I sit in a daze at the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. M is outside, watering the garden with my 5-year-old, and my toddler is being kind to me and playing on the floor by himself while I try to force myself awake.
I am off the next 2 days, then I work one more night shift, then 8 more days off. Not a bad schedule, since I frequently have longer stretches off from work; just very tiring on the day after a night shift. M has essentially functioned as a single dad for the past 48 hours, so the house is completely trashed. The kids missed me and are unruly as a result. I will need a day or two (or more) to whip the house back into shape. Although that probably won’t happen this weekend, as M needs the rest of the week to finish repairs on the roof.
Long week
14 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
This is looking to be a looooong week. M will be working out of town all week for the second time this year. I’m not quite as scared going into it this time, since I know that we’ve survived this before. The fact that I have to work two days this week may actually make the week easier than last time, when I was home alone with the kids the entire five days. I have a recertification class at work, and I’m tempted to leave my older child with my mom overnight in between my two workdays, since she is always begging to stay there.
Hitting the ground running with a large dose of morning coffee. Today I need to pick up my medical records from my old healthcare provider in the city, run to the store for some groceries and printer paper, and run by work to get my study manual for my class. Then when we get home tonight, I need to remember to print off the 65-page pretest for the class (eek). Last time I took this class, I was fresh out of college. I think I have some major studying ahead of me this week in order to prepare myself.
I caught M right as he was heading out the door this morning and said goodbye. He had left a note on the board with some helpful hints to get me through the week. The last line reads, : “When it seems like the kid whiney/cry-ey level is a too crazy level, hot chocolate or popcorn can make a world of difference.” Wise words.
I’m really gonna do it!
02 Nov 2010 1 Comment
Go back to per diem status, that is.
Tomorrow, before work, I will send the email to the powers-that-be.
My husband is sooo sick of hearing me whine and moan about how much I hate working, until I am in the middle of my 10-day stretch off, which happens once every few weeks. Then I turn into Suzy Homemaker for a week (after the 3 days it takes me to physically recover from the week of 13-hour shifts that preceded the time off). So on my stretch of time off, I change my tune and say, eh, this schedule isn’t so bad, I get lots of time off… And then I go back to work and the cycle starts all over, with me wanting to quit again. M. is so tired of me going back and forth like this, over and over. He was not happy about me going to part-time in the first place, and made no bones about it. I countered that we needed me to have a job with benefits in case he lost his insurance again.
I look at my schedule on paper, and it doesn’t look so bad, especially when I compare my measly part-time requirements to the full-timers, who work 12 12′s per month. Me, I only work 6 12′s per month (not counting call time). It doesn’t look so bad, on paper. I look at my schedule and chide myself for being so tired. I shouldn’t be so tired. I only have one or two true work weeks per month. But I am so tired. All the time. I’m so tired that I let the kids watch movies all morning so that I can nurse a cup of coffee or three, and then I snap at them for being kids and doing kid things. I’m too tired to do more than bare bones housekeeping, despite being home for 5 or 6 days straight. So my husband picks up the slack, and that makes HIM more tired. And then we’re both too exhausted to put the kids to bed at a normal time, then the kids wake up late, and on and on the cycle perpetuates itself.
And there is the whole homeschooling thing. J is turning 5 this week. We are halfheartedly doing preschool at home, but let’s face it, I’m so tired that I don’t have the energy to actually keep a real routine with it like I want to do. I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to only have one week per month where I feel normal.
I’m tired of living in fear of the what-if’s. Yes, M’s work is unstable, but it has been rather unstable for about 7 years now, and they are still in business somehow. If they go under, we will do what we have to do when that time comes. There is no point working a schedule that makes the whole family miserable, JUST IN CASE.
On working
08 Oct 2009 Leave a Comment
in breastfeeding, budget, Motherhood, tired, work
First swine flu (oh sorry, H1N1) patient last night. And already I’m convinced that I have it. Guess I will know for sure within 1-5 days (incubation period) whether or not the body aches and headache are just the typical I-worked-13-hours-yesterday-with-only-one-break feelings.
Also, what is up with all my coworkers trying to guilt me into working more shifts?
Following is a rant in the general direction of one or two of my coworkers:
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If I wanted to work part-time hours, I would have taken that part-time position that I was offered last week by our unit manager- that way I would get benefits, 401k and insurance, which I don’t get in my current position as a PRN nurse! I work PRN for a reason, because I DON”T WANT TO BE AT WORK. I want to be home with my kids, and thus I work as few hours as we can afford, and we do without certain things in order for me to be home most of the time. I never schedule myself to work more than 20 hours a week. Most weeks, it is between 6 and 12 hours total. THere is a reason that I left my full-time job to be a PRN nurse!
