Oh gosh, I hope this isn't too boring.
It's taken my mom YEARS to figure out why it's not appropriate to call me at 1 o'clock in the afternoon........and I recently left a really long awkwardly embarrassing message on someone's phone about calling me back because I know people don't grasp the concept of my sleep schedule.
A week in my life is full of enough variances to drive most normal people crazy. Since I work 12 hour night shifts that are really 13 hours (if everything goes as planned, given there is no plan because premature infants are unpredictable and we never know when they are coming), describing one day of my life would be a difficult concept to grasp.
Every week is different. Whatever the days may be, I prefer to be scheduled for 3 nights in a row, to prevent having to flip flop my sleep schedule too much, but sometimes my shifts get split up. You may think it sounds like a piece of cake to only work 3 shifts a week, but trust me on this one, those 3 days are completely void of any production outside of the hospital and you end up losing an entire day to make up for sleep.
"One day" is completely subjective to a shift worker, so I'll split them up according to normal people time in order to minimize confusion. For example, the week before last, I worked the dream schedule: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then last week I worked: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Sleep (0900-1630) and work (1830-0730).
Thursday: Get home from working all night, do lots and lots of errands, take 2 hour nap (1400-1600), hang out with Patrick and talk about real life stuff, sleep (2300).
Friday: Wake up and drive to Waco to meet my mom for weekend trip (0630).
Saturday: Weekend trip!
Sunday: Get back to Waco, take my mom home, hang with the parents for a little while, drive back to Dallas, hang with Patrick (he had amazing homemade pizza ready for me, and I overindulged).
Monday: Try to sleep in as long as possible, cook breakfast (1100), get caught up on any DVR shows I have while I upload and edit pictures from our weekend trip, try to take a nap (1330), workout (1500), shower (1600), pack my lunch --the hospital doesn't have a grill or cafeteria open on nights or evenings, so it's fend for yourself or eat patient crackers--, eat lunch when Patrick gets home from work while we talk about his day (1720), go to work (1800).
Tuesday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200, depending on how busy I am), get home from work in time to kiss Patrick goodbye (0750), put a bunch of stuff in the crock pot, go to yoga (0830), come back home and cook breakfast (1100), sleep, wake up and finish cooking dinner --or sometimes we would take the puppies on a long walk during this time, in which case everything gets moved back a bit-- (1630), hang out and watch a movie with Patrick (1800), sleep (2200).
Wednesday: Repeat of Monday, --usually I use my window of time to write in my blog, and get to see Patrick for a few minutes when he comes home for lunch-- except this day I showed up to work, not realizing they put me on-call, so I stuck around to beg people to go home so I could work until I found a taker.
Thursday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200), get home from work in time to kiss Patrick goodbye (0750), go to sleep (0930), wake up (1500), workout (1530), shower (1640), cook dinner and pack my lunch, eat lunch with Patrick (1720), go to work (1800).
Friday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200, depending on how busy I am), plan on stopping at the gym to workout but feeling sick from exhaustion so go to bed early (0800), wake up to walk the dogs (0230), let Patrick cook me an amazing dinner, sleep super duper hard.
Saturday: Wake up and go to Edge Fest!!!
Sunday: NICU reunion day! Movie date with the hubs on our amazing couch.
Monday: House wife chores all day.
Wow; I just reduced my whole life down to a relatively short list.
Of course, sometimes I switch it up and completely skip a day or two or working out becuase I'm too sleepy.........There are even times when I have too much to do to worry about getting caught up on sleep and stay up for over 24 hours after my work stretch before finally getting to bed. On some off days, my body is completely confused and wants to be sleepy all day long/wide awake at night.....so frustrating. And as you can see, even though it's technically only 3 days of work, veering from a normal awake/asleep schedule really zap's one's free time!!
