I had such a horrible night last night. I got in my car after work, was halfway home, and burst into tears. When I walked in the front door I was close to sobbing. I scared poor Chris half to death. He had woken up about 5 minutes earlier and was sitting at the kitchen table checking email, when in walks his wife, red face, nose runny, tears streaming. Hoo, boy.
Nothing horrible happened and for HIPAA reasons I won’t go into details. I didn’t get in trouble, no one in my zone died, everyone is going to live. It was just incredibly, awfully stressful. I should’ve known. Holidays are always nuts. People get together and start getting on one another’s nerves, tempers rise, and someone does something stupid. Or family goes to visit great-aunt Doreen and recognizes that she doesn’t look so good, and they bring her to us. Don’t get me wrong – I love my job and wouldn’t want to work anywhere other than the ER. But some nights it’s plumb crazy. This was one of the those nights.
I’m so thankful that I have a husband to come home to, someone who loves me and wants to hear about my f’ed up night at work. Someone who says to me, “Are you OK?! Do you need me to make you a strongly alcoholic drink?!” I really do think that I scared Chris. I walked in the door, and with his eyes bugged out of his head he said, “What’s wrong?! What happened?!” Sorry, Chris. Once he ascertained that no one had died, he let me vent for a solid 45 minutes. Gosh, I love him.
I’m going to go to bed soon, because I have to be up in 6 hours so that I can go back in to work and do it all over again. My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth all night. I think what makes it so bad is that I keep everything inside and am incredibly sweet and polite to all of my patients, and it builds up.
I really do love my job. Just not right now!
I’m late in commenting on this, but I just had to smile to myself when you said “holidays are always nuts!”
Ugh, I remember working in the hospital on holidays and after 3pm everything would just go to hell in a hand basket. I worked first shift, so right at the end of my shift we would start getting slammed with all these ER admissions. It’s exactly like you said people get stupid or they go to visit an old relative who no one has checked in on in weeks and realize he/she’s suddenly at death’s door!
I guess I have nothing encouraging to say, other than you’re definitely not alone, we’ve all been there and sometimes all you can do is cry.
It sounds like your move is progressing, good luck with everything that’s coming up!!
🙁 Sorry you had a hard day/night! I hope tonight is better …
Aww sorry to read that 🙁 yeah public holidays always seem to equal overloaded hospitals. We ended up being in hospital late Sat nite because my dad had chest pains and they wanted to keep him in overnight to run tests because of family history stuff. But he’s all good and they were very thorough. But really felt for the nurses and doctors that night though.. Mum and I overheard them saying it was a particularly crappy shift with car accidents, drunk teenagers, domestic assaults etc.. fortunately dad was in the quiet part of ED away from all that craziness. Anyways, hope rest of your week goes much better 🙂
Holidays in hospitals suck! I’m glad you made it through and that Chris let you talk it all out.
Ugh, I can only imagine your pain! I worked PR status in admissions for ER for a couple of years, and I remember how horrible holidays were!! Glad you had your husband to vent to…it always makes things feel better! 🙂
Aww I’m so sorry you had a stressful night. 🙁 I hope today is much, much better! 🙂
I’m glad you got to cry it out. I hope when you wake up everything is much sunnier and tonight is smoother!
Bless your heart… that sounds condescending, but I mean it sweetly… like a southern grandma would say while patting you on the back….
I often think that nurses face way more crap than they get credit for, they have to deal with the patients face to face, they often act as intermediaries between angry and upset patients and the doctors… that means you have to take yelling and abuse and having patients and their families take it all out on you, while also dealing with short tempered Doctors who are busy and who may take it out on you as well…
When things get stressful it always seems like the poor nurses get the short ends of both sticks!
Hang in there sweet girl, I’m sure with such stressful days at work and with the big move coming so soon you’re probably over extended… you’re allowed to cry it out if you need to 🙂
Awww! I’m sorry you had a horrible night! I hope it gets better for you!