The Night Shift

Working night shift is not for the faint of heart. One day you’re having beer and eggs at 8a while the next you are sleeping at noon. It’s constant confusion for my body and I’m perpetually tired. BUT I never turn down an opportunity to go out Because who is going to be able to  party like a rock star other than your favorite night shifters.

A few weeks ago, my PICU crew and I went to a hockey match kind of as a team building experience and a chance for some of the veterans to get to know some of the rookies [since we’re speaking in sport now’]. As it happens, one of the PICU vets lives in the same neighborhood as one of the players. He got a handful of guys to meet out group at the local sports bar right before the season really took off.

“HI” a tall, broad-shouldered, baby-face said as he came up to me. “Do you work with these guys?”

“I do. Do you play hockey with these guys?” I countered.

We both smiled at our pick-up lines as if we were the most clever humans on the planet.

“What position do you play?” I ask him before asking something more useful, like his name.

“Right wing. And you?”

I could see him blush at that mistake. I pretended not to notice.

“I’m a pediatric respiratory therapist. My name is Liza… ElizaMarie, but that’s a mouthful so most people just call me Liza.”

“Justin. Wellman.”

You didn’t seem very interested and after my crap-tastic year, I didn’t want to have another rejection on my hands, even if its someone I’ve literally known for five minutes.

***** ****** ***** ****** ******** ******* ****** ********* ********** ***********

“Hey Liza, wait up.” One of my coworkers was calling after me “Do you remember meeting a guy named Justin at the bar when we all went there together?”

“Yeah, why?”

‘”He asked me if I had your contact info and if so, would I give it to him.”

“Hmmm, that’s odd. He couldn’t even string together a five word sentence when we were face to face.”

“He also asked me to apologize for that if you brought it up. So can I give him your info. Justin is a cool guy, one of the quieter ones on the team, but definitely not a playboy or anything.”

‘I mean I guess so, Can’t hurt, can it?” [Spoiler alert: it can]

***** ****** ****** ******* ******** ******* ********* ******** ******************

Three months later, we were officially dating–as much as a night-shifter and traveling hockey player could in season. We often met late in the evening after practice and games or early mornings walking out of the hospital. [Yes, he came to the hospital to walk me out. It’s always a head turner when a 6-4 220 pound guy is walking through the peds lobby] We were cute and definitely in lust.

“Come to Canada with me. I want you to meet my family” Justin implored me one day as we were grabbing a bite after his team had won yet another game. They were doing really well this year. “The mid season break is in a few weeks and we all get time off. I want to take you home to Canada. Neither of us was able to do anything for Christmas or New Years due to work, but this will give us time to spend together.”

“You do know that I have been to Canada before, right? When I talked about wanting to travel the world, Canada wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” We had recently been making loose plans to ‘go somewhere’ after the season was over. For me, I wanted to go somewhere I’ve never been. Rome. Paris. London. He wanted to go to a beach. somewhere secluded.

“Hey, it’s a start.” you laughed.

In the three months since our first date, we’d become as inseparable as two people can be under our circumstances. It helped that neither of us had family locally and spent all our free time together. It helped that I liked hockey before we met so his world wasn’t a complete shock to me. My world–well that’s something that even other healthcare workers don’t understand, but at least he listened when I talked about my feelings about my job. Also. Canada. In February? Not the best selling point.

“Justin, I have a better idea. Let’s go somewhere nice and sunny on your break.” I offered, hoping for a nice Caribbean weekend instead of frosty Ontario winter. “You even said how you wanted to go to a beach. We could go to the Dominican Republic or Aruba or anywhere really.”

But I could feel it–our first major disagreement bubbling up. You thought saying no to Canada was saying no to you–and to a lesser extent, your family.

Truth be told I was terrified of meeting your family. Meeting Family makes it real and without a family of my own to counter, what did that mean? Meeting family meant questions of marriage and children; neither of which I could confidently answer. And while I am certain about my feelings in the moment, how can I be expected to plan a future in where I can’t do my job in your hometown, and you never know where you’ll be next season..

***** ****** ***** ******* ******** ******* ****** ******** ******* ******** ***

Something shifted when I said no to Canada. By the time I realized it, it was too late. I already loved you, and knew that you were going to break my heart just like the others.

Counting Crows: Accidentally in love

PICU is my favorite unit in the hospital followed closely by Pediatric ER.. But nothing about PICU is easy. What I like most about PICU is the variety. I can literally have neonates and practical adults all at the same time. It constantly challenges my brain and I really like that.

