Making the transition.

I have been working nights the last two weeks. My shift starts at 6:30 pm and ends at 8 am after which I come home and fall (literally) into bed and sleep soundly until around 4-4:30 pm. Friday night was my last night. I stayed awake the entire night as we had lots of admissions as well as some really ill children. Since my shift ended on a weekend day, I was able to leave at 6:30 am instead of 8 am. I was so excited because I got off in plenty of time to get ready for church. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how well I've adjusted to the night life.

I got home around 6:45 am, ate a good breakfast, took a shower, got dressed and was all ready for church by 7:30 am. Unfortunately, church doesn't start until 9:30 so I had two hours to kill. I tried to stay awake by playing the piano very loudly but around 8 am I was hardly able to keep my eyes open.

I decided I'd take a SHORT nap (so I wouldn't nap during the sermon). I set the alarm for 1 hour. I went right to sleep and woke up an hour later totally disoriented. I knew that Eric was planning on coming to church with me after he finished rounding so I tried to page him. It took me five minutes and multiple fumbles to dial his pager number. I fell asleep again waiting for him to respond. I don't really know what I said to him, I was a bit incoherent.

At any rate, I immediately fell asleep again waiting for him to come home. He says that when he got home I was sound asleep and he didn't bother to wake me up. Around 12:30 pm I woke up enough to take cognisance of the time, I was still fully dressed but clearly wouldn't be making it to church! I felt really badly, but promptly fell asleep again and slept another 2 hours before Eric finally came in and made me get up and go on a walk. I forced myself to stay awake until 6pm, at which time nature won and I fell sound asleep until about 12 am when I woke up WIDE AWAKE. I lay in bed WIDE AWAKE trying to go back to sleep until around 3-3:30 am, at which point I finally fell asleep until around 7am.

So today, I am going to stay awake ALL DAY LONG! NOTHING can force me to even think about taking a nap!!!

-Rachel

Comments

Stephanie said…
I have no idea how you guys do it.
Me neither. I am on night float this week. Kind of like it. Get to be outside during the day. Not too bad, just miss sleeping with babycakes (Janelle).

Jason
Unknown said…
gotta love the night shift life. =D