Well I woke up late today, around noon.  Slept like the dead or the damned I am not sure which one.  Worked 32 hours out of the last 48 hours.  You would think with the amount of time I am on my feet that I would weight nothing and be a size 0.  Not the case I am afraid :)

More often than not trauma nurses do not find time to eat at work, it is fly by eating and mostly junk food.  We eat a bite here or there, often cold and clotted, so it is much easier eating a chocolate bar or a cookie.  Also caffiene sodas are our life lines.

Being a nursing supervisor now instead of a trauma nurse is worse.  Now I am responsible for ALL the unit in the hospital.  From the Med/Surg nurses to the ER, OR etc.  I walk four floors all night long.  Running to all the code blues, sour patients, and even acting as a ear for the nurses that are going thru personal problems.  I wear a pedometer and usually average 6 to 9 miles in a 12 hour shift……whew!   I should have bun of steel, instead I have buns of balloons :)    I waddle instead of strut, and ripple instead of glide, but boy can I move :)

But today I am proud of myself.  Althou I did show a gain on the scale I know it is because my poor body is in total survival mode and is hanging on to all the water and weight it can.  It does this when I over work.  How do I know this?  Because I waddled right past all those goodbye cakes and cookies that were out as we bid goodbye to our travel nurses (another story for another day).  I waddled past all those chocolate kisses and M & M that were out in bowls.  I ate my NS and had a diet pepsi and I resist all…………… I am proud of myself.  I know when MY body goes into survival mode.  I can feel it, my hands and feet swell, and my faces gets all puffy and swollen.  I don’t have time to “pee” and it shows.

But today I start two days off so I will lose the puffiness, and the swelling.  I will sleep for hours and regain my strength so I can start anew.  One day I will be too old to go at this pace, one day I will be too old to do what I was born to do, so for now I will take the good with the bad.   I love my job, even thou it is probably one of the least rewarding jobs in the world.  I feel rewarded every day.  One smile on the face of a patient, one family member saying, “thank you, I know you did your best”  So I laugh and I cry, but I get by and always come back to face another day.  Why?  Because it is what I do, it is who I am.