Last week, I had a really challenging case and I was talking to Chris about it

My patient was a 16 year old boy who had cystic fibrosis. I had taken care of Corey once before so when he saw me come into his room, he smiled.

“You’re still here”Corey beamed. “Yeah, where else would I go.

Kelly Clarkson: Stronger

As an intern, I have the chance to work in several different areas and do a lot of different things. I’ve done adult ICU and ER as well as Peds ICU and ER. I’ve even dabbled in research. But by far my most intense and transformative experience was deploying with DMAT–which is disaster medical assistance team. Living in the southeast, most of our disasters are either hurricanes and tornados. Some times both at the same time.

A lot of out deployments were support for the National Guard. Fortunately not many were medically difficult. I gave a lot of breathing treatments. Hurricanes and tornadoes stir up a lot of mold and dust which in turn makes breathing more difficult.

More difficult was the emotional toll. There was always someone who literally lost everything that they owned and had no resources to start over. The elderly on a fixed income. The family who were already had difficult circumstances. The children who lost a parent or the parent who lost a child. The most haunting memory was seeing some kid’s stuffed bear lying in a puddle. I wondered if the kid would ever get it back or even if the kid was still alive.

Plopping down in a community for a couple weeks an witnessing their most traumatic days will affect me for the rest of my life.

Onerepublic: Start Again

It’s been a rough start to the year. Jeremy and I broke up in spectacular fashion. James and I started *something*. My dad died. I graduated school. It’s been A. LOT.

So when I saw an ad in the back of a trade journal looking for *’residents’ * at a large teaching hospital a few hours away, I jumped at the chance to apply. Whether it’s due to a miracle or only my low-self esteem talking, I was accepted as 1 of 10 in the inaugural class of respiratory therapy “interns” with a start date of late August.

I took my licensing exams exactly 3 days after graduation and exactly 10 days after graduating, I worked my first overnight shift as a CRT with me being the only RT on site for the Saturday night shift. Lord help us all.

That Saturday night turned out to be amazing. Nothing bad happened,. No emergent ER needs, My favorite hospitalist was there. I hadn’t told him that I was moving so as we walked out together post shift, this was my chance.

“Why is your car packed up like a homeless person lives there?” Chris joked.

“ummmm, well, I’m moving. Last night was my last shift. I’m driving this morning to my new place, and I start a new job tomorrow at 8am”

“Like in less than 24 hours? Are you insane?” Chris asked.

“Quite possibly. I don’t necessarily want to go, but I need to go. This year has been brutal–you know with my break up, then my dad dying and all that drama, then the other break-up. You have been the only one keeping me sane these last few months. Imagine if I took a local job and ended up working with my ex and his new wife every day. I’m not that much of a masochist. “

“I was kinda hoping you’d work here”

“Well, me too, but they didn’t have a full-time position, and now that I’m not in school, I need to work regular hours– and you know, have a life. Go out. Do things. Maybe even date again. The last two were disastrous, but I don’t have to tell you. You had a front row to that nightmare”

“Maybe you are just looking in the wrong places.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t looking for either of them when they came along. James just happened to be there when the shit hit the wall, and besides, I’ve never done anything like that before, and probably never will again. Dating people you work with is a terrible idea even if it seems like a good idea at the time”

“I guess it’s a good thing that we don’t work together anymore, then” Chris says as he reaches over and gives me the tightest hug I’ve ever received. It seems to last for an eternity, and when he lets go, I feel overwhelmed with emotions. I tell myself ‘do not cry. do not cry”

Chris seems reluctant to let go, but does anyway. I think I see tears at the corner of his eyes. “Drive safe. You are going to be an awesome respiratory therapist. I hope our paths cross again.”

I got in my car and pulled away. As I pulled on the interstate, the tears came fast and furious. Thank god for light Sunday AM traffic.

The last thing I saw in my rearview mirror was Chris wiping tears from his eyes.

Semisonic: Closing Time

When the inevitable happened, I was taking an exam. I won’t say that I knew the exact moment, but I had a feeling that it *might* happen. I’d even fought with my aunt the night before.

“You should be here tomorrow. Your father will probably die. You will regret not being here if it happens when you aren’t here”

“I won’t, but thanks for trying to make me feel guilt that I don’t have. He wasn’t there for me in life; why should I be there for him in death”

And with that, I stormed out, not even a glance over the shoulder at the soon to be departed.

