Vampiro.
That’s what the patient calls me.
It’s Spanish for vampire. I maintain a flat affect as I look for a vein to draw her blood and consider the other elements that may have lead to that comment. I am sitting under fluorescent lighting that accentuates the raccoon bags under my eyes. My complexion foreshadows a heart attack. Yeah… sounds about right.
I finish drawing her blood for lab tests and smile back at the patient devilishly.
“Gracias, puedes espera en la sala grande afuera,” I said, asking her to wait in the lobby. Spanish is the predominant language in an East Los Angeles Emergency Room at 3 a.m.
I worked nights for eight years. In an ER, that’s like 24 years of experience compressed into the adrenaline-pumping action you see on TV shows. Fast forward to today and my kidneys (which house the adrenal glands) have had enough . I’ve finally come into the land of the living, side-by-side with day walkers. I’ve been here for a couple years and a lot has changed–some for the better and some for the worse. I think it’s a chapter in my life that can provide insight for young people just starting their medical careers. We’ll go over a few things that come to mind when I reflect about this experience.
Work Hard, Play Hard, But Be Safe
Nurses love to party. It’s as if our daily dance with death at work somehow increases our tolerance for alcohol. Most of the night shift are usually young and more likely to go out and party with you. This is a great time to be single and ready to mingle and form some life-long relationships.
There is a subculture of nightshift nurses that embrace the night and become nocturnal. Instead of dealing with the stress of alternating sleep cycles, they keep their day sleeping pattern even on their nights off of work. This is an unsung boon of being in your twenty-somethings with no other responsibilities than taking care of #1. Once you become a creature of the night, you’re naturally wide awake for all the things that happen after midnight. On Friday and Saturday nights, I would roll out of bed say around 5 or 6 p.m., SSS (Shit, Shower, & Shave), and off to the evening’s festivities.This is a time to see a world that never sleeps and observe the “normal” people from a new perspective.
Work hard, play hard but it’s important to remember not to drink and drive. In the ER, a nurse’s greatest fear is not getting in an accident, but being brought in and stripped naked in front of all your coworkers–and then arrested. So we jettison the ingrained teaching of not getting into a car with strangers and use Uber and Lyft to literally summon strangers with complete trust that they will get us home safely.
The alternative option is that there’s usually a person willing to host a few of the remaining survivors. As long as you don’t get creeper vibes, this is a great opportunity to connect with people. If you’ve converted into one of the nocturnals, then there’s still plenty of energy left for some very interesting, relationship-building conversations.
Don’t Let Yourself Go and Help a Friend While You’re At It
Remember the freshman 15? A brand-new night shift nurse can easily turn that into a “nightshift 30.” There’s a physiological change that happens when you start working nights. Your circadian rhythm gets disrupted and your natural sleep and wake cycles are in constant chaos. When transitioning between day and night, your brain fog will feel like a permanent hangover. Any willpower you have to avoid eating unhealthy food will disappear into the fog and you’ll find yourself in a primal state of consuming anything sweet or salty in your delirium. This issue is compounded by the fact that, at night, fast food is usually all that’s available.
You’ll also find your motivation for productive activities like exercise begin to dwindle. It’s important to develop good meal planning habits and an exercise routine to undo all the bad juju that can come with the night shift. Peer pressure can play an important role here. Join forces with link-minded buddies to help keep one another on track. Together, you can escape the muffin top and focus on beach bodies. Habits are easier to reinforce when you have a group keeping everyone accountable.
If It Gets Too Hard, Move Into the Light
I attribute some of the greatest moments of my youth to night shift. I laughed, cried, fell in love, got in fights, made friends, made enemies and came out of that experience a whole new person. I felt I learned everything I needed to learn before I decided to make the switch. Before I did, I wanted to make sure I mastered all the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
It’s important to remember that the way you act when you are tired, irritable, and vitamin D-deficient is not the real you. When you work nights, you create a masked, lesser version of yourself. The real you is hidden behind this mask. When I was tired, I began to believe that I was a terrible person because I allowed the mask to determine who I was. I found myself constantly falling asleep around my child or half invested in a conversation. Other people will notice and judge you. Their perception can negatively impact how you see yourself. It becomes easy to fall into the emotional traps of low self-esteem.
Sometimes enough is enough. If you find yourself feeling this way when you’re on night shift, you have to put your foot down and make a conscious decision to leave it all behind. You have to approach it with an all-or-nothing type of mentality. It’s like ripping off a bandaid because you do have to leave people you shared a special bond with behind. Everyone’s timing is different. Even if you’re ready to move on, maybe they’re not ready for change.
When you come back to working days, you’ll find that it’s like that refreshing feeling of removing your mask after a long hot day. As you acclimate your face to the fresh air, everyone can see your beautiful face and smile again. It took me several months to re-orient myself to sleeping at night. When the transition was done, I found myself completely refreshed and moving toward life goals that I had long since forgotten. It’s like my life had been on pause and I finally hit play.
Very good info. Lucky me I recently found your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I have saved as a favorite for later!
Thank you Kaylene, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me that. It’s very encouraging. Cheers 🙂