Night shift worker blues

Nothing takes the stress and pain of a long Monday shift away like a nice glass of a spicy Caesar. Well, maybe a frosty pint of beer. Or a glass of delicious mellow red wine. To be honest, after a shift from hell, anything containing some amount of EtOH will do. Well, almost anything. I've seen enough patients drunk on hand sanitizer, mouth wash and cooking wine to know that drinking these things makes you smell awful and eventually turns you into a walking (and sometimes, although rarely, talking) bag of flesh reeking of urine/feces/BO/sweat/dirty feet/you name it.

A lot of my friends (mostly the ones that are not nurses and don't do shift work) look at me funny when I tell them that I often have a glass of wine after a night shift. Sure, for most people, drinking at 8 AM is completely unacceptable and probably warrants a visit to AA or a check in into a detox program. Well, not if you work shifts, my friends. When I work nights, having a glass of red at 8 AM for me is the same as you having a drink at 8 PM. I have my wine, take the edge off a long and most often than not busy shift, and then head to bed only to wake up at 5 PM for another night shift... Which brings me to another point of deep frustration: I hate hate hate that there are no bars or pubs open in the morning to cater to shift workers. So many times, my colleagues and I wanted to celebrate the end of the stretch of night shifts by going out for a cold pint of beer after work. But we have to settle for breakfast and coffee. And, since it's not nearly as fun as beer, we've never actually done it. Given how many shift workers are out there it amazes and frustrates me how unaccommodating the world is to us. Don't even get me started on fire alarm testing, balcony repair work, and general water shut down in my building from the hours of 9 to 5. Don't even...

Anyway... One blog post/rant and two Caesars later I feel better. The tension headache is gone. There is only a dull ache in my feet. And my upper back is surprisingly quiet. I think I'll go have dinner now. Yes, it's 9:40 PM. Yes, it's late. But I've just worked a 12 hour shift and just got home an hour ago. I make my own rules about what's acceptable and what's not. I work shifts.