Mornings mean a lot of different things to different people. Me, I’m not much of a morning person.
Neither are some other people…at least until after he has his breakfast. He might look like he could use a cup of coffee but he swears he doesn’t need it. He’s a kid and kids don’t drink coffee, he chides me. It is then that I tell him as a micropreemie in the NICU for four and a half months he was a total pain in the butt until he had his morning dose of caffeine. He thinks that it is absolutely crazy that he was given caffeine when he was so tiny…CRAZY!
But after breakfast is eaten, my happy boy is there to warm my heart with sunshine…er, son-shine.
Still I am not a morning person. Not at all. Which explains why, with the exception of three years, I have always worked the night shift as a NICU nurse…working nights for over twenty years now. So while the world is slumbering I am here, in the NICU.
Yes, most nights sitting here, or running around but always working very hard in the dark. We vampire nurses like it that way as do our patients. And when y’all are getting up, having coffee, eating breakfast, heading out the door to work or school and your busy, busy days, I am here…
Here unwinding and powering down before I try to sleep. Y’all need to please keep it down while you are living your lives (so loudly) during my sleep time…your daytime.
Today is Nurses Day, which is the beginning of Nurses Week, and ends with the remembrance of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. If I was queen of the world we would be celebrating nurses all month long…and nurses would be celebrated all month long…not sharing it with anyone else. Alas, I am not queen of the world. I am just a lowly bedside, per-diem registered nurse which is the best place to be for me and for my patients. Tell a nurse that they are awesome and you appreciate them. It makes the missed meals, the missed bathroom breaks, the dehydration, the achy feet, backs and legs and all the stress and headaches worth it. And again, keep it down just a little. I’m trying to sleep.
This week’s Focus 52 assignment was morning. Be sure to check out other people’s view of the morning and compare it yours.
Good night, er, morning!
Hurray for Nurses!
Are you getting more shifts these days?
since March yes. grateful.
Happy Nurses’ Day from one NICU night nurse to another!
and Happy Nurses’ Week to you too, Sarah!
I love children with special needs. I wish every single child knew how much they are loved. But the sad fact is–they don’t. There are many children in the world who don’t know they are loved, and it tears my heart to pieces. A lot of these children were given up for adoption because of their special need. There is nothing wrong with them, they are not defective, they are made exactly the way God wanted them to be. Yet some of them don’t know that. Duncan is one of them.