.......with my job. Maybe even my career.
On the surface, I've got it made: a secure, full-time day shift job with a day off right in the middle of the week, and no weekends. I work with many fine professionals and have a multitude of friends, two managers whom I adore (and one whom I at least don't hate), and while there's a weasel or two in every chickenhouse, those hateful, hypercritical perfectionist types are everywhere, and this hospital has fewer of them than any other place I've ever worked. I've worked here several times, once as an aide and twice as a nurse, and this time I've stayed over two years........a record for someone who'd never stuck with one position for longer than 19 months.
Maybe it's that old restlessness again. Maybe I'm just ready for a change. But what I do know is that my body just isn't tolerating the beating of a typical Med/Surg workday anymore.......I've been sick with one damn thing after another since mid-January, been to the hospital three times, admitted once for three days, had surgery, and now am fighting a kidney infection that came on despite two rounds of antibiotics. Why?? I've never been like this before in my life........up until this past year, I rarely if ever got sick, and if I did, it was ONE day, two at most. Now I spend WEEKS trying to get over one thing or another.......flu/bronchitis in Jan/Feb., chest pain and viral myocarditis in Feb., kidney stones and another round of bronchitis in Mar/April, surgery in late April, and now I get pyelo after the stents came out.
So, this has played nelly-hell with my status at work. I've been verbally warned, given corrective action (basically, a write-up), and now denied a promotion because I've been out sick so much that I've had to apply for FMLA (medical leave of absence). All of which, from a management standpoint, I completely understand.........after all, they're in the business of taking care of people, and if I can't be there doing what they hired me to do, they have to find someone who can.
But I can't ignore the very real possibility that, as more than one close friend or family member has told me, the physical stress of my job is more than my body can take anymore. It hurts my back to push beds over carpeted floors, but I do it because everyone is expected to be able to do this. It pains my soul to give the job all I've got and have it not be enough. I come home four evenings a week from my 11AM-7PM shift completely exhausted and ready for bed, not for spending quality time with my family and hearing about THEIR day. I gained all the weight back that I lost last summer and then some (I've since re-shed 23# of it) in no small part because as the 11 o'clock person, I'm seen as the 'break' nurse, and thus I'm assumed to not need lunch or breaks myself.....I rarely, if ever, get lunch before 2:30 PM. (Which in turn led me to snarfing down everything that wasn't red hot or nailed down!)
The weight, of course, only makes everything harder, so while I'm doing what I can to at least lose what I regained, it's going to take some time. In the meantime, my immune system is shot, I haven't felt good in months, and because my family depends on my income, I don't have the luxury of NOT pushing myself to go back to work too soon after an illness or surgery. I'm also trapped in a shift I have grown to dislike intensely......there's too much noise, too many extraneous people to stumble over, too many 'suits', too many families, admissions, post-ops, orders, and busy-work. The other night I was actually asked to work 3-11, and I was reminded of how badly I really do miss my old shift........it's still busy, but so much CALMER than day shift (and will someone tell me why we have to do so much more work for less money?!).
I didn't have to go look for a CNA to keep track of my post-op vital signs or do them myself; the night shift aides just do them without being told. (I'm very anal about this, and it frustrates me that the aides on days always need to be reminded, or they go out to smoke when vitals are due, or they fall behind and 'forget' to tell us nurses until it's too late.) The phone wasn't ringing off the hook. The 'suits' were all gone by 4PM. The noise level dropped so fast at 7 it was like the entire floor had folded up for the night. I had plenty to do, with three very heavy care patients and a post-op, but it was so much more do-able when I didn't have to deal with all the overstimulation and I had actual help with the incontinent patients.......it was delightful, and I went home tired but much more relaxed.
Now, there is officially no 3-11 shift anymore; believe me, if I could go back to it---and I've asked before---I would in a New York Minute. The only way to do it is to go casual, which means losing my health insurance (NOT a good thing, with over $15,000 in hospital/doctor/pharmacy bills racked up this year alone). I've gone so far as to put in a request for a transfer to our corporation's flagship hospital 12 miles away; there's a part-time 3-11 position open there that would allow me to keep my benefits AND probably pay more. It also might not be a bad idea to transfer anyway; the actual floors are set up in 'pods' where you don't have to walk so far just to answer a call light or get supplies, and I've heard their staffing ratios are better than ours (and ours aren't bad).
But I really hate the idea of leaving, even though I know it would likely be for the best. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up Med/Surg sooner rather than later, because even though I love the work, the job itself is getting to be more than I can take. I've got to support my family and pay my bills, of course, which is why this decision is going to be a hard one no matter which way I go with this. If nothing else, being ill for so much of the time lately has given me some perspective on humans' endless quest for money and material comforts; even though we have to have at least some to be completely satisfied. Life, I've decided, is too short to be this discontented; the world, too beautiful to be seen only through eyes dimmed by fatigue and tears.
I look forward to any insight you all may have to share with me. :)
