always tired...taking care of myself AND being a nurse

[LanaBanana]

I'm so exhausted! Let me give you a quick overview of my past several months because I need some advice from experienced nurses.

I'm at the 9 month mark of being a new nurse. 6 weeks after starting my nursing orientation I broke my leg and found out I had mono. For several weeks I tried to take it easy, was working 3 12 hour shifts, but my manager allowed me to do this as Mon, Weds, Fri so I had a day to rest in between. Eventually I had to get back to a regular schedule so am still doing 3-4 12 hours shifts, but sometimes that means 3 in a row. Most people I know who have had mono before are feeling great by the time they're 7 months out from dx, but I am still exhausted. I sleep a minimum of 8 hours a night, and when I can I will sleep 10+ on a day off. I recently started working with a trainer in the hope that a little excercise, eating better, and weight loss would help increase my energy. Wrong. Most of the time it takes everything in me to get through my 1 hour excercise sessions.

I know that the first year of nursing is stressful anyway, but I really feel so overwhelmed by trying to take care of myself physically and putting my fatigue aside while at work. I'm also a student with one semester left in my LPN-RN program.

Help! I went back to my PCP this week and had some follow-up lab-work done but true to form, I can never get through to the nurse in her office to get my lab results. Any body have some good suggestions to help ease the stress and normal fatigue that comes with long shifts and stress of nursing and the ongoing fatigue I've been dealing with? I had a patient last week complaining that she needed to get 9 hours of sleep each night to feel good and I wanted to say "oh yeah, I need 12!" How do you keep yourself rested?

**disclaimer - I'm not asking for medical advice here!

[llg, PhD, RN]

I would recommend making another appointment with your PCP to discuss the lab results and to request that he/she write you whatever documentation you need to give you a schedule you can live with. While you don't qualify for FMLA yet, your employer will probably be willing to limit your schedule to three shifts per week instead of four. Having recently had momo myself, I wouldn't want to be working four 12-hour shifts with that sort of exhaustion. (I work five 8-hour shifts and that was hard enough to drag myself through.)

[LanaBanana]

I would recommend making another appointment with your PCP to discuss the lab results and to request that he/she write you whatever documentation you need to give you a schedule you can live with. While you don't qualify for FMLA yet, your employer will probably be willing to limit your schedule to three shifts per week instead of four. Having recently had momo myself, I wouldn't want to be working four 12-hour shifts with that sort of exhaustion. (I work five 8-hour shifts and that was hard enough to drag myself through.)

How long did it take for you to feel better? I'm only required to work 3 12's, but financially I need to work a 4th shift every other week. I've been online most of the afternoon looking at research on taking some of the anti-virals for control of mono symptoms. It makes sense, since mono is a herpes virus. Hope to be able to talk to my doc about this in the next few days.