When I was hired, the only job offered to me was the night shift. These were my thoughts, in no particular order.
“Sa-weet! I’m not a morning person. This will be great. Hmmm…I wonder if I can stay up all night regularly. That night differential will be A-W-E-S-O-M-E. I’m going to be rolling in the dough. Maybe I will buy a house and fill my swimming pool with dollars instead of water. Oh, wait, I have this little thing called ‘student loans’ the pool filled with money will have to wait a while. Hmm…I wonder if there will be any cute, single doctors who work nights. Swimming pool with money instead of water back on. Wait, I can’t look cute at the end of (or really at any point during) a 12-hour shift that runs through 3 am. Pool with money off. I can’t believe someone actually offered me a job! With a real paycheck. I hope I don’t kill a patient. Is it ever going to warm up so I can go swimming. Water or money…I need the pool.”
Never having worked a night shift before, I need some advice. So I talked to several different people, most notably my sister-in-law who had just finished residency. She’s pretty much an expert at not sleeping and working through night since she’s done it for the past three years, so I thought she would be a better resource then Wikipedia. (Also, more reliable…hence “better source.”)
Her advice was to just stay up for 24 hours for the first shift, then of course, sleep during the day and repeat. Then when I was done working, come home and take a little nap, get up do some light activity, and try to go to bed at a normal hour.
This was good advice…except for the whole “stay up for 24 hours thing.” I am, apparently, too old for this, so I actually stay up late the night before I work, sleep in as long as I can the next day, and then go to work. Otherwise, I follow her advice.
Of course, a key part of this is when to eat. I’m not going to lie, I really like food. I particularly like Mexican food, but I should probably leave that whole discussion for my other blog that will be completely devoted to my love of Mexican food, and cheese dip, chips and salsa in particular. (That might be a little dream I have, that I just thought of as I was writing this…Don’t get too excited.)
There are two things that are extremely lucky for me with this whole transitioning to nights thing.
1. I love breakfast. Any time. Any where.
2. I have no internal clock. I can sleep any time, any where. Seriously, I can.
So, to make a long redundant post, shorter, I wake up in the afternoon, eat breakfast and bring a dinner. When I come home from work and I am starving around 8 am, I eat yogurt, or a banana and peanut butter, or crackers and cheese, and then I sleep. Or sometimes, I just sleep because I can barely keep my eyes open.
In conclusion, I like nights. They’re more laid back. I have more time to talk with my patients. You have a minute to catch your breath while your patient’s sleep, and people ask me to be their baby momma. What more could I ask for?