I may have been daddy’s little girl when I was 5, but that ship had certainly sailed by 15, and at 25, we were strangers. I’d like to think I’m past the ‘it’s all my parents’ fault, but are we ever really over it?

I sat in the back row of the church during the memorial service. My aunt, my dad’s new wife, my grandmother, and an assorted cast of loose acquaintances fill the pews of the small church that the service was held in. Next to me was my mom, who divorced my dad when I was a 7. Her husband didn’t come. My college roommate, who I hadn’t seen in a couple years, was on the other side of me, and beside her were two of my professors from school.

My cousin, the minister, gave the eulogy. It was all about how my dad was the best uncle to him and his brothers. And how he used to do things with them… how he was like a second father to them. He talked about how his recent marriage was a ‘new chance at life’. He talked about how he was a changed man by letting a dog in his life–and how that dog never left his side. My cousin the minister opined for nearly 20 minutes about the virtues of his uncle. He just forgot to mention that my father had a daughter.

Maybe it’s for the best that he forgot to mention me.

Everyone else did too.

Everclear: Father of Mine

“Did you here about Jeremy?”

I’m once again in the ICU at the large hospital where Jermey works for my clinical day. The absolute last thing I want to hear about in anything Jeremy did or didn’t do.

My patient is unconscious and ventilated. I’m attempting to draw an ABG to assess the ventilation status of our patient, and well, to practice my ABG skills. They are adequate, but I’m not going to lie, I don’t like hurting people. Even if they are unconscious.

My preceptor for the day is one of the ones engaging in the gossip about Jeremy so I can’t help but hear it.

“No, what is it?’ my preceptor asks

“He and that girl from radiology eloped. On April Fools Day.”

“For real? What is her name anyway?”

“Rachel. Isn’t she like 20 or something?”

“I heard they had only been dating a couple of months”

“Wasn’t he dating someone else though, like recently? I never heard that girl’s name, but I’m pretty sure she worked here. You know, the one where his ex tried to kill the girl”

The gossip about Jeremy and Rachel continue, but I hear none of it. I can definitely say that having a needle in someone else’s arm when you hear about your recent ex’s elopement is one of the worst ways to get that news.

At least I was sitting down.

Maybe now people will stop talking about me without really talking about me. But how does one move on so quickly? I’m barely hanging on to my sanity, and Jeremy is marrying some girl from radiology.

I am hating my life right now.

The Who: Won’t Get Fooled Again

I went home with James. His apartment is right across the street from the restaurant so it’s convenient.

I got in the shower and washed all the blood away. Somehow it had gotten in my hair. I got out of the shower and James had given me a t-shirt to wear. Everything else was destroyed anyway.

I came out of the bathroom and James had really stepped things up. He had cooked a meal and poured out a glass of wine. James is older than me, but sexy as hell and clearly knows his way around the kitchen. I cut into the chicken piccata he’d whipped up in the time I was in the shower. It was delicious.

“So that’s the guy you’ve been dating. The one who just stood around while you saved his ex’s life.”

“Yea, I didn’t see that coming. He always seems so sure of himself in the hospital. Like when I code is called, he shows up and takes over, acting like an air traffic controller. I never would have imagine he’d freeze like that”

“You know we will have to press charges against his ex. At minimum, property destruction. I hope it doesn’t cause you any problems.”

“Why should it? *I* didn’t destroy property. Thanks for dinner; it was amazing. I am exhausted”.

“Go sleep in my bed. I’m going to clean up and wind down”

****** *********** ************ *********** ************ **********

My dad is in the hospital. Again. Even more awkward it’s the hospital where Jeremy works and I do my clinicals. It’s awkward telling my instructors that under no circumstances do I want any of my classmates working with him.

It’s even more awkward seeing Jeremy.

A relationship kinda dies when the police get involved. As in there was a restraining order. And a court case. And involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital. Not many romances can survive that.

Oh and the fact I saw him with someone else. When he cancelled a date with me.

***** ****** ******* ******** ********* ******** ************

“Are you OK?” Chris asks me.

“I am not even remotely OK. In span of a month, my now ex’s ex girlfriend tried to kill me, I broke up with the guy I’ve been dating for a year because he chose just go date someone else without telling me.. My dad is dying and I can’t do anything about it. I’m fucking my boss at the restaurant just to have someone to hold me when I fall apart. I can’t deal with everything alone, yet, I keep pushing people away.”