Working weekends is generally a crappy required part of hospital shift work, but it has it perks.......Like not having to deal with overpopulated roads to and from work, or having weekdays off to get grocery shopping done while everyone else is sitting at their cubicle. And if I'm really lucky, I get to come home to a half naked husband cooking me pancakes and bacon, then cuddle with him when I crawl into bed (which is way better than the lifeless body pillow I usually sleep next to when he's at work).
If you're wondering how I manage to not live in a constant state of jet lag, the answer is: I do live in a constant state of jet lag. I laugh when I go to the doctor and get asked, "Do you feel fatigued?" The worst part, is knowing one day I'll probably look back on this schedule and dream of having it so easy again.
It's taken my mom YEARS to figure out why it's not appropriate to call me at 1 o'clock in the afternoon........and I recently left a really long awkwardly embarrassing message on someone's phone about calling me back because I know people don't grasp the concept of my sleep schedule.
 |
| source |
 |
| source |
"One day" is completely subjective to a shift worker, so I'll split them up according to normal people time in order to minimize confusion. For example, the week before last, I worked the dream schedule: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then last week I worked: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday.
 |
| source |
Thursday: Get home from working all night, do lots and lots of errands, take 2 hour nap (1400-1600), hang out with Patrick and talk about real life stuff, sleep (2300).
Friday: Wake up and drive to Waco to meet my mom for weekend trip (0630).
Saturday: Weekend trip!
Sunday: Get back to Waco, take my mom home, hang with the parents for a little while, drive back to Dallas, hang with Patrick (he had amazing homemade pizza ready for me, and I overindulged).
Monday: Try to sleep in as long as possible, cook breakfast (1100), get caught up on any DVR shows I have while I upload and edit pictures from our weekend trip, try to take a nap (1330), workout (1500), shower (1600), pack my lunch --the hospital doesn't have a grill or cafeteria open on nights or evenings, so it's fend for yourself or eat patient crackers--, eat lunch when Patrick gets home from work while we talk about his day (1720), go to work (1800).
Tuesday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200, depending on how busy I am), get home from work in time to kiss Patrick goodbye (0750), put a bunch of stuff in the crock pot, go to yoga (0830), come back home and cook breakfast (1100), sleep, wake up and finish cooking dinner --or sometimes we would take the puppies on a long walk during this time, in which case everything gets moved back a bit-- (1630), hang out and watch a movie with Patrick (1800), sleep (2200).
Wednesday: Repeat of Monday, --usually I use my window of time to write in my blog, and get to see Patrick for a few minutes when he comes home for lunch-- except this day I showed up to work, not realizing they put me on-call, so I stuck around to beg people to go home so I could work until I found a taker.
Thursday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200), get home from work in time to kiss Patrick goodbye (0750), go to sleep (0930), wake up (1500), workout (1530), shower (1640), cook dinner and pack my lunch, eat lunch with Patrick (1720), go to work (1800).
Friday: Eat dinner (any time from 0000 to 0200, depending on how busy I am), plan on stopping at the gym to workout but feeling sick from exhaustion so go to bed early (0800), wake up to walk the dogs (0230), let Patrick cook me an amazing dinner, sleep super duper hard.
Saturday: Wake up and go to Edge Fest!!!
Sunday: NICU reunion day! Movie date with the hubs on our amazing couch.
Monday: House wife chores all day.
 |
| source |
Of course, sometimes I switch it up and completely skip a day or two or working out becuase I'm too sleepy.........There are even times when I have too much to do to worry about getting caught up on sleep and stay up for over 24 hours after my work stretch before finally getting to bed. On some off days, my body is completely confused and wants to be sleepy all day long/wide awake at night.....so frustrating. And as you can see, even though it's technically only 3 days of work, veering from a normal awake/asleep schedule really zap's one's free time!!
 |
| source |
 |
| source |
As if I don't share enough, now you know what I do every second of every day. I officially dub you a stalker!!! (It's okay, no need to feel guilty, I stalk a few people, myself....)
What's your favorite time of day and why?
Posts
