Thursday, April 10, 2008

A rough 2 days

I have been on a rough call stretch and I am getting my proverbial ass beaten. I have had 7 hrs sleep in the last 2 days and got to see my kids for the first time in a few days also. In the last two days I have been asked if I like my job at least 10 times, asked to explain my job thoroughly at least 5 times and given out my business card 3 times to nurses interested in a job. All the while repeating the "I love my job" chant to myself quietly as I try to keep my head from crashing to the desk in the TICU at 3am. I had nurses look incredulously at me both nights after they found out I would be there til 8am. I overheard nurses say to one another "Not worth the money, no life, no way" as I called transplant centers and tried to think about manging the donor as my brain was trying to think about a nice warm bed. Both nights I contemplated taking a 12 hour job in PICU and quickly rejected the idea and kept plugging away at what I do best, knowing I would regret it if I did.

Problem is I am so hard on myself, I am a perfectionist. Nurses are in amazement at what we do, what we know and how we do this and sometimes all I can think about is how the hell I forgot to do something I have done a 1000 times. I can't stand to make mistakes, or errors or be wrong, or miss a crucial peice of information. I hate being criticized by people who think they are perfect and dont make mistakes. This job makes me go through all that on a daily basis. Other co-workers are constantly in competition with each, our group lacks any cohesiveness, any teamwork and it seems that no matter what you do or efforts you make, opinions never change so why bother. Good thing is I get to work by myself most of the time and that helps.

I finished off my shift this am helping the wife of my donor crawl in bed with him to spend some time alone laying in bed next to him. Now I just need something alcoholic to drink since I am too tired to go run.

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