“I’m still here.”

“I mean not really. I see you two days every other week.. If that. I don’t have your number. You don’t have mine. If I didn’t show up, you’d never know what happened. Unless you listened to the rumor mill-which you say you don’t, but you still seemed to know an awful lot about Jeremy. And how that went up in flames.. You knew how my dad was doing before I even said anything. I literally had someone try to kill me and you never…”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t know how. Or what to say. I still don’t.”

“yea, well, no one else does either. My dad is dying. Slowly. School is dragging on. I spend every waking moment in a hospital either working in one, going to school in one, or visiting in one. I’m literally sleeping on the floor in waiting rooms. I’m exhausted all the time. I barely have time to eat. I hear people whispering about me here, Main, and the restaurant. People who don’t even know me are talking about me. IN FRONT OF ME.

‘Even at the restaurant, I’ll have people say ‘Were you working here when that incident occurred?’ The incident! Someone who I didn’t even know existed literally tried to murder me, and it’s gossip. For the whole town. I even tried to save the one that tried to kill me. You can’t imagine what I’ve heard. What people have said when they didn’t know they were talking to me.

‘It’s literal hell on Earth, and every day I don’t know how I get through the day, and I do only to do it all again the next day. I’m up for ICU rounds at 6a, then I either go to class or change clothes and learn in the same ICU that my dad is a patient in. Then I study a little and go to work either here or at the restaurant. If I’m at the restaurant, then I sleep at James’s place. Only to get up and do it all over again. With the locations reversed. And no one asks how I am. Or offers to help. Or anything. But something is always wrong. And I don’t know how much more I can handle before I become the knife wielding protagonist in someone else’s story.”

And with that I walked away.

Chris had nothing to say anyway.

Toad the Wet Sprocket: Something’s Always Wrong

I’m in my last 6 month of school. Sometimes it’s stressful. We are almost always in one of the ICUs or sometimes the ER so our patients are never really ‘well’. I still pick up shifts at the satellite hospital where Chris works. That pace is a lot slower, but I’m also a lot more independent there.

I’ve never really mentioned my other job, but I’ve been working at the restaurant since before I started school. I’m a hostess/bartender and train new employees. It’s a fun job and I get heavily discounted food and bartending is fun. It definitely puts into things into perspective because at the end of a stressful night at the restaurant everyone is always still alive.

A couple shifts ago, Jeremy’s ex showed up to the restaurant. She was yelling! YELLING at me, saying that she was going to commit suicide because she has nothing to live for now that I’ve taken Jeremy away from her. Y’all, I didn’t know this woman existed and she shows up at my job calling me every sort of insult one could come up with. It got so bad the General Manager came out and told the woman that if she didn’t calm down, he would call the police on her.

Meanwhile, I texted Jeremy to tell him his crazy ex was at the restaurant and that I wasn’t going to put up with this treatment. James had me go to the back of the house to help diffuse the tension, but to no avail. Susan kept yelling. And threatening me.

About 5 minutes later, Jeremy shows up, and tries to calm Susan down. She continued to hurl threats at me, and starts to pick up food and plates off of diners’ table and throw them at the glass window. People started yelling. I’m sure someone called the cops.

Susan picked up a steak knife off of one of the tables and slashed her own throat. People screamed. I ran out from behind the window, grabbing cloth napkins on my way to her. I get to her and hold pressure at her neck. She’s fighting me the whole time. Jeremy is standing around being completely useless. The cops arrive and call for an ambulance. They help subdue Susan. Meanwhile, I’m still holding pressure. The ambulance arrives, takes over and wheels Susan out. I look down and realize I’m covered in blood. It’s 8p on a Saturday night. The restaurant should be packed; meanwhile, we are having to close because it’s an active crime scene.

The police question me. And Jeremy. And some of the dinner guests. By 10p, I am exhausted. And covered in blood. Jeremy is a mess; mentally and physically. The the police finally let us go they turn to me and say, “do you have anywhere you can stay tonight. I don’t think you should be alone. “

James tells them that I am staying with him and can be reached at his number. Jeremy says nothing,

I walk out with James’ jacket over my shoulders wondering what the fuck just happened and feeling quite certain that everything with Jeremy has exploded like a powder keg on the 4th of July.

Ozzy Osbourne: Crazy Train

We had clinic at the big city hospital the other day. I’d say about 75% of our clinical experiences are at this hospital.. it’s the hospital where Jeremy works. It’s always good to see him.

