36 in 48

A few things have changed at work as of late. Most of which I’m not overly excited about. These changes have resulted in significant changes to my schedule.

My previous schedule consisted of working one 24 hour shift for 3 weeks of the month and working one hellacious 72 hour work week for the 4th week of the month. The 72 hour week is rough, but for the most part, that schedule was very doable.

Now, every time I work, I do 36 in 48. That means I’m on 24, off 12, then back on for 12. Having done it for 4 weeks now, I’d have to say it’s killing me.

I spend a lot of time sleeping during the day, and frankly, that’s hard. I spend a lot of nights that I’m off awake, unable to sleep. I have trouble getting personal business taken care of because I’m asleep during the day and awake during the night and the rest of the world does not function on an upside down schedule. I’m finding that I don’t really either.

People often say I’m so lucky because I have so many days off, but the truth is, I spend much of my off time sleeping or staring blankly at the television because I’m so exhausted. Sleeping has become my part time job, only I don’t get paid. It’s hard working a week’s worth of hours in a couple of days. Generally by the time I’m feeling “normal” or recovered, it’s back to work.

Sometimes work feels like water-boarding, only I choose to be here. Hmm?

It’s funny really. I wanted to have a grueling tasking schedule that was awing and daunting and strong. You can only do that for so long though. I would still say it’s grueling but I am not at all awed or feel strong by my schedule anymore. It’s amazing how something can look so enticing at one point and look so horrific at another.

The census has been low and slow lately too. There haven’t been many patients and they haven’t been very sick. This makes for long boring shifts and I find myself wondering what I’m even doing here.

I suppose I’m at a moment of frustration, exhausting, irritation, confusion, and discontent.

It is said that growth comes from chaos. We shall see.