Needing advice and guidance. I can't take noc shift!

Nurses General Nursing

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Me: I am a critical care nurse (RN, BSN, CCRN) with 2.5 years of experience. I am a lifelong midwesterner and recently decided to move out to the west coast with my lovely wife, who is not in healthcare (she is self-employed and works from home). I am 29 years old and was a high school teacher briefly before becoming a nurse. My primary motivation for the switch into nursing was to ultimately become a NP and either work in a neurology clinic (as a headache specialist) or open my own headache clinic one day. I have been in Portland now for 5 months.

Situation:

Work: Prior to moving out here, I had avoided ever working nights. I struggled for nearly my entire life to wrangle my own migraines under control, and a major component to my success was maintenance of a consistent sleep schedule. For this job, though, I had to take a night position. I work at a unionized hospital where seniority is everything, and my hospital is currently undergoing terse contract renegotiations with the nurses union. The hospital has decided to declare a sudden budgetary crisis and has instituted a hiring freeze. I am therefore one of the freshest faces on my unit. Other night shifters on my unit have been waiting over 3 years to make the move to days. My hospital has a 6 month "probationary period" in which a nurse can be fired at-will by the hospital. We are allowed to transfer to a different unit during this period but no other units that I am eligible to work in have open day shift positions.

Sleep: My landlord operates an AirBNB out of the unit below mine. If I slept on a normal schedule, this would not be an issue; However, the house I live in is very old. Any noises made in the AirBNB unit during the day reverberate through the framing of the house and echo in my bedroom. When I was interviewing with my landlord, I made it very clear that my primary concern was having a quiet space, and he assured me that his house is very quiet. It is, except when his wife cleans/turns over the unit for new guests, in which case it sounds like a tornado is ravaging the building. I can get no sleep these days and when I ask her if she could please wait until 5pm on just the three days each week I tell them I need to sleep, her exasperated response to me was, "You can't control EVERYTHING that happens! I'm being as quiet as I can!"

My issues:

Barriers:

  1. I took a generous moving stipend offered by my hospital, but which I would need to repay if I were to leave before working with them for 1 year.
  2. While I think that I would be able to get a couple of charge nurses to write me decent recommendations, I worry about leaving so soon and how that looks on future job applications.
  3. My landlord would charge me $3K to break my lease before a year, and I am completely unable to pay rent without the high hourly rate I receive from my hospital.
  4. I can not go on like this. My migraines are back with a vengeance and my mental health is slipping dearly. My anxiety is spiking, my perceived mental sharpness and ability to handle conflicts is decreasing greatly at this point. I feel less confident at work and am taking things too personally in my personal life. I feel constantly sleep deprived and I feel like I have been sick with upper respiratory issues without respite for months now. I fear that my life is falling apart and I attribute it mainly to feeling absolutely stuck with nowhere to go and nowhere to turn.

Possibilities: (most likely to help at top):

  1. I get switched to day shift at my current hospital. This has an extremely low likelihood of happening but it would solve the most problems for me with the least amount of consequences. I would be willing to take an assignment pretty much anywhere if it meant not working nights.
  2. There is nothing my current hospital can do and I stay there anyways, persevering until August when I leave without having to pay back any of my moving stipend. I get a therapist and try to remain sane until I am able to get out of my lease and job without paying fees.
  3. There is nothing my current hospital can do and I quit early. I have to pay about $1000 back to them. I get a job for the next few months as a local traveler to avoid breaking my lease early.

What should I do? What have I not thought of? Thank you.

Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

1k seems a small price for sanity. Find a day shift job somewhere and things should be fine.

1k seems a small price for sanity. Find a day shift job somewhere and things should be fine.

This. If it came down to my health and living with constant pain, I'd gladly pay $1,000 to end that suffering.

Sit down and think about all the crap you've wasted $1,000 on before. I'm pretty sure you're worth spending 1k on.

Good luck!

I vote with paying $1000 . Good luck finding a new job.

Specializes in Med Surg, ICU, Infection, Home Health, and LTC.

