Sick and whiny (long rant, but I'll summarize)

[NightNerd, MSN, RN]

I had to call out sick for tonight and am commencing the routine post-call self-flagellation. Surprise! It's not making me feel better.

It sucks because a) I was sick in January too and had to call out then, so that's twice in only a couple months, and b) I took a couple personal days last week, so this probably makes me look so bad to my manager/coworkers. But, I'm gross! I wouldn't want a nurse who presents the way I do taking care of my family, nor would I want a coworker to share these symptoms with me either.

It sucks, because in a more sedentary job, I would go in and do what I could as long as I could. But in this job, I know I need to be ready to rumble the entire 12 hours I'm there. The last time I was sick, I loaded myself up with medicine and came in for the first two nights of my week. By the end, I was useless - head on the desk, couldn't even concentrate on reading emails, didn't give a hoot about doing vital signs or morning meds or anything. And those were genuinely GOOD shifts with genuinely GOOD patients. I was ashamed of the care I gave, especially the last night, and I know I put extra work on everyone around me because I felt so sick. And I ended up calling out for my third shift that week anyway, so a whole lot of good the suck-it-up approach was.

I'm not a martyr for this job, but I'm no slacker either. I don't call out unless I know I can't give even marginally acceptable nursing care. Twice in two months is a lot for me; usually I'm a one or two occurrences per year type. And I've been making an effort to use my vacation/personal time in a way that I don't feel the need to take unplanned mental health days, which helps me keep call-outs to a minimum. But I don't think that's helping my image today.

TL;DR I'm sick and feel super guilty about calling out of work.

To make this into an actual conversation, how do *you* decide when you're not able to work? What would be your ideal sick leave policy? (I'm struggling to think of unique questions; I know this topic comes up a lot.)

[golfdiva, LPN]

I hear you! But I'm not sure there is much you can do, other than show up when you're not sick and do your best job. If you are generally a good nurses and otherwise don't miss much work, you will be respected and people will understand when you get a run of health issues.

If I feel I can control spreading germs by wearing a face mask, and am able to preform at least minimally my tasks safely I come to work. Otherwise I stay home.

FYI, on my very first nursing job I made it through 3 days of orientation then got so sick I had to call in the next two days!

[TriciaJ, RN]

At my last hospital job, they had a 5 occurence call-out policy. There was nothing in the contract about this and I don't think they ever disciplined anyone. They just used it as a pretext to harass anyone who was sick. A lot of nurses were intimidated by this and came to work sick. I used to announce loudly whenever it came up: "I don't abuse sick time and I don't come to work sick. If it comes to 5 times in a year, I don't care." So of course I never got harassed. Other nurses used to get called at home when they were sick. I would have made short work of such a call.

To answer your question: I didn't have the option to "take it easy" if I wasn't feeling well. So I used to ask myself: Am I well enough to provide the standard of care I set for myself? If I couldn't answer an easy yes, then call-out it is.

The guilt would start after I called out and immediately started feeling better. I'd think, dang, maybe I could have gone to work. Then I'd realize that my body is just thanking me for doing the right thing. If I had gone to work I would have paid for it.

So no more martyrdom or sucking up. Think of it like putting your own oxygen mask on first.

[NightNerd, MSN, RN]

11 minutes ago, TriciaJ said:

The guilt would start after I called out and immediately started feeling better. I'd think, dang, maybe I could have gone to work. Then I'd realize that my body is just thanking me for doing the right thing. If I had gone to work I would have paid for it.

TriciaJ, so true. Especially if I've been trying to sleep for night shift but keep waking up to cough or sneeze or take meds, calling out is the ticket to actually getting some decent rest.

My senior charge on nights is actually really cool about call outs. We live in the same area and her philosophy is, "Just because you're sick doesn't mean you don't have to live your life. Go get your prescriptions, pick up some comfort food, I don't judge if I see you out." She and my manager have also never harassed me at home after I've called out before, which it sounds like is a problem for a lot of other hospitals! It's pretty cool to be treated like an adult and know that they trust my judgment. I'm mostly bummed that my coworkers are probably going to be mad at me, especially since there's one nurse on tonight who was there last time I called out too.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

My criteria for calling in was this: if I couldn't get my head off the pillow or out of the toilet, I was too sick to work. Didn't need to spread it all around and get my co-workers AND patients sick. Otherwise, I didn't call in for a cold and I often worked with bronchitis, which was a frequent occurrence thanks to underlying asthma. As long as I felt all right, I went to work and did my best.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

I stopped worrying about taking sick time the day that my charge nurse whined "nooooooooo!!!" when I called in between bouts of vomiting my guts out. Turned out the charge nurse had voluntarily excused a younger nurse from her shift due to having stayed out too late the night before (meaning that nurse didn't call off but the two were friends and Charge Nurse told her friend not to worry about coming in since the night had been long and far too much fun) and now my genuine illness put the floor in quite a pinch. I literally said "There is NOTHING I can do for you. I can NOT come in" and hung up the phone.

