All Work and No Play
I volunteered for this, I thought as my beeper went off in the middle of the night, and again when I answered the questions of an anxious, scattered caregiver, and then again when I tossed and turned trying to go back to sleep.
I said “Cha Ching, Cha Ching” when my boss warned me that I would be very busy. Already counting the money, I didn’t mind. By the middle of the second day, I was happy about the amount of money that I could put in my savings account. The second night I had started calculating about how much I was earning. At the end of the three day holiday weekend, I was contemplating what gift I would buy myself for working my ass off.
The first smelly, stinky apartment I had to climb up three flights with equipment was okay, but by the third one, I was done with it. Cha Ching, Cha Ching wasn’t cutting it when my friends called me from their pool and asked me to join them. All work and no play, was making me cranky.
A deflating air mattress problem was briefly interesting, but not a nursing issue. I redirected the call. By the sixth call about the fucking deflating air mattress, I was hoping that the patient was sleeping on a bed of nails with his nagging, annoying, stupid wife right next to him. Ah, I feel better.
When the alarm went off when I got my key stuck in the lock, picking up supplies Saturday night at the office, I considered running away. But when I was trying to shut the loud, ear splitting noise off, and had a phone to each ear in an attempt to converse with ADT and the security officer for the company, the police came to visit. “ID please.” I was blocked from running away.
I admitted a woman on Saturday who said she knew how to do everything. She called on Sunday and said it wasn’t working, causing me to visit her home that night. Everything was set up wrong. I briefly saw mini explosions near my head, but I was standing next to her husband, the Baptist Minister. Maybe it was angels of love, tolerance and forgiveness I had seen out of the corner of my eye.
The Bi Polar woman I admitted to our service on Sunday morning had me convinced she wasn’t crazy in the first five minutes, but reality set in quickly when I started to document all of her medications. A registered nurse on full disability for her mental illness, she convinced me she knew how to care for herself. Apparently I was the crazy one for believing her. Several phone calls later at all hours of the day and night, I was ready to borrow some of her medications.
Tuesday Morning, 8:30am, it was over. No more calls or visits. 159.5 hours on call, 10 patient visits and more phones than I could believe. Cha Ching ,Cha Ching!!!!
My pay check arrived today and the craziness has diminished in my memory. It was a good chunk of change. Maybe I’ll do it again next year.
I said “Cha Ching, Cha Ching” when my boss warned me that I would be very busy. Already counting the money, I didn’t mind. By the middle of the second day, I was happy about the amount of money that I could put in my savings account. The second night I had started calculating about how much I was earning. At the end of the three day holiday weekend, I was contemplating what gift I would buy myself for working my ass off.
The first smelly, stinky apartment I had to climb up three flights with equipment was okay, but by the third one, I was done with it. Cha Ching, Cha Ching wasn’t cutting it when my friends called me from their pool and asked me to join them. All work and no play, was making me cranky.
A deflating air mattress problem was briefly interesting, but not a nursing issue. I redirected the call. By the sixth call about the fucking deflating air mattress, I was hoping that the patient was sleeping on a bed of nails with his nagging, annoying, stupid wife right next to him. Ah, I feel better.
When the alarm went off when I got my key stuck in the lock, picking up supplies Saturday night at the office, I considered running away. But when I was trying to shut the loud, ear splitting noise off, and had a phone to each ear in an attempt to converse with ADT and the security officer for the company, the police came to visit. “ID please.” I was blocked from running away.
I admitted a woman on Saturday who said she knew how to do everything. She called on Sunday and said it wasn’t working, causing me to visit her home that night. Everything was set up wrong. I briefly saw mini explosions near my head, but I was standing next to her husband, the Baptist Minister. Maybe it was angels of love, tolerance and forgiveness I had seen out of the corner of my eye.
The Bi Polar woman I admitted to our service on Sunday morning had me convinced she wasn’t crazy in the first five minutes, but reality set in quickly when I started to document all of her medications. A registered nurse on full disability for her mental illness, she convinced me she knew how to care for herself. Apparently I was the crazy one for believing her. Several phone calls later at all hours of the day and night, I was ready to borrow some of her medications.
Tuesday Morning, 8:30am, it was over. No more calls or visits. 159.5 hours on call, 10 patient visits and more phones than I could believe. Cha Ching ,Cha Ching!!!!
My pay check arrived today and the craziness has diminished in my memory. It was a good chunk of change. Maybe I’ll do it again next year.
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