One noise solution that I use are soft foam earplugs. They block out the noises that seem to keep me awake or wake me during sleep such as the AC cutting on and off or whatever. I am an extremely light sleeper.

I would recommend a therapist to get through the rough time. A therapist can be obtained through your hospitals EAP program. (employee assistance program. If you have insurance EAP can refer you to a professionally licensed counselor after you use the free visits they offer). The therapist might have some alternative ideas that you being in the situation cannot see right now.

I am sure that you are probably under treatment for the migraines however you may want to revisit a neurology doctor again. There are so many newer advances in prevention of migraines that it is all that helps keep me sane most days when mine hit.

Good luck hang in there.

Specializes in retired LTC.

Thinking outside the box here, but on the mornings you need to sleep, any chance you could rent a nearby motel room for a few 'quickie' hours to sleep? Maybe if you know your schedule in advance, you could pre-block some sleep morning rooms at the motel for a discount rate (if they'd do it). And bring any and all accoutrements that would help promote sleep.

I've heard of many nurses (who commute a considerable drive to work) will block-rent a room for a couple days to avoid the travel. They return home on the other days.

Also, in cases of anticipated terrible bad weather, nurses will rent something very nearby.

Does your hospital provide an on-call room for house residents to bunk?

Sounds like what you're seeking is someplace quiet enough for you to get some quality sleep. Maybe someone at work would consider renting you some sleeping quarters for a stint. (They make some money and you get your sleep).

My question is 'are you sure that your headaches will improve with quality sleep '? Could there be something else that is precipitating your headaches? New job-itis? Distress re daytime separation from your wife? Could you have an undiagnosed allergy?

Just some thoughts. Hope all works out for you.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I suffer migraine headaches frequently, and the misery they cause can be debilitating----- and if I knew $1k would solve the problem as you infer here, I would pay it without a moment's hesitation.

So pony up and move on already.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to call up some of my agencies I worked with prior to getting my current job to see if there are any local contracts they could get me in here. I'm also going to talk to my manager and ask if there is anything she might be able to do to help me out.

I've tried earplugs and I use two white noise machines in my bedroom. The noises are quick bass-driven banging noises such as doors shutting, vacuum cleaners hitting the walls, and drawers shutting. Unfortunately earplugs and noise machines are poor blockers of these types of sounds.

If there is nothing that my manager is able to do, I'm going to see if there is another job that I can take until I am able to move out of here.

Thanks again.

Night shift is not for everyone. It is okay if it is not for you either.However, if you have no other choices but to work nights then take all the advice from the above posts. I've learned that nights aren't for me, and I do them once in a blue moon.

I know that door sound you're talking about, awful.

It's only $1,000 to leave the hosptial early? Is that a typo?

If night shift is all you can get at the moment then I would try to get myself out of that lease or like another poster suggested, get a cheap room on the days she cleans and you need to sleep.

I'm not against saying pay the $1000, but I think you should try other ways first. Perhaps you could do the vacuuming in the unit below you? Could you pay them to do it another time, or "bribe" them somehow? Trade them some sort of service for vacuuming another time? Buy a quieter vacuum??! Also, though you can still hear stuff through them, a giant step up in blocking out sound (from normal ear plugs) is the earphone things similar to what pilots wear (at least size wise). You can find them wherever they sell hunting and shooting supplies. Maybe also revisit discussion with your landlord on needing quiet. Get creative. $1000 is a lot of money.

Hello,

I am sorry to hear about your schedule and your headaches. I too suffer from migraines. I began to take 500mg of magnesium every night and after about 1 month, I am down to 1 migraine a month. With that being said. I also found it hard to work nights at first. I got blackout curtains for the light, got a large fan (to block out background noise from the day) and turn my TV on. I have children and this generally helps keep the noise out of my room. OH! I also had a good go with earplugs but I tend to loose them (they did work well though). I recently found that putting a light pillow over my head helps to calm me when i am trying to fall asleep. You may have tried all of this, but just in case you haven't... give it a go!

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