Live blog: Overnight shift at the hospital

Believe me when I say that this will probably be more interesting due to my various antics to stay awake and keep busy than it will be for the things that go on at the hospital during the night. Especially, since I'm back on the chronic care unit. I was on the surgical unit unexpectedly last night and it was so drag-yourself-on-the-floor fatiguing.

8:45pm - Patients 1 and 2 are asleep in their cribs. They will stay asleep until I leave at 7:00am tomorrow morning (my gods willing). Patient 3 has a personal caregiver 24/7, so all I have to do is give him his feeds and his meds. I am now starting my Japanese exercises. Having mastered hiragana, I will now practice katakana. Kanji that's more complicated than "person", "big" and "I" can go straight to hell.

9:10pm - Okay, I lied. I actually haven't started studying Japanese yet. First I had to eat my delicious sammich (egg bread and spicy sausage slices - hell yes!) while browsing websites about terrible celebrity fashion. Now that my delicious sammich is all gone, I worry that I will be hypoglycemic later in the night. Thankfully, I also have a peach. But I'm no good at picking out peaches and fear that it won't be ripe enough and that I will be sorely disappointed as I have been so many times before with this particular fruit. Alas. Also, I have just tried out an anime site. It isn't blocked, BUT! this computer doesn't have flash player which pretty much makes it impossible to watch any videos on it. Victory snatched away!

9:15pm - But apparently it has a DVD player. Fate is kicking me in the butt, because of course, I don't HAVE any DVDs with me. Unless I want to watch Dora the Explorer or other kiddy stuff we have on the unit. And that's a no. What will I do when I have kids and I have to buy them crappy DVDs? Will I have to actually WATCH with them? I'd much rather read books with them or play with toys or make up imaginary play. Maybe it will be a "Mommy's naptime" activity. "Here kids, go watch this blue dog count to five ad nauseam while mommy honkshus for 2 hours. ZZZZZZZZ." Oh yeah, that will totally work. *thumbs up*

10:40pm - Slowly getting through the different types of verbs and how to conjugate them. It's easy enough once you have the rules down, but it's a matter of knowing enough verbs. Ever so slowly getting there.

11:30pm - There are sleep studies being performed in the room opposite ours. Which means the alarm rings whenever the heart rate, respiration rate or oxygen saturation drops below a certain limit. The alarm's so loud that I thought it was a fire alarm or something. One kid keeps ringing so often that it's waking up the other kid who's getting the study done. Which means that the other kid will probably have to do the study again tomorrow night, since the results from tonight won't be accurate. Finally, we've put tape over the speaker portion of the monitor and it's been quiet ever since.

12:30am - My preceptor's gone for her 2.5 hour nap. I usually sleep later than her, because 1) I have trouble falling asleep during work unless I'm tired out and 2) the later I take my nap, the less hours I have left to work when I wake up. Plus, I'm really into my studies now. 2 more chapters in this book and I should have the means to say basic sentences in Japanese. I think, I will now take a short break, however, to do some charting. Since I love making lists and crossing stuff off...
- do charting [done]
- finish off 2 more chapters [done]
- turn off the feeding pump and flush the gastric tube for patient 3 [done]
- take nap [done]
- wake up [done]
- do meds and more feedings [done]
- read Aishiteruze Baby online

4:15am - Back from my own nap. I've been taking my night shift naps on a spare cot that I drag into the conference room just next door. I put my eye mask on, zip up my hoody and huddle under the blankets. Even then, it takes me a good while to fall asleep. Tonight, I had an anime theme song running through my head. I have my cellphone alarm to wake me up, but I forgot to tell that to the PCA who scared the crap out of me by knocking on the door just ahead of the alarm. Ahhhh well.

5:00am - Well, I'm done everything on my list except reading Aishiteruze Baby and I don't feel like doing that just now. 2 hours left and I'm stuck for what to do? Should I study more? Read the news?

5:10am - What's this, what's this? I've been snooping around the computer, trying to see if anyone has copied a video worth watching onto it and found "Midnight Sun - partial draft", a PDF file. That sounds familiar, I thought. So I opened it up. And got through the middle of the second page and said, "Waaaaaaaaaait a minute." Title based on astronomical phenomenon? Character names taken from a smutty book in the 18th century, like Rosalie and Emmett? Pointless drivel that kept me completely uninterested? The name "Edward" hogging a whole line by itself AND italicized? This is a Twilight book! I closed the file with the speed of a hypochondriac shoving away a leper. (Digression: What a curious sentence.) But I find myself wondering, who was reading this at 6:30am on May 12th, 2009? Well, I do know that there were McGill students doing shifts here during that time. Bwahahahaha~
I don't know why I find this so amusing. A sense of gleeful superiority, I guess. I've been careful to avoid anything Twilight-related and am determined to keep it that way. Forever. Well! This has given me a second wind. I will fetch a glass of water and find something else to do!

5:40am - Found some tea biscuits in the kitchen. Sweeeeeeet. One of the sleep study kids are awake, thanks to the freaking alarm of the other kid. Now she's wandering up and down the hallway, practicing her recently acquired support-free ambulation. She's walking without holding onto anything, I mean. My kids better sleep until 6:50am at least. I mean it!

6:56am - Everyone woke up around 6:15am, just when I was trying to chart and tiptoeing around. Ah well. Kids are in playpens or walking around. It's great that some of these toddlers have started walking by themselves, but it makes it so tiring to chase them around and stop them from shoving electric plugs up their noses. No more night shifts until the end of the summer! Yatta!