Alice in Regularland |

I am beyond tired right now. I worked evening shift last
night which means that I got off of work at
11:30 pm and, because they were short, I offered
to work day shift today instead of evening shift. The problem is that in doing this it only gives me exactly 8.5 hours between shifts with which I can use to get home, wind down, get ready for bed, fall asleep, wake up, get ready for work and get to work. And there were all kinds of factors that kept me from utilizing my full 8 hours for sleep like my roommates being awake and watching a movie, pets running amok all night long etc. So I'm running on about 2.5 hours right now and I feel like crap. I'm not a 4 hour a night kinda girl. I need my 8 hours. I always have. A friend was talking to me once about how he read that if you could just force you self to stay awake for 18 hours a day that your body would get used to it because the human adult doesn't need more than 6 hours.

Well if that's the case I am either:

a)not human
or
b) not an adult.

Because it didn't work. I thought I was going to die of sleep deprivation and was very close to calling out of work just to catch up on my sleep. I always meet/hear about these moms who can go on like 2-3 hours of sleep a day so that they can get all of their work done, and the housework and take care of the kids. They are like wonder woman. That is not me and I can tell you right now when I become a mom it still won't be.

So until energy drinks actually start working I'm doomed to a lifetime of either oversleeping or being tired all the time.

This entire day has been one piece of crap after another. First, I went to bed early last night to avoid feeling tired and groggy all day cause I wanted to have enough energy when I got off of work to go to my 4th of July party. So I wake up at 5:30 am and pull myself out of bed. My sister whom I currently live with, is not home because she's house sitting for my parents right now while they are in Dollywood which means I need to feed the pets early in the morning. I shuffle around getting ready and let Duke out before I have to leave and notice that its drizzling. Great. So I go and grab an umbrella since I walk to work and head out the door at about 6:30. When I get to work I look at the assignment sheet to see what floor I'm on and don't see my name. What? I know I don't have off. Then my eyes scan the evening shift column and there I am. Are you serious? So now not only do I have to go home and come back later but the plans that I made for celebrating the 4th of July are no longer going to happen because I will be spending my 4th working.

So I get home and go back to bed. I wake up around 11ish and realize that I've got about 3 hours to study for my anatomy exam on Monday. I go through my note cards, which I have typed up online, and my results are 21 right out of 166. Not good. I need to know this stuff by Monday. Failure is not an option. It will literally ruin my life if I fail this test because of the sequence of events that would follow.

I finally leave for work around 2:30 and when I get there I find out that we are short handed and I am going to be assigned to a different floor halfway through the night. I begrudgingly go in and get my assignment but luckily its pretty quite and so I have some time to go back to my note cards. After my dinner break my charge nurse calls and asks if I'd be willing to sit overnight for tomorrow off. Sure I say. That would be easy I can just sit there in the dark and watch this patient and run through my note cards all night. It would be my first 16 but I figure other people do it all the time it can't be that bad. One of my coworkers comes up to me and gives me some tips about not getting your schedule all thrown off after working all night. Then another coworker comes up and says "Allison, just want you to know that that the first time you do a 16 you inevitably get diarrhea the next day"

Fortunately they changed there mind and I got to go home.