The nurse as her own patient

I worked my 16.5 hr shift on Tuesday night. I started dragging much sooner than usual and I was chalking it up to not sleeping enough on Monday. I don't think my bed has ever felt so good to me as mine did when I crawled into it yesterday morning at 8:15. At 10:30 I woke up with that horrible feeling that my stomach was not going to hold on to anything I'd put in it in the past 24 hours. You know that way that your mouth starts watering and you just know that your soon going to be on your knees in front of the porcelain pedestal, yeah that one! I don't think there is another person on the planet that hates to throw up more than I do. I mean some people will run their finger down their throat to get it over with already. I am the complete opposite of that. I will bargain with God, sell my children or anything else that comes to mind at such a time to avoid that disgusting exercise. So, I did deep breathing exercises, prayed, bargained, cried (yes, I cried!), and then remembered I had some Phenergan suppositories left over from a surgery 5 yrs ago in the refrigerator. So I did the suppository thing (sorry, just keeping it real here!) in a few minutes my mouth stopped that awful watering and then the cold chills hit. So I did my very favorite thing by climbing into a very deep and hot bathtub. This was my undoing!!! I managed to fall asleep in that hot bath for about 1/2 hour. All of a sudden the feeling came back with a vengeance! Why, because I got HOT. Oh Lord, I couldn't get out of that bathtub quick enough! I tried to get myself dried off and throw my nightgown over my head on my way to the porcelain pedestal. Suffice it to say that I wasn't able to do so many things at once. So there I was half dressed, still wet from my bath and assuming the position with absolutely no dignity. It wasn't pretty people, it wasn't pretty at alllll.

So the rest of the day yesterday I slept the sleep of the dead. When I woke up around 4:00 I had a fever, and felt muscles aching that I had forgotten that I even had. What a great way to spend my day off in between 16.5 hr shifts. I took some Advil and went back to sleep and slept fitfully from 5:00 pm till 11:00 this morning. My stomach feels much better and my fever is gone but I sure don't feel like working 16.5 hours tonight. But, nurses aren't' allowed to be sick so I'm getting ready to get my shower and hit it again.

I just talked to Sarah Kate and she had her blood drawn at 10:00 this morning and should have results around 2:30. I will let you know what her numbers were. She is still feeling nauseated and very tired so we're still very optimistic. I can't wait to hear from her. I will post an update from work later so you all won't have to wait till tomorrow to hear.

UPDATE: The census went down at the hospital! Staffing office just called and put me on call for the first 8 hours of my shift tonight. Thank you, God! I have until 11:00 to get back on top of my game!