post traumatic nurse disorder/ or sleep deprived, you choose which…
i really had a freaky situation happen to me when i first began working. i’m a nurse now, however earlier before officially starting nursing school i became a nurse assistant. now right after getting my certificate i began working at a rehab hospital and in a step down unit at a community hospital. unwittingly, i set myself up for working way too many hours of seeing things i’d not seen before (blood, feces mix --confused, multiple lines, dying or confused pts,get the picture, all of this new to me).
o.k. one night i found myself awake in my living room at home in the dark unawares (not knowing if i‘d been sleeping, just awake)…now i thought i was in the hospital (step down unit!)…looked to my right and saw the red lcd of the clock radio at the side of the living room’s sofa and thought to myself…spo2 monitor, someone’s resting, don’t’ disturb that pt!…and then went into the hallway looked in on a “patient’s room" (our guest room) and thought patient’s sleeping can’t disturb this one lol and back tracked to enter the “nurses station” (our restroom). now i just stood there and realized something was missing…maybe light, ‘cause i worked days? no! my mind told my semi - awake traumatized self o.k. if this is the nurses station, let’s see with our hands…hand to my left = toilet, hand to my middle = sink. this is not the damn hospital, and this is not saigon lol…anyway…have any of you folks suffered such awful disorienting stuff since you’ve been the nurse?!!
