PACU, late shift

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Tonight, I took a night shift for a coworker so that she could go on vacation. The night shift is different. It is quieter, more intimate, more intense. The regular nurses, to a one, are quirky and think outside the box. Independent. Brilliant.

And, surprisingly, I fit in. The crew did their best to sell me on joining them. No, thanks. My circadian rhythm runs to the daylight hours. At 10:30, or 2230, in our world, I was yawning, longing for my blankey.

But, now, I am home. I decompressed with hubby-love about the little old lady, demanding and exacting, who dissolved into tears when I gently pushed back her bangs and said' "What's really going on, honey?" She said, "I'm just so scared". About the big 72 year old man, author of 44 books, who found, after a three hour back surgery, that he could move his feet for the first time in over a year. How we laughed and celebrated with fresh ice on a fevered tongue. How, now, post-shift, my back hurts from helping turn him so I could check his dressings and Jackson-Pratt bulb suction drain.

I love being a PACU nurse. Early or late. But, late is closer to the bone, closer to the crux of human needs and dependence. Quirky people are drawn to the quirkiness of the challenge and the task. And they are nearly autonomous in their analytical approach to recovering critically ill post-op patients, filling in for exhausted surgeons who need a little peace and quiet to recover themselves. Treat now, get the orders later. Medicine in the wee hours.

Nurses rock. Night nurses glow and morph.

Good night, coworker friends. We did good tonight.