It is not my responsibility to pick up random shifts on top of what I am already signed up for. That is not in my contract. My contract says that I work 6 hours a week minimum, and one holiday per year- if that is all I do, I am still fulfilling my work agreement. I am not the float pool nurse, and it is not my fault that my hospital does not have a float pool. Sorry if this annoys you. Take it to the manager. Random comments about how the PRN staff are not helpful with picking up random last-minute shifts really piss me off, as I pick up more of these last-minute shifts than anyone else on the unit. DO NOT MAKE THESE COMMENTS WHEN I AM THREE FEET AWAY- ESPECIALLY AFTER I HAVE JUST AGREED TO TAKE AN EXTRA SHIFT! Even if you quickly backpedal afterwards, saying you meant everyone except me, these are not good comments to make in my presence! You are great to work with, and I hope to be an awesome expert nurse like you one day, but please, lay off the guilt trips! Thanks, I feel better now!
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In happier news, I have been looking into getting trained as a lactation consultant at my hospital. I broached the topic with a couple of LC’s at work, discussed it with my manager, and then mentioned it to the childbirth center director (who is also over my unit) yesterday. She seemed thrilled that I was interested, as their lactation consultants are “dropping like flies” (her words).
She told me that she will let the head LC know that she is fine with me starting to take classes/ workshops/ shadowing- I’m not sure what part will come first, but I am very excited! I will stick around my current unit at least through another year or so, but as soon as I am capable of being hired upstairs as a PRN lactation counselor (I think counselor is the first step, if I remember correctly), I will most likely be out the door. I have learned a lot on my unit, but Mother/Baby nursing is SO much more my passion than Peds. My place of employment has a fairly high breastfeeding rate (some days upwards of 90% of the moms in postpartum are at least attempting to breastfeed), so they really do have a big need for lactation help up there.
The day that I shadowed an LC was one of my two high points in nursing school, the other one being the day that I shadowed a women’s health NP in a community clinic. I guess the fact that my two favorite nursing school experiences were not in the hospital should tell me something about why I often feel so out of place at my current place of employment!
So glad
19 Apr 2008 Leave a Comment
in Motherhood, school, tired, work
“Do you like it here?” One of the nurses asked me in the break room yesterday. “I like it,” I said, and she glanced over at my preceptor with this amused look that said, “Your student is lying and is clearly not City Hospital material.” So I expounded on how I have signed up for every clinical I possibly could here, and how I will indeed be working here as a new nurse, because this place is just that cool.
She visibly relaxed, and began telling me how no one ever leaves. And if they do leave, they always come back. How the unit is like a sisterhood, with sisterly squabbles that the nurses always forgive one another for in the end. How there are some bad apples, just like anywhere (here she listed the name of a nurse who bit my head off two weeks ago), but if you look past their tough exterior, even the mean nurses all have something good to offer.
I was signed up to work 12 hours today, for the 4th time this week (the first 3 were unpaid clinical days). My daughter screamed for me for half of the night, even though I was two inches away. My husband got up with her several times and brought her in the living room so I could sleep, but I could hear her screaming my name, and I could tell he was getting irritated. Most of this week, I have only seen her for the hour or two in the evening between my arrival home and my 9:30 bedtime. I have been leaving for the city before sunrise on these mornings, while she is still asleep. Thank God this is only temporary. No way would I be able to survive doing this kind of schedule long-term.
This week has made me think about a couple we know, who are soon expecting their second child in two years. Both parents work full-time, and Little One is in daycare all day. Their child is one of those that naturally drops off to sleep between 8 and 9 pm. This means that, five days a week, these parents have less than two hours per day of waking time with their child. Then, on the weekends, grandparents and relatives all want him around, so they really don’t get much time to just be a family at home. That kind of schedule would burn me out quick. I guess people do what they have to do.
I called the unit where I work at 4 am this morning, and found out that the house supervisor was planning to cancel someone. I begged the night nurse to relay the info that I really wanted to be the one cancelled, due to my daughter’s severe case of mommy-itis. At 4:30, the phone rang, and I was given official permission to go back to bed for 4 hours. They didn’t put me on call the way they normally do. I think they’re being practical and trying not to pay me any more money, since I won’t be fulfilling the unspoken agreement to work there after graduation.
I laid down with my little girl, and she settled down and stopped screaming and cuddled into my side. Her hair smelled so, so sweet. I caught up on some blessed REM sleep. Sometimes I forget how sleep-deprived I am until a morning like today, when my brain seizes its chance and binges on REM sleep, with weird dreams galore.
What was my point? Oh yeah. My point is that my daughter and I get really out of whack when we don’t get to see each other all week. I’m glad I have today and tomorrow off to be home with her. And I’m glad I only have four more days of school/old job, and then I get five fabulous weeks at home. So glad.
That’s about as -what’s the word? Coherent? This is the most coherent I can manage today. I’ll do better when I’ve spent a full day not having to pretend to be a grown-up and professional all day.
By the way, I have seen a lot of ca-razy stuff these past 3 weeks of Last Clinical EVER, but most of them are so crazy unusual that I won’t be writing about them here. At least not immediately.
