Well, I survived my first weekend on call

[TazziRN, RN]

i had one pt on saturday, a wound care whose home i went past while taking monster child to my parents', so i just saw her myself. on saturdays the on-call nurse is the back-up for the nurse who works only saturdays.....does that make sense? i only had to work if she got overwhelmed, which she did, so i picked up an extra pt to make it two for me. then last night my call started at 1700. i didn't sleep much because i kept expecting the darned phone to ring. nary a peep. got up this morning, spent several hours in the office getting caught up on paperwork, and my preceptor called to see how it was going. she had coached me for weeks about how to triage over the phone. when i told her i couldn't sleep and why she said, "oh that happens to all of us, even though the phone hardly ever rings."

"hardly ever rings"?? that wasn't the impression she left me with all the coaching!!!! if i'd known that before i think i would have been able to relax enough to go to sleep!!!

it was weird having the office all to myself.....no one else....no phones ringing....no noise at all.......i gotta get me a cd player or something......

[RheatherN, ASN, RN, EMT-P]

Well congrats on ur survival!! i was a volunteer medic and did all the extrication and stuff.. so i had the rescue truck a lot. The first night i had the truck alone, i did the same thing!! i slept in my clothes , hell- almost with my boots on!, so i know how you felt! lol.

CONGRATS!

-H-

[SW_07]

YOU MADE IT!! Congrats. Thanks for posting I had always wondered about being able to sleep when on call. I have a hard enough time sleeping with my alarm clock set because I keep waking up thinking it's going to go off. haha. Kudos to you my dear.