Bottom line, you have to take care of you. Nobody else gets to decide what that looks like other than define what "excessive" means to the institution. Stop feeling guilty and get back in bed. Feel better.

[Davey Do]

18 hours ago, NightNerd said:

I had to call out sick for tonight and am commencing the routine post-call self-flagellation. Surprise! It's not making me feel better.

My empathy to you, NightNerd for your physical discomfort and mental/emotional anguish.

I feel very blessed in that when I'm sick, I can still do art. I'll lay in bed suffering and make ink stains in a journal when I'm sick. Art helps takes me out of my body so my discomfort is decreased and time passes exponentially. I have made some of my most humorous renderings when I'm sick. They're not all that funny at the time, but hilarious on later review when I'm well.

I wish everyone had something they loved doing so much that they could do when they're sick that would make them feel better.

Get well soon, NightNerd!

.

[RatherBHiking, BSN, RN]

You're an adult. You are given sick days as a benefit. Don't feel guilty about using them. If you feel bad enough to the point you don't think you can keep up for 13 hours straight then call off, rest up, get better so you can go back.

I've had to call off twice this year due to illness, the other couple times I was sick on my time off. I used to never get sick but ever since I was diagnosed with asthma and put on steroid inhalers I seem to get sick a lot more often. I don't call off for colds or sinus infections and I get those 2-3 times a year as well. Stomach bugs, fevers, or bronchitis I'm calling off for a day or two! After all, it's not like you get a pat on the back or an award for coming in sick plus you make everyone else sick. Not worth it.

[NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN]

Sick policies are a major pain in the rear. While I get it that there are people who will call out because of other reasons, if you are legitimately sick you have no business being around patients and exposing them to who knows what and making them worse off than before you cared for them. Also, as your co-worker who is also trying to take care of patients-please, please, please, do not come in to work sick, get everyone else sick, and then go home early because you should have never tried coming in to begin with-had this happen a few times-their assignment was split up over everyone who was there and within 48 hours most of us were also starting to show symptoms of the plague that should of been kept at home...and management is po’d that there was a rise in call offs-well, if the first nurse wasn’t terrified of calling out for 102F maybe it wouldn’t be happening.

The flu comes at the most inopportune times and for some reason management seems to think that we have some control over this-like if it happens on the weekend or holidays. I had the vaccine one year, traveled to seen family out of state that was also vaccinated. Found out while there they swabbed positive, within four days I’m on an airplane home, spike a temp and start wheezing. The next day, Good Friday, I swab positive for influenza type A and literally can barely stand up in the docs office while getting a script for Tamiflu. Of course I was scheduled to work that weekend/Easter and was contagious-better believe my MD note cane with a diagnosis written on it in bold letters. The vaccine that year was not the best and I didn’t want to have several elderly resident’s possible deaths on my conscience if I were to get them sick. Of course the only way I didn’t catch hell for it was because there’s no way they would demand me to come in less than 24 hours after testing positive.

Anyone who is that sick should just call out. That type of sharing is not caring and should be kept at home.

[NurseCard, ADN]

Myself, I call in if my head feels like it weighs 2 tons, if I have a fever, if I just overall FEEL horrible and weak, or if I can't leave the toilet for five minutes without something wanting to come spilling out of me. Either end.

I have gone in with a HORRIBLE head cold, mucous mucous mucous!... or a chest cold... as long as I feel okay OVERALL, and no fever, I go in. Wear a mask.

[NightNerd, MSN, RN]

You all have made me feel so much better! I got some really solid rest Monday night and ended up coming in tonight now that I can actually keep up the pace. Apparently someone would have had to float if I'd come in Monday, so I guess you could say I'm something of a hero now. ? (JK, but I was so relieved they weren't completely swamped.)

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Glad you are feeling better.