One of those days

I worked a 12-hour shift one day last week that turned out to be one of those days.  It's always busy in our ED, and we are chronically understaffed, but this was a particularly crazy day even for us.  There were only two nurses in our pod, which meant that each of us had four patients to care for. 

That is never a good thing in the acute care areas of our ED. 

I found myself caring for critically ill and injured patients that ran the spectrum... from a 8-day old, 4 lb. infant with sepsis, to a 39-week pregnant trauma patient whose baby's heart rate started to drop, to a 40-something man with chest pain and a history of "7 or 8, I forget..." heart attacks, and everything in between.  As soon as I would I get one stabilized, another one would be ushered into one of my rooms needing my urgent attention. 

I was overwhelmed, sweating, with a full bladder and an aching back and my hair in a disarray. 

And I was happier than a pig in poo.

I came home, and I was THRILLED to be home... and thrilled that it was my last day of work for the week.  I rambled on to my husband about my day, about the horrendous mess of it all, about how hungry and tired I was... and I found myself saying, "Honey, there is something so very wrong with me... why do I love this so much?!  Why am I at my best when things are at their worst?!"

Days like that exhaust me and leave me physically, emotionally, and mentally drained.  But as it is all happening, something clicks inside of me and starts running like a well-oiled machine.  My thoughts clear.  My hands become miraculously steady... steady enough to get an IV line into a 4 lb. infant who hasn't eaten in two days.  The more my patients need from me, the more I have to give.  I get this euphoric feeling that I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I was made to do.  Eventually after I go home, the fatigue, hunger, and body pain hit me... and I hit the wall. But even so, I sleep better than I ever do otherwise.

When I was younger, I never would have guessed that immersing myself in a world of stress, chaos, pain, and death would be the key to my self-actualization.  Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who discovered that they were ultimately engineered to be a yoga instructor, or something like that.  But I wasn't.  I was made to be in the middle of the storm.  Part of me knows that someday, I won't be able to do this anymore.  The stress and physical wear and tear of my job will eventually become a hazard to my health, and I'll need to adjust.  It's only been a bit over a year since I started this job, and I've already found my first gray hair (I'm only 25!). 

But I know this... I'm going to keep on doing this as long as I'm able to.  It feeds me, and I'm good at it.