Anyway

I was working in surgical ICU on this particular day. Surgical ICU is a good place for students because there’s a lot of activity. The primary goal is to get people off the ventilator as soon after surgery as possible so there is a lot of ventilator weaning, adjusting settings, drawing ABGs, spontaneous breathing trials, and extubations. Sometimes there’s setting up BiPAP; other times it’s just oxygen for a few hours. Regardless, SICU is a busy place.

Sometimes, things don’t go as planned and a patient has cardiac and/or respiratory failure. They may have to go back on the ventilator for a while. Such was the case with my patient. The patient was alert and oriented and had borderline passed the weaning tests. The MD said “pull the tube. Sometimes we gotta see what they can do”

And so I did.

And things were fine. For about an hour. Then monitors started beeping and a flurry of activity commenced.

Now as a student we are not fully certified in ACLS or PALS, but we are in BLS. So I grabbed the Ambu bag and started ventilating the patient. The RN began chest compressions.. For what seemed like an eternity, but in reality probably less than 30 seconds, it was just the two of us..

Reinforcements arrived quickly and I backed out of the way while more experienced people took over.

I backed myself into a corner; right up against Jeremy. He put his hand on the small of my back— a decidedly intimate gesture. I froze.

“What does he mean by this” popped in my head.

The patient was re-intubated and placed back on minimal settings. Everyone disbursed and I headed towards the restroom. Jeremy followed.

“Hey, you did really well in there. You kept really calm in a high pressure situation.”

“I’ve got to pee” I replied as I entered the stairwell.

Jeremy followed. He caught up to me in about three steps. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me close to him, and kissed me squarely on the mouth.

To be fair, I kissed him back

“What the hell is that about?” I blurted after our lips separated.

“Go out with me.”

“Are you insane? I work two jobs. And I’m in school”

“Everybody’s gotta eat at some point. Besides, I can help you study.”

Not really knowing how to extricate myself from this situation, I agreed.

What the hell was i thinking. Dating should be the last thing on my mind, and besides if I were going to date anyone, it would be Chris. Shy, sweet Chris. But alas, I find myself agreeing to a date with Jeremy after he kissed me in the stairwell. Why couldn’t Chris have been the one to kiss me in the stairwell?

I fear this might get complicated.

Pearl Jam: Jeremy

We’ve been having a lot of rain lately per usual, but for whatever reason, it seems to have a little more intensity behind it this spring. We have clinical scheduled on Thursdays and our class is split up and assigned various practice sites. One of our classmates jokingly asked if clinical ever got ‘rained out’. You know, like a baseball game, he said.

Our instructor took this opportunity to go on a tirade about how healthcare is a 24/7 job and if thought we didn’t have to show up because of a little rain, then now was the time to choose another career. The tirade went on for quite some time.

24 hours later

I’m at one of the two large hospitals in our area. There are 6 of us total; 3 in one ICU and 3 in another ICU. About 11AM we get an overhead page telling us to report to a specific area. Our instructor tells us rain has cause one of the back-up generators to fail, and there is the potential for the others to fail as well. Until further notice, we are to hang out in ICU and wait for impending power failure. We are briefed on what will happen when (note when not if) the generators fail. All ventilators and other life saving equipment will stop. Our job as students is to take the Ambu bag and manually breathe for the patient for as long as necessary.

20 minutes later the power goes out. All 4 back-up generators fail and the hospital is dark. And quiet. I mean it’s daytime so there’s some light coming in and it’s full of people so there is that kind of noise, but none of the associated beeping one associates with an ICU. For two solid hours, us students manually breathe for these patients. The actual RTs are doing two at a time.

Disaster relief is trying to figure out how water got in the building and caused the generators to fail. Meanwhile my hand is developing cramps. We switch off and I get a little break, but the hospital is a complete disaster.

Our clinical ends at 3p, but no one can go anywhere. The area around the hospital is flooded and besides, and perhaps more importantly, there still isn’t power to power the generators. Around 5p, 3 of the 4 back-up generators are functioning we enough. The rain outside has slacked up, but the water is still everywhere. No one is going anywhere any time soon.

The job at the hospital is understanding when I explain the situation and how I’m stuck at another hospital. Thankfully, it’s summer so it’s still daylight when we are finally able to leave the building. The water is receding, but damage has been done. To the hospital and to all the housing around it.

Class is still scheduled for the following day because ‘hey, it’s just a little water, right?